Evaluation of spatiotemporal dynamics of water storage changes at block level for sustainable water management in Howrah District of West Bengal

The present study aims to estimate block-wise temporal changes of groundwater storage (GWS) under the terrestrial water storage (TWS) in Howrah District of West Bengal, India, using Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM) from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS-2). It deals with the quantitative investigation of the variability of GWS and TWS of pre-monsoon and post-monsoon season from 2000 to 2014. The application of the geospatial method was carried out for such geo-spatiotemporal analysis to portray the dynamics especially the variability of ground and surface water storage for 15 years using various cartographic and statistical techniques. The present estimation and evaluation criteria include aspects of GWS, TWS, the variations of pre- and post-monsoon season capturing the temporal variations from 2000 to 2014. The result shows that on average a decline in water storage has taken place during the study period in most of the blocks of the study district. However, block-wise spatiotemporal dynamics of water storage changes were considered for analysis and mapping to portray the micro-level scenario for the aim of sustainable planning and management of this unique water resource.