A Holistic Approach for Determining the Characteristic Flow on Kangsabati Catchment

Kangsabati river rises from the Chotanagpur plateau in the state of West Bengal, India and passes through the districts of Purulia, Bankura and Paschim Medinipur in West Bengal before joining into river Rupnarayan. It is life of these three districts of West Bengal situated in the western part of the state. The river has ephemeral characteristics i.e. it has low flow in the year round and have a high peak on a certain time basis. In the Kangasabati catchment hydrological study gives an evident that during the period every two years there is a chance of drought condition and consecutively after that there is a high flow year. In our study period from 1991 to 2010 there are six low streamflow year i.e. in that year there is less rainfall than the average rainfall on that area. The year 1991, 2002 and 2009 are the drought prone year and above that in 2010 the severe drought condition was seen and this is the lowest rainfall year among the last 20 years and the rainfall on this year is only 766 mm which is in an about 38% less rainfall than the average rainfall of the catchment. And the highest flood peak in the last twenty year is noted on 19th Aug 2007 as 377107.8 Mm3