News and Articles

A national discussion is underway in India on water management issues, with a significant emphasis on decentralization of water supply systems.  Rashtriya Jal Biradari of Rajasthan held a conference in New Delhi in June 2004 (indiatogether.org, July 2004) to propose policies and steps to address India’s water problems.

Basic and advanced tutorial on wastewater management by Shiv Shankar Ranganathan

Saurashtra is the peripheral region along Coastal Gujarat. It is composed of a Central basaltic plateau that rises 100 to 200m above mean sea level with an average annual rainfall of about 600 mm. The rainfall is concentrated in a few days during which the incident rainfall leads to flashfloods draining into the sea.

The term "Operation and Maintenance" has been used as a general concept covering a wide range of activities carried out by utilities, government and communities in order to sustain their services and to maintain existing capital assets.

SWITCH is an action research programme, implemented and co-funded by the European Union and a cross-disciplinary team of 33 partners from 15 countries around the world. Increasing global change pressures, escalating costs and other risks inherent to conventional urban water management are causing cities to face ever increasing difficulties in efficiently managing scarcer and less reliable water resources. As well, satisfying water uses/services and waste water disposal without creating environmental, social or economic damage is an increasingly difficult challenge.

Performance improvement planning helps service providers in bringing about incremental improvements in services by applying the principles of commercial orientation and financial viability. This overview paper by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) South Asia of the World Bank, explores how such improvements can be undertaken so that they remain sustainable in the long run as well.

A major problem faced by the towns and cities across the world is the dealing with the huge volume of wastewater generated everyday. The wastewater is either treated with high costing conventional water treatment procedures or let untreated into rivers or other water bodies.

This section from www.rainwaterharvesting.org deals with traditional water harvesting systems. Water has been harvested in India since antiquity, with our ancestors perfecting the art of water management. Many water harvesting structures and water conveyance systems specific to the eco-regions and culture has been developed.

• They harvested the rain drop directly. From rooftops, they collected water and stored it in tanks built in their courtyards. From open community lands, they collected the rain and stored it in artificial wells.
• They harvested monsoon runoff by capturing water from swollen streams during the monsoon season and stored it various forms of water bodies. 
• They harvested water from flooded rivers

Portal Staff member Vijay Krishna writes: