AI-powered tool
generates publication-grade watershed climate reports in 19 languages for
researchers, policymakers, students and citizens
Mandi: The
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi, one of India’s leading IITs, has
launched WatershedAI, a revolutionary application on its INCLINE (Indian
Climate Information Explorer) Platform, in a major step towards
making climate intelligence and water resource assessment more accessible and
affordable. Developed by HIMPACT Lab (Himalayan Hydro climatology Impact
Research Lab) at IIT Mandi, the platform combines hydrological modelling, deep
learning and multilingual artificial intelligence to generate comprehensive
climate assessments of any watershed in India within 3 to 8 minutes.
Available
free of cost, the platform delivers publication-grade watershed reports in 19
languages, significantly improving accessibility to climate science and
water-related insights for researchers, policymakers, students and citizens.
Dr. Vivek Gupta, Faculty at the School of Civil and
Environmental Engineering and Lead of the HIMPACT Lab, IIT Mandi
described the ambition behind the tool: "Our goal with INCLINE has been
to compress the gap between cutting-edge hydrological research and actual
decision-making on the ground. The WatershedAI feature integrates morphometric
analysis, soil and land use characterisation, observed and projected climate
data, drought indices and a Dynamic Budyko v2 water-yield model into one
coherent narrative. Every report is reproducible, traceable to its data
sources, and can be generated for a gauged or completely ungauged basin."
The
multilingual dimension of the tool was a deliberate priority from the start.
WatershedAI delivers its full AI-written narrative in 19 languages — Hindi,
Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Odia, Urdu and
Malayalam among Indian languages, alongside English, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese,
Spanish, French, German and Portuguese.
Mr. Siddik, PhD Scholar at the HIMPACT Lab and
co-lead developer of the feature, explained the thinking: "We wanted a
hydrologist in Tamil Nadu, a district planner in Himachal Pradesh and a student
in Manipur to all be able to ask the same scientific question of a watershed
and receive an answer in their own language without compromising on the underlying
science."
Equally
important was making the platform work for India's real infrastructure
conditions. Mr. Piyush Panpaliya, a 3rd year BTech student at IIT Mandi and web
developer of the INCLINE Platform, noted: "Our focus on the engineering
side was to make a heavy scientific workflow feel light to the user. The
map-based outlet selection, asynchronous report generation, multilingual
rendering and the in-app chat all had to work reliably on modest internet
connections and across devices, because that is the reality for most users in
India."
Designed
to serve government agencies, researchers, educators, students and citizens
alike, WatershedAI simplifies access
to reliable climate and water intelligence for watersheds across India,
including remote ungauged regions. By making scientific assessments faster,
multilingual and accessible without specialised tools, the platform supports
national priorities such as Jal Shakti, Digital India and climate adaptation
initiatives. WatershedAI is now available on the INCLINE platform. With the
help of WatershedAI, users can obtain comprehensive climate assessments,
including information on watershed morphology, drainage pattern, soil
conditions, land use, climate trends, drought history, extreme weather events,
and projected water availability, at the touch of a button. All the information
is scientifically backed by original data sources.
WatershedAI is
available now at incline.iitmandi.ac.in