CHAPTER 3

STUDY AREA AND DATA AVAILABILITY

3.1 Study Area

Burhabalang river is an independent river situated in the north-east corner of Peninsular India.
Central Water Commission, New Delhi has considered Burhabalang basin as a part of
Subarnarekha Basin (Total catchment area of Subarnarekha basin - 29196 KM2, source -
http://www.india-wris.nrsc.gov.in/wrpinfo/index.php?title=Subarnarekha). The Burhabalang river
originates south of Similipal hills envisaging Similipal National Park in Mayurbhanj district of
Odisha. It plunges through the second highest fall of India, Barehipani (named after the vision
of the fall seen from distance seems like a thick rope i.e. ‘barehi’ as told in Odia language). It
flows first in a northerly direction up to Karanjpal village in Bangiriposi block and then in a
south-easterly direction. After changing to south direction, it meets its first tributary i.e. Katra
Nala. Other tributaries namely Palapala and Chipat meet the river at Baripada. Later, tributaries
like Kalo and Sono meet the river and finally, the river falls into the Bay of Bengal. The river
drains a total catchment area of 4,379 Sq.km approximately covering two districts of Odisha
namely Mayurbhanj and Balasore before falling into the Bay of Bengal. The catchment area
lies between 21.320 N to 22.350 N and 86.290 E to 86.940 E. The river flows from 1189 m RL
to mean sea level. The main tributaries of the river are Katara, Sono and Kalo all originating
from Similipal hill area. Figure 3.1 shows the location of Budhabalang Basin.

Figure 3.1 Location of Budhabalang basin

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3.2 Hydrology and Climate: -

Odisha as whole receives long term average annual rainfall of around 1452mm constituting
230.76 billion cubic meters (BCM). The average rainfall varies spatially from 1200 mm in the
south to 1700 mm in the northern coastal area. The maximum temperature of the state recorded
at Titilagard is 470 C and minimum temperature at hill-top comes down to 50 C. The climate is
mostly humid being a coastal state. Major floods that occurred during super cyclone October
1999, August and September 2007, June 2008, October 2009, September 2011 and Phailin in
October 2013. Fresh floods Hudhud during October 13th to 14th 2014 have made havoc in the
coastal areas particularly in Baripada, Balasore and Baliapal towns situated on Budhabalang
river bank. The river Budhabalang discharges an annual average of 3.11 BCM into the Bay of
Bengal.

The basin has its the gauging site at Govindpur (at NH-5 crossing). The river envisages a
catchment of 4379 KM2 up to Govindpur gauging site with topographical variation from 1189m
to 5m approximately. The longest river length is 155 KM up to Govindpur. All the hydrological
and meteorological data in the catchment upstream to Govindpur was collected from different
sources.

The climate in the watershed is tropical with very hot summer and mild winters. The basin
envisages a good drainage network. Coming to land use-land cover statistics, the major part of
the basin is covered with agricultural land accounting to 48% of the total area, forests covering
38% of the total basin area and around 2% of the basin is covered by water bodies. Urban and
rural settlement in the basin are 1.50% and 3.68% respectively. Figure 3.2 shows the drainage
network and land use-land cover of the basin.

3.3 Data Availability

Understanding of topographical, hydrological and climatic condition of the watershed is

important. Quality of collected data on those aspects are equally important for the formulation
of rain-runoff simulation model reliable to the area under different hydrological and climatic
condition. Following data sets are required for hydrologic modelling in HEC-HMS: -

1) Spatial Data
i) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data for watershed delineation
ii) Image data for Land use and land cover mapping
iii) Data for soil mapping

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 2) Climatic data i.e. daily and hourly rainfall data within and around the watershed
3) Topographic data i.e. Gauge and discharge data at the outlet point.

3.3.1 SPATIAL DATA: -

Digital Elevation Model (DEM) reflects the topographical elevation of the basin. The DEM
required for the delineation of the study is for HEC-GeoHMS were downloaded from the free
SRTM DEM data from the USGS website. It has 30m x 30m pixel resolution grid in UTM
WGS 1984 45N zone and suitable for use. Figure 3.2 shows the layer properties of the DEM.

Figure 3.2 Layer properties of DEM

Bhuvan thematic image Land Use Land Cover (50K):2011-12, with pixel size 63.5m x 63.5m
and having an accuracy of 90% (as per ISRO document control number NRSC-RSAA-USGIG-
Aug-2015-TR-729), is freely available on Bhuvan Web Site. The available thematic map was
downloaded and used for preparing the land use - land cover map for the Budhabalang river
basin. The Digital Soil Map of the world available freely from Geo network web portal of FAO
(Food and Agriculture Organization) with pixel size 1000m x 1000m, was downloaded and the

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soil mapping is done through Arc-GIS.

3.3.2 METEOROLOGICAL AND HYDROLOGICAL DATA

A) Rainfall Data: -
Daily Rainfall and hourly gauge data at Govindpur gauge station and daily rainfall data for
other rain gauge sites maintained by CWC were collected from CWC Bhubaneswar region
dated 10-8-2018 in response to the request by Dr. S.K. Mishra, Prof. WRD&M. There are five
CWC rain gauge stations and fore rain gauge stations in Block offices maintained by District
Administration within and around the watershed area. Three hourly rainfall data has been
collected from CWC in the study area as this is the only resources available. The Director,
Meteorological Centre, Bhubaneswar had been requested vide letter No.- WR/Trainee/895
dated 19/09/2018 and No.- 861 dated 05/09/2048 for hourly rainfall data, but it was learned
that there is no hourly rainfall data within the watershed for the period of interest is available
with IMD, Bhubaneswar.

B) Flow Data: -
Daily discharge data and hourly gauge data at Govindpur gauge station were collected from
CWC Bhubaneswar region dated 10-8-2018 in response to the request by Dr. S.K. Mishra,
Prof. WRD&M. There is only one gauge station namely Govindpur (NH-5) (Station code – ED
000E4) in Balasore district of Odisha for the entire catchment where daily discharge and hourly
gauge values are recorded. The period of availability of different data is shown in table 4.1.

Table 3.1: Water level and discharge data availability in the basin

Gauging Water Level and Daily Rainfall

Station Discharge data
a) Daily discharge data
Govindpur from 3/1992 to 10/2017
b) Hourly gauge data
from 7/1978 to 9/2017
Baripada Hourly gauge data from
7/1972 to 9/2017
Balimunduli Hourly gauge data from
7/1987 to 9/2017
Chandanpur Hourly gauge data from
7/1987 to 9/2017
Jaipur Hourly gauge data from
Remark
data
From 1/1/1978 to
CWC Gauge station
30/9/2017
From 1/9/1974 to
CWC Gauge station
30/9/2017
From 1/9/1974 to
CWC Gauge station
30/9/2017
From 1/9/1974 to
CWC Gauge station
30/9/2017
From 1/9/1974 to CWC Gauge station

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 6/1978 to 9/2017 30/9/2017

Bisoi From 1/1/2000 to RG station by District

31/12/2017 Administration
Bangiriposi From 1/1/2000 to RG station by District
31/12/2017 Administration
Gopabandhu From 1/1/2000 to RG station by District
Nagar 31/12/2017 Administration
From 1/1/2000 to RG station by District
Kaptipada
31/12/2017 Administration
From 1/1/2000 to RG station by District
Thakurmunda
31/12/2017 Administration

Apart from this, the categorized water levels corresponding to a) Warning Level and b) Danger
Level of Budhabalang river at Govindpur gauging site have been collected from CWC
Bhubaneswar which are 7.21M and 8.13M respectively.

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