Conservation - Reducing Water Usage

Post forwarded by : Sekhar Raghavan

This blog post by Prakash Apte, draws attention to the increasing water demand in urban areas because of industrialisation and population growth by giving the example of Mumbai and points at the current scenario of the lack of availability of adequate and safe water supply to meet the needs of the ever increasing population in the city.

The author proposes that rainwater harvesting can be a viable solution in cities such as Mumbai to meet this increasing demand for water and can provide an opportunity for equitable, efficient and sustainable use of water resources.

There is an urgent need for evolving a rainwater harvesting system that is sustainable, replicable and economically viable and argues that the benefits of using rainwater harvesting can lead to a range of social, economic and environmental benefits and can contribute substantially to improving the quality of life in Mumbai.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has a role and application, in promoting a system and methodology for rain water harvesting and for providing the data needed to enable its large scale implementation in the context of Mumbai.

This report by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) highlights the phenomenon of climate change and argues that water storage will be a key strategy for climate change adaptation in the coming years.

The report discusses the importance of the Hindu Kush Himalayan ranges as an important source of water to a large section of the population and warns of the impending crisis of water scarcity and food insecurity in the regions of Asia, if water harvesting and conservation efforts are not undertaken. The document argues that water storage thus becomes a central issue, which is very complicated to implement, particularly in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region.

Water is main source of life without water we cann't imagine the life of our's. The chief concern is that how we save water Although we have little but save more. Yes this is the issue which is now become an eminent part of our life. We are utilising less & wasting more. We have to search a new method of water saving.

This video from the marathi news channel Star Majha, describes farmer-scientist Arun Deshpande's work on conserving water, through a "Water Bank", in other words, an on-farm pond with a capacity of about 5 crore litres of water, in drought-prone Solapur district of Maharashtra.

Arun is part of Prayog Pariwar (a collaborative network of self-experimenting farmers, initiated by renowned scientist Shripad Dabholkar) and some more details about his work on watershed development are here. Arun's blog is here.

Watch the video:

The World Wetland day 2010 was celebrated by CERC-ATREE with a number of programmes. As an Annual event ‘WETLAND FESTIVAL 2010’ involving the students and teachers from the wetland clubs of Jalapadom schools around the Lake, was held at Kalyani auditorium, Aleppey.

WORLD WATER DAY CELEBRATION

22 March 2010

National Workshop on

Water Conservation and Quality Challenges: Towards Adaptive Strategies

Organised by

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in collaboration with, UNICEF and Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL)

Press release from CII

More Crop per drop: Need of Agriculture today

“The challenge of managing our water resources in a rational and sustainable manner will require action on many fronts and coordination across different sectors of the economy” said Mr. A K Bajaj, Chairman, Central Water Commission and Ex-Officio Secretary to the Government of India, at the inaugural session of the National Seminar on Increasing Water Efficiency in Agriculture Sector organized by CII. Setting the tone of the deliberations he particularly emphasized on the need to address the complex issue through collaborative efforts of the industry and the Government.