While we awaited long term funds this project helped us continues our ongoing research in these two catchments and also to facilitate in building capacities of organisations and individuals who are interested in the field of ecohydrology. During the project period both sites were regularly monitored and maintained to collect high resolution data on rainfall and stream-flows.

Along with our field activities we also analysed the relationship between stream flow and daily rainfall across different vegetation types vegetation type. This relationship was further refined to understand how streams under different land-cover types respond to extreme rainfall events. Our preliminary result from the Nilgiri’s indicate that natural forests and grasslands were more efficient in retaining rain water compared to catchments dominated by exotic invasive tree species during extreme rainfall events. For further analysis, we will include other catchment physical properties as catchment morphometry is found to influence stream flows to understand the hydrological responses to such extreme events as this is also important for developing better flood prediction models.

An extreme rain event during the monsoon of 2019 caused extensive damage to the stream gauges installed at the Upper Bhavani site. Nearly two metres of rainfall was received in two days. The deluge resulted in streams overflowing their banks and series of landslides which washed away all but two of our stream gauges. We are presently re-installing stream discharge measuring equipment in the site. Given that virtually all the gauges need replacement, we are using the opportunity to upgrade the instruments and constructing weirs across the newly formed channels. This will allow more accurate monitoring of discharge with a higher degree of automation and lower operation and maintenance costs