Water is important for economic development, and many parts of India already face issues of water scarcity. This study predicts that intensity of rainfall will increase under climate change. Issues such as water scarcity may also become more prevalent. The marked rise in precipitation intensity and variability in
extremes will have impacts for a range of sectors, including water resource management, urban planning, and agriculture.

The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) carried out this study on the impact of climate change on water resources with the following objectives:

To make a detailed analysis of the spatio-temporal variability
of precipitation over the major river basins of India based on
long term recorded data.

To estimate past changes in surface water availability and
their sensitivity to climatic variability.

To validate climate model simulations of daily precipitation
over major river basins in India.

To estimate the changes in water quality at selected sites in
the Krishna basin.

To prepare scenarios of water availability and extreme
events, under different climate change scenarios, using the
model simulated data as described in Keysheets 2 and 3.