ESTIMATION OF RIVER DISCHARGE FROM CHITRAL RIVER CATCHMENT USING SNOWMEL T RUNOFF MODEL

Abstract

In northern regions of Pakistan where the most area is snow covered and glaciated, seasonal snowmelt is the primary source of river discharge. This makes irrigation and hydropower generation purposes heavily dependent upon seasonal snowmelt, which calls for deep analysis and monitoring of these snow fod water resources. In current era water management practices are aided by reliable techniques for computing daily discharge in current and future predicted climate change scenarios. This purpose is served by hydrological modeling using different parameters and variables as inputs. This research is aimed to apply Snowmelt Runoff Model to estimate daily discharge from Chitral watershed and quantify contribution of snowmelt to it. The model was calibrated and validated for years 2011-2012 and 2013-2014 respectively. The calibration and validation results in terms of average R2 are 0.92 and 0.81 respectively. The simulated river discharge showed good agreement with actual river discharge. IPCC RCP 6 climate change scenarios were applied for which showed that river discharge will be doubled till the end of the century. These expected future changes in daily discharge under climate change call for effective water management practices. XVI