An Assessment of the Anthropogenic Impacts on Streamflows in

the Himayat Sagar Catchment, India using SWAT

Rajesh Nune1, Biju George1 and Andrew W Western1

1
Department of Infrastructure Engineering
The University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Victoria 3010
AUSTRALIA
E-mail: r.nune@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

Abstract: Streamflows in the Himayat Sagar Catchment (HSC), Andhra Pradesh, India have been
declining for the last two decades due to major anthropogenic influences including change in land use,
increased hydrological structures and increased groundwater extractions in the catchment. The major
focus of this paper is to assess the historical and future impacts of hydrological structures by
understanding the interactions and dynamic nature of hydrological pathways in the catchment. This
study characterises the different hydrological structures and quantifies their relative impacts on the
streamflows of HSC. As part of the study, an SWAT model has been developed and calibrated for 7
years and then validated for 6 years. It is used to simulate catchment runoff for a period of 15 years. It
was predicted that the average annual streamflows were reduced by 1.37 % due to increases in
hydrological structures.

Keywords: Anthropogenic Impacts, SWAT, Streamflows, hydrological structures, Himayat Sagar

Reservoir.

1. INTRODUCTION
The Himayat Sagar Catchment (HSC) is located in a semi-arid region, which historically has been
among the poorest areas in India and has previously been severely affected by droughts (World Bank,
2005). In the 1970s, watershed development programmes were implemented in the drought prone
areas of India to improve their socio-economic condition through increased agricultural production and
to increase the employment opportunities by conserving natural resources including soils and
rainwater within the watersheds. As a result, the number of soil and water conservation structures
such as percolation tanks, check dams, sunken pits, gully control structures and feeder channels
(hydrological structures) increased significantly in the last two decades. These programmes have
intensified since 1994-95 after the launch of detailed guidelines on organizational aspects, finance,
training and stake holder participation (Hanumantha Rao, 2006). In response to this, cultivated land
and water resource usage have been increasing.

Any structures which capture the runoff within a catchment reduce the volume of water reaching the
water course due to reduced surface runoff (van Dijk et al, 2006). While structures such as percolation
tanks may increase the recharge to the groundwater aquifers, the evaporative losses from these
structures can exceed 50% of the total volume in arid and semi-arid regions (Sakthivadivel et al,
1997). Previous studies on assessing the impact of farm dams on streamflows; (Neal et al, 2001),
used Generalised Additive Model (GAM) to identify the trends in hydrologic time series data and then
separated the impacts of farm dams on catchment yield by using a water balance model TEDI (Tool
for Estimating Dam Impacts). The study found that there is a range of 1.0 to 1.3 ML reduction in
streamflows for every 1.0 ML of farm dam development. A similar study conducted on 18 sub-
catchments of the Murray-Darling basin used a distributed water balance model (CHEAT) and
predicted that there could be a reduction in the mean annual runoff of 0.65% across the basin or
reductions ranging from 0% to 10% of the mean annual runoff for individual sub catchments due to the
future development of farm dams (227 GL) to 2030 (Jordan et al, 2008).

While, the hydrological functions of these structures affect the volumes reaching the main streams of
the catchment, there is evidence that they enhance the crop intensity and productivity in the
surrounding areas (Ashraf et al, 2007) also found that these structures enhanced the shallow water
table and as a result the number of water wells increased in the watershed. Although there is

PREPRESS PROOF FILE 1 CAUSAL PRODUCTIONS

considerable evidences that hydrological structure affect streamflows, there are only a few studies that
have tried to quantify the nature and magnitude of these impacts. Therefore, the focus of this paper is
to assess the historical and future impacts of these hydrological structures on streamflows in the
Himayat Sagar Catchment. This is done by using SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool), which is
described in more detail in section 3.1.

2. STUDY AREA
Himayat Sagar Catchment (Figure 1) consists of 1340 km2 and is part of the upper Musi catchment,
within the Krishna Basin in Southern India. The main stream in HSC is the Esa River, which is
impounded by the Himayat Sagar Reservoir and joins the Musi downstream of the reservoir. The
elevation of HSC varies from 530 to 730 m above sea level and the topography is generally flat (1-3%
slope). The stream network is dendritic with a density of 0.4 km/km2, the thickness of the top soil layer
varies from 45 to 90 cm and HSC is dominated by clayey soils (> 70%), along with loamy soils and
rock formations (Gurunadha Rao et al, 2007). The Himayat Sagar reservoir was constructed
approximately 15 km upstream of Hyderabad City to serve as a drinking water reservoir in the 1920’s.

Himayat Sagar Catchment

HIMAYAT SAGAR RESERVOIR

¯
R iver
Esa

Legend
HS_Drainage_Network
Esa_River
HS_Reservoir Kilometers
0 2.5 5 10 15 20
Himayat Sagar Catchment Boundary

Figure 1: Study area map of Himayat Sagar Catchment.

The major contribution to annual rainfall (75%) occurs during the monsoon season (June to October).
The daily temperature reaches a high of 440C during summer and a low of 12°C during winter (George
et al, 2007). The hydrological structures are typically located on first or second order streams and as
well as off stream in the catchment.

3. METHODS

3.1. SWAT Model Overview

ArcSWAT is an ArcGIS - ArcView extension that provides a graphical user input interface to the SWAT
model (Arnold et al, 1998). SWAT is a physically based continuous river basin or watershed scale

2
model that can operate on various time steps including hourly, daily or monthly. SWAT was
developed by Dr. Jeff Arnold for the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS). The hydrological
simulation in SWAT is divided into a land phase, which controls the amount of water, sediment,
nutrient and pesticide loadings to the main channel in each subbasin, and a routing phase, which
simulates the movement of water, sediments, etc through the channel network. SWAT considers
spatial variability in land use, soil and climate and also captures human induced land and water
management practices in a given catchment. It is freely available and has been widely used in many
hydrological studies such as for: identifying and predicting the effects of land use changes at different
watershed scales (Arnold et al, 1996; Watson et al, 2005; Xing et al, 2008); to assess the return flows
in irrigation command areas (Gosain et al, 2005); to estimate the reduction of sediment from
watersheds in response to land use (Mishra et al, 2007); and to indentify the response of hydrological
processes to land use and climate changes in different watersheds (Schreider et al, 2002; Wilk et al,
2002; Lin et al, 2007; Quilbé et al, 2008).

ArcSWAT version 2.3.4, which interfaces with SWAT 2005 was selected for this study. ArcSWAT
preprocesses the data for the SWAT model simulation in three different sections – Watershed
Delineation, HRU Analysis and Weather Data Definition. Watershed delineation divides a basin into a
number of subbasins; these subbasins are then further subdivided into Hydrologic Response Units
(HRUs). HRUs are lumped land areas within the subbasin comprised of unique land cover, soil and
management combinations. The HRUs represent percentages of the subbasin area and are not
identified spatially nor is there any interaction between HRUs. Loadings from each HRU are calculated
separately and summed together to determine the total loading from each sub-basin. It is only at the
sub-basin level that spatial relationships can be specified via the stream network. Sub-basin level
meteorological inputs are set at the same value for all HRUs in the subbasin but water management
can vary between HRUs based on crop type. The weather data necessary for the SWAT simulation
run is preprocessed in the Weather Data Definition section. ArcSWAT uses the GRASS (Geographic
Resources Analysis Support System) GIS hydrologic tools to retrieve the topographic and other
attributes, database access tools to extract properties and creates parameters, and generic
aggregation tools to aggregate the inputs at the sub basin level.

3.2. Data Preparation and Model setup

A 90 m spatial resolution Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) DEM was used to specify the
topography, determine the sub-basins and extract the stream network. Nineteen sub-basins were
used to represent HSC. A Land Use/Land Cover map for October 2000 derived from the Landsat
image by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), a soil map of study area supplied by
the Indian National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land use Planning and a topographic slope map (from
the DEM) were used to determine the HRUs. The rainfall and weather data were obtained from
relevant government departments. Daily rainfall data (1971-2009) from nine rain gauges spread in and
around the catchment was collected from the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Andhra
Pradesh, India. Other meteorological parameters including daily maximum and minimum
temperatures, wind speed, solar radiation and relative humidity were obtained from the Indian
Meteorological Department (IMD) station, Hyderabad. Any missing rainfall data were estimated using
linear regression with data from the nearest neighbouring rain gauge. Double-mass curves were
plotted for all rain gauges to check data consistency (Searcy James et al, 1960).

In order to achieve the main objective of this study, it was necessary to represent the hydrological
structures. To do this, the reservoir component of SWAT was used. SWAT allows a single reservoir at
the outlet of a subbasin and a construction date can be supplied to “switch on” the reservoir. All the
hydrological structures located in a subbasin were aggregated to a single reservoir in each subbasin
by combining their volume – area relationship. Volume – area information was collected in the field for
a sample of hydrological structures in the catchment. It was assumed that the depth of evaporation
and percolation losses is same for all structures. A general volume – area relationship was obtained
by simple regression analysis. It is used to aggregate multiple structures to a single volume – area
curve.

It is also necessary to represent the increasing volumes of all structures over time during this study. To
achieve this, each of the 19 subbasins was divided into three sub-basins, with one large sub-basin
upstream of two small sub-basins. Reservoirs were then placed at the outlet of each of these three

3
sub-basins, effectively resulting in three reservoirs at the outlet of each of the 19 sub-basins that could
be progressively “built”. The hydrological structure information was analysed at various times and
used to specify each of the three reservoirs, thereby allowing a somewhat discredited representation
of watershed development over time. The changes in reservoir storage were included in 1995, 200
and 2005. In total there are 57 subbasins, 57 reservoirs and 523 HRUs in the model. It is assumed
that there was no irrigation supply from these hydrological structures as their primary purpose is to
recharge the groundwater.

The major hydrological processes in SWAT including evapotranspiration, runoff and erosion depend
on land use and management factors. To simulate groundwater sourced irrigation the crop water
requirement was supplied from the shallow groundwater using Irrigation component of SWAT. The
cropping pattern in the catchment can be separated into the Kharif (wet) period (June to December)
and the Rabi (dry) period (January to March). During the Kharif season, the total crop area is 62% of
the catchment area. Of this, 66% the dominant rainfed crop (Sorghum) which receives no irrigation
and 34% is other crops that receive supplemental irrigation during non rainy days from the shallow
aquifer. A second crop (Vegetables) is planted in 34% of the total cultivated area during the Rabi
season and is auto irrigated from the shallow aquifer by specifying the water stress threshold, which is
a fraction of potential plant growth in SWAT.

Based the data availability, the model was setup for the period 1980 to 2007. The monthly streamflows
into the HSC reservoir was estimated from the daily reservoir water levels by using a water balance
equation as shown below

Q i = (Δ + E i + S i + D i) (1)

Where i = Month
Q = Inflow
D = Sum of daily water release
E = Total amount of Evaporation
S = Total Spill
∆ = Change in storage

The drinking water supply to Hyderabad city from the reservoir has been estimated based on the daily
supply information available from the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board
(HMWSSB) (HMWSSB, 2009) and monthly evaporation from the reservoir was calculated using
volume-area-depth curve and average monthly evaporation depths available in the hand book of HS
reservoir. The spill volumes were collected from the HMWSSB from 1980 to 1992.

Based on the available data, the following methods were selected for this model: the Penman-
Monteith equation for calculating potential evapotranspiration; the Soil Conservation Service Curve
Number method for calculating runoff;

3.3. Sensitivity Analysis, Model calibration and validation

Among the model parameters, a sensitive analysis was carried out to identify the rate of change in
outputs in relation to change in model input parameters by using a combination of Latin-hypercube
and one-factor-at-a-time sampling techniques (van Griensven et al, 2006). The model parameters in
order of decreasing sensitivity are the curve number (CN2), plant uptake compensation factor (Epco),
soil evaporation compensation factor (Esco), groundwater delay time, the lag between the time that
water exists the soil profile and enters the shallow aquifer (Gw_Delay), groundwater evaporation
(Gw_Revap), threshold depth of water in the shallow aquifer required for return flow to occur
(Gwqmn), threshold depth of water for revap in shallow aquifer (Revapmn), plant available water
storage capacity (Sol_Awc), soil hydraulic conductivity (Sol_K) and , surface runoff lag coefficient
(Surlag).

The overall calibration procedure involved manually adjusting the most sensitive parameters such that
the resulting streamflows at the downstream produce matched the observed inflows at HS reservoir.
The manual calibration technique has been used with the aim of obtaining more physically realistic
parameters and also because auto calibration suffered from parameter interaction and identifiability

4
problems and very long computation times. The model was validated with the observed data at HS
reservoir and model performance was assessed using the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NSE)
(Nash et al, 1970).

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The average annual inflows observed for the decades 1980-89, 1990-99 and 2000-09 and for 1980-
2009 are 100, 64, 43 and 69 GL respectively. The average inflows into the reservoir have decreased
by 57% between 1980-89 and 2000-2009 and runoff coefficient decreased from 0.09 to 0.04. It is also
observed that the inflow decreased from 70 GL (1985-94) to 50 GL (1995-04) during the main
watershed development period. The total volume of all hydrological structures represented as
reservoirs at all subbasins in the model was 4.21 GL.

The model was calibrated for the period 1980-1986 and validated for the period from 1987-1992. The
model performed well for the calibration period (1980-1986, NSE=0.85) as shown in Figure 2 and
validation period (1987-1992, NSE=0.71) as shown in Figure 3. The calibrated model was run for the
period from 1993 to 2007 to assess the impact of the hydrological structures on HS streamflows.

The annual percentage change in simulated flow with and with reservoirs was calculated from 1995 to
2007 to estimate the impact of hydrological structures on streamflows (Figure 4). The diameter of the
bubbles in Figure 4 is proportional to the simulated flow without reservoirs. It can be seen that the
streamflows are reducing over time due to increases in hydrological structures in the HS catchment at
on average rate 1.37% per year. The Average Annual Rainfall (AAR) during the simulation period
(1980-2009) is 786 mm. The analysis during the wet (>125% of AAR) , normal (80 – 125% of AAR)
and dry (< 80% of AAR) years showed that ranges in the reduction in streamflows were 6-8%, 8-25%
and 27-36% respectively as shown in Figure 4. Thus it is clearly evident that the impact of hydrological
structures is inversely proportional to the streamflows generated in the catchment. The rates of
change simulated by SWAT due to hydrological structures are significantly lower than the observed
rates of change. This could be due to inadequately capturing the number and size of hydrological
structures, inadequately capturing diversions of surface water to irrigation or other effects such as land
use change and associated changes in groundwater extraction.

Figure 2: Simulated and observed monthly streamflows for the calibration period (1980-1986).

5
Figure 3: Simulated and observed monthly streamflows for the validation period (1987-1992).

Figure 4: The variation of impact of hydrological structures on streamflows: Bigger the size
of the bubble (predicted streamflows without reservoirs), smaller the impact.

6
4.1. Conclusion
This study has investigated the impact of hydrological structures resulting from watershed
development programs on runoff using SWAT. The model performance was good during the
calibration period (1980-86) and validation period (1987-1992). Further development and testing of the
model is underway and aims to capture other sources of change in the catchment.

The results to date clearly show that the impacts of watershed structures on streamflows are
significantly greater during dry years. The overall trend in runoff changes predicted by SWAT due to
expansion of hydrological structures is significantly lower than the observed rates of change. This
could be due to inadequately capturing the number and size of hydrological structures, inadequately
capturing diversions of surface water to irrigation or other effects such as land use change and
associated changes in groundwater extraction. These issues are being investigated in further work.

5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research is funded by Australian Council for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The
author would like to acknowledge the Robert Bage memorial scholarship, University of Melbourne for
providing support for field work and Dr.Kaushal K Garg, ICRISAT, Hyderabad for his valuable support
in building the SWAT model.

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