Watershed Management
The Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India has initiated a discussion forum on “Improving community participation in Watershed Management” for which there has been an overwhelming response from the citizens of the country. We have received many useful suggestions and views on the subject.
The enthusiastic participation in the discussion has shown that people are concerned about the issue of water availability in the country. Very interesting views and ideas have been thrown in the discussion by some of which are being mentioned here.
Watershed management today is synonymous with poverty alleviation. A number of people have suggested the need for involving the community in watershed management. They have also said that all sections of the society should be involved in this work. There are also suggestions to provide incentives to people to implement water harvesting works on the principles of watershed management. There is almost unanimous view on implementing drip irrigation for efficient use of water in agriculture and horticulture. Some have reflected that aging water infrastructure, increasing demand, continued land use change, and increasingly extreme weather events are driving the costs of water management higher. Investing in integrated water management strategies that combine engineered solutions with “natural infrastructure” can reduce costs, enhance services, and provide a suite of co-benefits for communities and the environment.
More emphasis has to be given to in-situ soil moisture conservation practices and irrespective of the ownership of the land, contour bunds, gully plugging, stabilization of sloping land etc should be given more importance than mere check dam construction. There are also suggestions about recharging aquifers, storage of rain water in farm lands, building low cost structures for water harvesting and removing encroachments from kunds, talavs and other traditional water harvesting structures. There are also suggestions that good work done in watershed management must be shared.
A number of posts are also about other related issues of water management though not a part of watershed management, like the issue of rain water harvesting in the urban areas, collection and use of discharge water from cities and river linking in the country,
We have taken note of the posts and are working on bringing out a document on the key suggestions that have been made by the citizens. With time, these suggestions will definitely influence the program being implemented by the Department in a positive way.
The discussion forum has been active since September 2014 and has received more than two thousand posts and has served a very useful purpose. Therefore we will be closing this Discussion group shortly. We will subsequently come out with a Discussion group on another relevant aspect of water management in the country.
We hope that you shall keep up the participation and continue enriching us with your views and suggestions. We would also expect the participants to keep focused on the topic of the discussion so that the ideas, experiences and knowledge are shared in a useful manner.
Thanks to all who participated in a very meaningful way.
Watershed Management Team, Department of Land Resources
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From one of my friends, i got this : we can merge the washbasin output ( the water from washbasin) to the input of flush tank. This way water can be saved a lot. Make this a mandatory in all Hotels, restaurants, public utilities etc
1. water harvesting should be made compulsory in all area (rural and Urban) for excess water, rain water and treated used water.
2. Small Water reservoir (farm pond) should be developed under NREGA to contain Excess flowing water in rural areas for agricultural purpose.
3. More usage of steam canal, river by small diveration with the help of local group and expertise. at least 10 km of rever bed(left and right) should be used for agriculture.
1. River bed(Left and right) should be developed to stop soil erosion.
2. Water containing/flowing capacity of river need to be calculated. Whenever needed river widening and depth may be increased. It helps to fight flood and drought.
3. Whenever space and soil permit, small water reservoir need to be developed side/mid of the revers. It can be piped (With out water pump) to near by area.It helps to increase water level of near by area and in agriculture field.
There has been unnecessary halla-gulla on sand mining in river beds.Almost all rivers are plagued with silt reducing water carrying capacity and causing floods.Ones rains recede, there is very little or no water left in rivers.Sand mining activities must be utilised for extracting sand from notified silted areas.This will be a win-win situation. Instead of putting efforts to stop mining, govt should put efforts in guiding and directing them to the selected areas.
With concrete jungles and black top roads,seeping water in to underground aquafiers has reduced drastically reducing water levels.Large water sinking pits like Community wells must be constructed near irrigation canals at regular intervals exclusively for recharging ground water. During rainy season, instead of letting flood waters to sea, these wells must be used fully to store water under ground thereby reducing risk of flooding and water usage after monsoon.
It has been depicted by the UN survey that the water resource would be in short very soon in India by 2050. But its also suggested that the water conservation can help to surpass this milestone and have a better quality of life. The probable way to conserve water is by Implementing a scheme for rain water harvesting since almost 90pc of rain water which has domestic usage is wasted which flows to rivers or lakes ending up in ocean.This can also help restoration of aquifers Ex Rajastan,Karnataka
Bring back the policy of implementing river connecting project throughout india thus was initiated actively by VAJBAYJI and KALAMJI, let us understand thus is serious issue down the year, this the right time we should implement.
1. let us implement constitutional amendment that all rivers all national property and centre should control it without any state interference
2. put a road map for 5 years entire india should be interlinked
3. ph-1 neighbour state/ ph-2 4 regions ph-3 entire n
Sir
We have seen the change you have brought through Search Bharat , practicing yoga. The same way you start a campaign To Save Water & Rejuvenate Lakes,Rivers & all water bodies. National river linking project should be taken on a priority. If we don’t save water, it is going to be worse. Need to increase ground water level.
Please connect all the rivers connect together please due this thing as emergency work. Our country is a agricultural based country so state full of flood some state or complete dry. Please connect the river and save our nation.
Considering the major shortage in fresh water that the world is experiencing, there is a dire need to find alternate sources of water to sustain life. Being a country that has already conquered the space and nuclear technology, I wonder if we can extend our expertise to harness sea water for human consumption. India being a peninsula has ample sea water resources at its disposal. Having said this, I request you to look into this area of research and investigate the viability of this project.