IIT Mandi Launches Free AI Platform ‘WatershedAI’ for Rapid Climate Assessment of River Basins
IBG NEWS Desk | 22 May 2026
In a major breakthrough aimed at democratizing climate intelligence and water resource analysis, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi has launched “WatershedAI,” an advanced AI-powered tool capable of generating comprehensive watershed climate reports within minutes.
Developed by the Himalayan Hydroclimatology Impact Research Lab (HIMPACT Lab) under IIT Mandi’s INCLINE (Indian Climate Information Explorer) Platform, the application combines hydrological modelling, deep learning and multilingual artificial intelligence to assess the climate future of river basins across India.
Launched free of cost, WatershedAI can generate publication-grade climate reports in just 3 to 8 minutes and supports 19 languages, making climate science more accessible for researchers, policymakers, students and ordinary citizens.
According to Dr. Vivek Gupta, faculty member at IIT Mandi’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and lead of the HIMPACT Lab, the objective behind the platform is to bridge the gap between advanced hydrological research and practical decision-making on the ground. The platform integrates morphometric analysis, soil and land-use assessment, observed and projected climate data, drought indices and Dynamic Budyko v2 water-yield modelling into a single coherent system.
One of the key highlights of WatershedAI is its multilingual capability. The platform delivers AI-generated climate narratives in major Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Odia, Urdu and Malayalam, alongside international languages such as English, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, German and Portuguese.
Mr. Siddik, PhD Scholar at HIMPACT Lab and co-lead developer of the project, said the initiative was designed to ensure that users from different parts of India can access scientific watershed information in their native languages without compromising scientific accuracy.
The development team also focused on making the platform practical for India’s digital infrastructure realities. Mr. Piyush Panpaliya, a third-year BTech student and web developer for the INCLINE Platform, explained that the system was optimized to work efficiently even on modest internet connections and across multiple devices.
WatershedAI is expected to benefit government agencies, educational institutions, researchers and local communities by simplifying access to reliable water and climate intelligence, especially in remote and ungauged regions. The platform aligns with national priorities such as Jal Shakti, Digital India and climate adaptation initiatives.
Users can generate detailed watershed assessments covering drainage patterns, soil characteristics, land use, climate trends, drought history, extreme weather events and projected water availability through a simplified interface backed by scientifically validated data sources.
WatershedAI is now accessible through IIT Mandi’s INCLINE platform.
— IBG NEWS
