Data

The Water Portal had previously covered ASHWAS, an ambitious water and sanitation survey in Karnataka conducted by Arghyam and partner organisations.

 CSE (Center for Science and Environment, www.cseindia.org  ) has created an interactive database on threatened lakes of India.

Guest Post by: Himanshu Thakkar, SANDRP

You may recall that following an appeal by SANDRP before the Central Information Commission, CIC had in January 2009 asked India Met Dept to review their policy and put up district wise monthly rainfall data for at least five years on its website. The relevant order of CIC can be seen here: CIC to IMD Review Info Policy and relevant Press Release from SANDRP can be seen at: CIC Directs IMD to Review Information Policy Now, IMD has put up the requested data on its website, see: http://imd.gov.in/section/hydro/distrainfall/districtrain.html IMD tells us that they are still in the process of collecting, collating the data and data of more districts would be uploaded as they are ready. We have also suggested to IMD to also provide annual figures (total of the monthly data) so that people get quick picture about the same. We also notice that links for some of the districts (e.g. Nalgonda in AP) are not working. Let us know if you have other feedback. We would like to thank all those who have also submitted their comments on the India Water Portal, supporting our position, the comments were submitted to IMD and CIC.

Guest Post by: Ranjan Panda

Sambalpur 27.5.2009

What 'Water Initiatives Orissa (WIO)' had found out three years ago have been substantiated now by a World Bank report, titled 'Climate Change Impacts in Drought and Flood Affected Areas: Case Studies in India'. The World Bank report , which took Orissa as a case study of flooding in a climate change scenarios - has referred to projections that 'temperatures, precipitation, and flooding are likely to increase, with adverse impacts on crop yields and farm incomes. Among the more substantial effects is a spatial shift in the pattern of rainfall towards the already flood-prone coastal areas'. Three years ago the WIO had found out significant increase in average annual rainfall in coastal districts like Baleswar and Puri. Now the World Bank report has projected 23 per cent increase in annual mean rainfall in that region.

Rural Development Engineering Department, Government of Karnataka, carried out an analysis of water sources for its quality in rural villages (during 2000-2001).

India water portal has a meteorological data application that has climate parameters on a .5 by .5 latitude/longitude grid throughout the country, for a 100 years. The data is derived from a research data set from the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in the UK.

Rainfall and temperature "normals" for 110 major cities from Indian meteorological department

This "important cities" link gives monthly mean maximum and minimum temperature and monthly total rainfall of important stations for the period 1901-2000 for 110 major cities and towns of India. 

Flood warning: NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA) has a realtime map that gives potential flood areas after 24 hours of rain. (The details of the criteria of flooding are not clear)

The table below provides a categorization of blocks, mandals, taluks and watersheds as overexploited and dark on an all India basis with respect to status of groundwater use and availability.

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This database aims to evolve suitable policy in the field of water supply and sanitation sector and is useful in analyzing the data for implementing suitable programmes in India. As a first step, it was proposed to collect data for all 423 Class I cities in the country, as per census 2001 in the already devised and approved formats for Water Supply Sewerage and Solid Waste Management.