The Western Ghats play a critical role in capturing moisture during the south-west monsoons over the Indian summer. However, their varied topography creates unique orographic effects within the mountain range, which in turn drives vegetation patterns.

We instrumented two catchments, one in the Aghnashini basin and the other in the Upper Bhavani catchment in the Nilgiris to provide us unique, long-term data (since 2012) on rainfall intensities, duration and discharge, across the different land cover and land use patterns in the two sites.