IIT-Mandi harnesses AI to make climate, water data accessible across 19 languages

Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, has launched WatershedAI, a new artificial intelligence-powered application that enables users to generate climate and water resource assessment reports for river basins and catchment areas across India in 19 languages.The free tool, available on the Indian Climate Information Explorer (INCLINE) platform, has been developed by the Himalayan Climate Impact Research Laboratory at IIT-Mandi. It combines hydrological modelling, deep learning and multilingual AI to produce publication-ready climate reports within three to eight minutes.According to the institute, the platform is designed to make scientific climate information more accessible to researchers, policymakers, students and the general public, particularly in regions where reliable hydrological data is scarce. The reports provide detailed insights into watershed characteristics, climate trends, drought history, land use, soil conditions, drainage patterns and projected water availability.Dr Vivek Gupta, faculty member at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at IIT-Mandi and head of the Himalayan Climate Impact Research Laboratory, said the initiative was intended to bridge the gap between advanced hydrological research and practical decision-making.“Our goal has been to make climate and water information more usable at the ground level. WatershedAI integrates geomorphic analysis, soil and land-use information, observed and projected climate data, drought indicators and dynamic water-yield models into a unified framework,” he said.A key feature of the platform is its multilingual capability. WatershedAI can generate complete reports in 19 languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Odia, Urdu, Malayalam and English, as well as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese.Siddiq, a PhD scholar at the Himalayan Climate Impact Research Laboratory and co-developer of the feature, said the aim was to ensure that users across the country could access scientific information in their native language without compromising quality.The development team also focused on ensuring that the platform functions effectively in areas with limited internet connectivity. Piyush Panpalia, a third-year BTech student at IIT-Mandi and web developer for the platform, said the application was designed to provide a simple and intuitive user experience despite the complexity of the underlying scientific processes.The platform includes features such as map-based watershed selection, asynchronous report generation, multilingual presentation and in-app communication support.IIT-Mandi said the initiative aligns with national priorities related to climate adaptation, water resource management and the Digital India programme.WatershedAI is now publicly accessible through the INCLINE platform, allowing users to generate detailed climate assessments for watersheds across India with a single click.

IIT-Mandi harnesses AI to make climate, water data accessible across 19 languages

Tribune News Service

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