Central Water Commission (CWC)

Arghyam has compiled a brief presentation which gives details of the permissible and desirable limits for various parameters in drinking water as per Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) specifications for potable water

Contamination of surface water sources such as rivers due to metals, can often make the water dangerous to drink because of the health hazards associated with consuming toxic metals. The report titled 'Status of trace and toxic metals in Indian rivers' published by the

This handbook by Central Water Commission aims to provide necessary guidance to the field engineers in the state and central for design, appraisal, construction and monitoring of the flood management works covering all the relevant BIS codes, design manuals, guidelines, technical specifications for construction materials and practices etc. to meet new challenges in the flood management in India.

This publication by the Central Water Commission (CWC) and Regional Remote Sensing Centre – West, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) presents the status of water resources development in each of the river basins as per CWC classification. It was launched on November 1, 2012 by Minister of Water Resources Shri. Harish Rawat in a function organized at CWC, New Delhi.

This comprehensive publication gives detailed information of major water resources projects along with the location of all hydrological observation sites including major dams, barrages etc. in all the river basins of India.

This "River basin atlas of India", an outcome of joint project “Generation of Database and implementation of web enabled Water Resources Information System (India-WRIS) in the country”, is a publication by the Central Water Commission (CWC) and Regional Remote Sensing Centre – West, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) that presents the status of water resources development in each of the river basins as per CWC classification. It was launched on November 1, 2012 by Minister of Water Resources Shri. Harish Rawat in a function organized at CWC, New Delhi.

This comprehensive publication gives detailed information of major water resources projects along with the location of all hydrological observation sites including major dams, barrages etc. in all the river basins of India. All these features have been portrayed on the maps with river network, major cities and terrain in background. The hydrological and Flood Forecasting observation sites of Central Water Commissions are also marked in the basin maps.

India-WRIS Sub-basins, Source: River basin atlas of India, CWC and ISRO, 2012

Floods/heavy rains can cause a severe and irreversible damage to human lives, property both public and private, and livestock. Since floods are one of the frequent natural calamities faced by India, the loss incurred by it is huge.

This document by Central Water Commission is a compilation of large dams in India. It provides basic information about a dam. The document first spells out the meaning of a large dam, which is based on the height of a dam and also complies with any one of the following conditions:

This data book published by Central Water Commission (CWC) is a compendium of impor

It evolves a methodology for identifying hot spots in Indian rivers. The water quality data is based on the average values observed during the last ten years (2001-2011) at 371 monitoring stations of CWC on almost all major, medium and minor rivers in India. In respect of Dissolved Oxygen and Biochemical Oxygen Demand, the Central Pollution Control Board's classification has been considered for evaluating the hot spot in the rivers.

The physical and chemical quality of river water is important in deciding its suitability for drinking purposes. As such the suitability of river water for potable uses with regard to its chemical quality has to be deciphered and defined on the basis of the some vital characteristics of the water. Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) vide its document IS: 10500:1991, edition 2.2 (2003‐09) has recommended the quality standards for drinking water and these have been used for finding the suitability of river water. On this basis of classification, the natural river water of India has been categorized as desirable, permissible and unfit for human consumption.

The Level-I Laboratories are located at 258 field water quality monitoring stations on various rivers of India where physical parameters such as temperature, colour, odour, specific conductivity, total dissolved solids, pH and dissolved oxygen of river water are observed.