Dr. Ravindra Vitthal Kale

“Dr. Ravindra Vitthal Kale graduated in Agricultural Engineering from the MPKV, Rahuri (M.S.) in 2002. He obtained a M. Tech in Irrigation Drainage Engineering, at the GBPUA&T, Pantanagar in 2004. He obtained a Ph.D. in Hydrology at the Department of Hydrology, IIT Roorkee in 2010. Recently, He completed training cum master degree course in “Disaster Management Policy (DMP) Program: Flood Disaster Risk Reduction” as a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Fellow from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo and International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management, under the aggies of UNESCO, Tsukuba, Japan in September 2019. Recently, he has received the “Outstanding presentation award (as group leader)” by GRIPS (Tokyo Japan) during the Fourth GRIPS Integrated Student Seminar: Disaster Management Policies (November 2018). He joined the National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, an R&D organization under DoWR, RD &GR, Ministry of Jal Shakti from 2010 as a Scientist B. Presently, He is serving as Scientist D at Western Himalayan Regional Centre, NIH, Jammu since April 2016. His research interest includes Hydrological and Hydraulic modelling, Remote Sensing & GIS Applications in Hydrology, Climate and LULC Impact on Water Resources, IWRM, Waterrelated disaster management and SDGs etc. He is involved as PI and Co-PI in a numerous institute funded, sponsored and consultancy research projects of national importance. To name a few he has involved in projects for preparation of “Hydrological Studies and MultiReservoir Simulation Studies for Detailed Project Report of Ken-Betwa Link (Phase-II)” (Consultancy project by NWDA), Conceptualized WEAP based DSS for IWRM project in Tikamgarh district, Preparation of an executable plan for drinking water supply in Lalitpur and Chitrakoot districts of Uttar Pradesh, Technical Vetting of Tawi Riverfront Development Project and MoE sponsored project on “Operational coastal flood management in the Brahmani-Baitarani River Basin integrating human and climate-induced impacts”.

1. Primary Objective: Operational coastal flood management in the Brahmani-Baitarani River Basin integrating human and climate-induced impacts

2. Relevant SDGs (which all): SDG 13: Climate Action and SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

3. Geographical coverage: Brahmani-Baitarani River Basin (Odisha, India)

4. Action Taken (What, How, Implementation period): Dr. Ravindra V. Kale (PI, Indian side) was undertaken training cum master degree course entitled as “Disaster Management Policy Program: Flood Disaster Risk Reduction” jointly offered by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) and the International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM) of the Public Works Research Institute (PWRI), Japan during September 2018 to September 2019 (supported by Official Development Assistance from the Government of Japan). At ICHARM/GRIPS, Japan, Dr. Kale conducted research entitled “Development of Integrated Hydrological Modelling Framework for Flood Inundation Mapping in Brahmani-Baitarani River Basin, India” under the supervision of Prof. Toshio Koike, Dr. Katsunori Tamakawa, Dr. Shibuo, Y., Dr. Imamura, Y., and Prof. Masaru, S. In this research work integrated distributed hydrological modelling framework was formulated based on the spatially distributed hydrological models such as the Water and Energy Budget-based Distributed Hydrological Model (WEB-DHM) (to simulate the hydrologic response of upstream watershed area) and the Rainfall-Runoff-Inundation (RRI) model (for flood inundation modelling in the deltaic region) for flood inundation mapping and flood hazard assessment in the Brahmani-Baitarani River basin, India. This modelling framework has shown very good efficiency in the simulation of river discharges as well as flood inundation in the delta region. This modelling framework also takes into account the dam operation impact on the flood inundation in the delta region. Further, it was found that this proposed integrated hydrological modelling framework is a very valuable tool to operate the reservoir properly (based on the hypothetical dam water release) and significantly reduce the flood inundation extent and depth in the delta region. The main highlight of this integrated hydrological framework is that this framework is applied for very large river basins which is around 52,000 sq. km. This framework capable to significantly reduces the computational execution time as compared to other models. Therefore, it seems to be a powerful tool to reduce flood disaster damages and risks. In order to assist in the emergency response activities, GISbased tools such as the Modified GradientBased Method (MGBM) have been developed which is coupled with FwDET v2.0 tools for automatic flood extent and flood inundation depth estimation from the satellite data. In order to use this developed WEM-DHM and RRI modeling framework with forecast data for the near-real-time operation of the dams in the Brahmani-Baitarani basin, the hindcast forecast data for selected past high flood events has been prepared with the help of IITM Pune. The proposed research work using this forecast data is under progress under the supervision of Prof. Koike and Dr. Tamakawa. Further, some of the inputs from this conducted research work will be used in ongoing collaborative MoE sponsored research project (for period 2020 – 2023) between NIH and IIT Kharagpur.

5. Impact Created: Based on research work at ICHARM, a collaborative research project entitled as “Operational coastal flood management through short-to-medium range (real-time) flood vulnerability mapping in the Brahmani-Baitarani River Basin integrating human and climate-induced impacts” between IIT Kharagpur and NIH has been formulated and submitted to the Ministry of Human Resources Development (now Ministry of Education) which got funded under Scheme for Transformational and Advanced Research in Sciences (STARS) in the Earth Sciences domain [research project ID: 743] (for period 2020 2023). In this project, we attempting to couple various modelling tools to provide integrated modelling framework for an operational flood inundation forecast and management of dam operation (which is presently done manually) based on the modelling output to the Odisha State Government. This modelling framework will be useful to improve the hydropower projects efficiency and also to ensure release of high quantity of water for agricultural and other sectors. Further, based on the research results, a preliminary meeting between the Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Kerala, Dr. Toshio Koike, Executive Director, ICHARM, Tsukuba Japan (MY Master thesis Supervisor), and myself from NIH and other institutes from Kerala has been conducted to formulate a similar project for Kerala state to reduce flood inundation damages, improve dam operations as well as plan strategies to reduce impacts due to flood.

6. Key stakeholders and partnerships: The main key stakeholders are the State and Central Government agencies. There is an active partnership with ICHARM, Tsukuba Japan, and the School of Water Sciences, IIT Kharagpur, etc.

7. Funding: To conduct research at GRIPS Tokyo/ ICHARM, Tsukuba (Japan) the fellowship was provided by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Presently, the Ministry of Education (Now Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) providing funds under the Scheme for Transformational and Advanced Research in Sciences (STARS) in the Earth Sciences domain.

8. Published (where):

1. Master Thesis entitled “Development of Integrated Hydrological Modelling Framework for Flood Inundation Mapping in BrahmaniBaitarani River Basin, India” Submitted to ICHARM, Tsukuba, Japan in September 2019.

2. R. V. Kale (2019) Development Of Integrated Hydrological Modelling Framework For Flood Inundation Mapping In Brahmani-Baitarani River Basin, India, Disaster Management Policy Program, Synopsis of Master Papers 2018/2019, GRIPS, Tokyo, Japan. [International publication, also published online at

https://www.grips.ac.jp/cms/wpcontent/uploads/2019/10/Synopsis_MEE18715R VKALE.pdf

3. Ravindra V. Kale, Toshio Koike, Katsunori Tamakawa, et al. (2019) GIS based tools for estimation of flood inundation extent and depth, 8th APHW International Conference on Emerging Technologies in Urban Water Management organised by Centre of Disaster Management, IIT Roorkee at IIT, Roorkee during 22-23 November 2019.

4. Ravindra V. Kale, et al. (2019) Integrated Flood Inundation Modelling to Assess the Impact of Dam Regulation on Flood Inundation in Coastal Area: Case Study of BrahmaninBaitarani River Basin, International Conference on Frontiers in Marine Science Challenges and Prospects (MARICON – 2019) to be organised at School of Marine Sciences, CUSAT, Kochi 682016, Kerala, India during 16-19 December 2019.