Research Papers

Guest post by Mr. Chetan Pandit who works for the Central Water Commission, Government of India

This blog is a condensed version of the paper published in the 3rd Round Table on Sustainable Consumption and Production, organized by the Ministry of Environment and Forests jointly with UNEP, at New Delhi on 11-12 Feb 2010. The views expressed in this article are author’s personal views, and are not to be taken as the views of his employers.

In any discussion about Sustainable Development (SD) the quantity of consumption is invariably the main concern. Perhaps this stems from the original definition of SD as the “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs", which invokes the spectre of insufficient quantities of resources at some time in the future. This concern is invalid for water, because water is a dynamic and renewable resource. Every hydrologic year brings a fresh packet of water. There is no way to use in this year, the rainfall that is yet to occur in the next year, or next decade. Moreover, any unused water will flow away to the oceans. The storages capacities, whether in surface storages or in aquifer, are adequate for one year only, at the most a little carry over for the next year. With many basins already reaching “water stressed” status, the problem at hand is how to supply the needs of this year, and there is no question of storing the water for future generations. Thus, in the context of water, quantity of water used should not be the primary concern for SD.

This research paper published in the Journal of Agricultural Water Management draws on a case study from a village in the Shiwalik region of the Indian Himalayas and identifies the role of diverse actors in exploiting historic and ecological factors to derail the Participatory Irrigation management (PIM) reforms to frame water management problems. The paper explores the inter-linkages between socio-cultural, institutional and ecological factors in derailing the PIM reforms. Participatory irrigation management (PIM) reforms are implemented in India to facilitate farmers’ participation in irrigation management, through water user groups.

The Sachetana Drinking Water Plus project implemented by the BAIF Institute of Rural Development (BIRD-K), in three districts of Karnataka, aims to solve the problem of endemic fluorosis in the region, by providing an alternate source of water and by improving the quality of groundwater.

This report is a mid-term assessment of the project in Mundargi taluk of Gadag district of Karnataka, undertaken to understand and document the decentralized fluoride mitigation strategy adopted in the project villages and to analyze the impact on the groundwater levels and water quality as a result of the project's efforts.

This research study, by Veena Srinivasan, addresses the challenge of supplying water to rapidly growing cities in South Asia, using evidence from the water-scarce city of Chennai. Chennai (formerly Madras) is a rapidly growing metropolis of over 6.5 million people, whose infrastructure has not kept pace with its growing demand for water. In the year 2003-2004, Chennai experienced a severe water crisis, the piped supply for the entire city was virtually shut down for a 12-month period. Consumers became dependent on private tanker suppliers trucking in untreated groundwater from peri-urban areas.

 All the above papers and more resources on this subject, are available at this link: http://groups.google.co.in/group/irrigation-power-energy/files?hl=en

Are Pumped Storage Schemes Beneficial For Harnessing The Krishna River Water Further (1995)

This paper by Manthan Adhyayan Kendra presented at The Third International Conference on Public Policy and Management, Indian

This paper by the People's Science Institute informs that domestic water supply, mistakenly referred to as drinking water supply, is a state subject under the Indian constitution. However, policies and programmes are ususally set within a national framework as a part of the national five year plans. Domestic water supply programme performance in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand have followed national trends.

The paper published in the Journal of Limnology begins by highlighting the problem of the gradual deterioration in the quality of lakes and informs that lakes are suffering from different stress factors and need to be restored using different approaches. The paper goes on to discuss the different approaches and technologies that can be used to restore lakes.

This paper presented at the International Symposium on Artificial Recharge (ISAR-4) Adelaide, Australia describes the attempts made by VIKSAT at experimentation with artificial recharge technique in a peri-urban area called Sargasan in Gandhinagar taluka, Gujarat.

Ground water as a dependable source and its increasing extraction for various uses in India is reflected in the drastic lowering of water levels leading to “local” draw downs. The efficacy of surface water bodies such as tanks, lakes and canals as a means of natural recharge to the ground water has drastically reduced simply because the local water levels are too deep. The need of the hour therefore is for artificial recharge systems that convey the fresh rainwater to the “aquifer”.

This document describes the drought situation in India over the years, the earlier perspective at drought management and the gradual change in perspective at managing droughts that evolved over the years.