Variations of compound warm, dry, wet, and cold climate extremes in India during 1951 to 2014.

The simultaneous occurrence of climate extremes significantly impacts ecosystems, increasing the vulnerability to physical risks. Despite extensive research on hot extremes and droughts globally, there remains a significant gap in comprehending the occurrence, magnitude, spatial extent, and associated risks of compound extremes, encompassing scenarios like warm/dry, cold/dry, warm/wet, and cold/wet. This study investigates various compound extreme scenarios by examining combinations of maximum temperature (Tx) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) using monthly data from 1951 to 2014 acquired from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for Indian landmass. From the results, the spatial extent of warm/dry events has increased at 1.8 % per decade, while cold/wet events decreased by 1.1 % over India. The warm/wet events have shown an increased trend of about 0.3 %, and cold/dry events at modest rise of 0.7 % per decade. Furthermore, compound warm/dry and cold/wet extremes over India exhibit extreme frequency and shorter return periods, posing greater risk. Conversely, compound cold/dry and warm/wet extremes occur less often, indicating longer return periods and lower risk. Across much of the country, the frequency of warm/dry, cold/dry, warm/wet, and cold/wet extremes ranges from 30 to 45, 15-30, 20-30, and 25-45 months, respectively. Notably, warm/dry conditions exhibit increased frequency in the recent period (1983-2014) with 31 years compared to the base period (1951-1982) which had approximately 24 years for a spatial extent exceeding 5 %. The findings of this study contribute to an enhanced understanding of the changes in compound climate extremes from a multivariate perspective.

Mapping and assessment of river water quality under varying hydro-climatic and pollution scenarios by integrating QUAL2K, GEFC, and GIS.

Water quality modelling has proved to be effective method for managing river water quality. But the most effective and comprehensive approach involving integration of river water quality simulation and pollution visualization with the objective of pollution reduction and maintenance of environmental flow strategies has gained less attention. Thus, the objective of this study was to employ an integrated approach for mapping and analysing river water quality under various hydro-climatic and pollution scenarios. Specifically, this approach involved the integration of a river water quality simulation model, QUAL2K, Global Environmental Flow Calculator (GEFC), and Geographical Information System (GIS) to develop water quality index (WQI) based map charts of water quality. The calibrated QUAL2K model was utilized to simulate WQI parameters including water temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, dissolved oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD), nitrates (NO3), ammonia (NH4), and alkalinity. To analyse the WQI, the Weighted Arithmetic-Water Quality Index (WA-WQI) method was employed for various individual and combined pollution scenarios, environmental flow (Eflow), and climate change scenarios. The developed integrated approach was applied to the Bhadravati segment of Bhadra River, India. The findings revealed that the prevailing WQI status of the study stretch ranged from poor to unsuitable for drinking purposes. This deterioration can be attributed to the impact of both industrial and municipal effluents. By maintaining the effective Environmental Management Class (EMC) flow rates (class C flowrate of EMC (40.32 m3/s)) in conjunction with appropriate Pollution Reduction (PR) level (10% PR) at headwater and incoming drains, the stream self-purification capacity was enhanced resulting in the Bhadravati River stretch water quality transitioning to favourable water quality condition.