Groundwater Recharge

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July 2, 2024 Community governance for groundwater management
Jasmine on the fields as part of the groundwater collectivisation agreement at Kummara Vandla Palli village, Sri Satya Sai District. (Images: WASSAN/Swaran)
June 13, 2024 The rising trend of abandoning open wells for borewells in Chikkaballapur and Annamayya districts, and the potential negative consequences of this shift.
Borewell proliferation may dry up open wells (Image: FES)
May 12, 2024 Rethinking community engagement in the Atal Bhujal Yojana
Towards sustainable groundwater management (Image: IWMI)
December 12, 2023 Learnings from India's Participatory Groundwater Management Programme
Launched in 2019, Atal Bhujal Yojana aims to mainstream community participation and inter-ministerial convergence in groundwater management. (Image: Picryl)
April 11, 2023 Groundwater depletion from shallow and deep aquifers due to overextraction and seawater intrusion are rapidly drying up freshwater resources in the Cauvery delta. Large-scale groundwater recharge campaigns to raise awareness and aid the recovery of water levels are urgently needed.
Cauvery river at Karnataka (Image Source: Ashwin Kumar via Wikimedia Commons)
December 25, 2022 A study develops a prototype method by employing the remote sensing-based ecological index
rigorous post-implementation monitoring and impact assessment of assets is needed (Image: UN Women)
MARVI: Securing groundwater supplies through engaging village communities
Improving decision-making for sustainable groundwater use Posted on 23 Feb, 2021 06:02 PM

Groundwater levels across India have been falling rapidly, affecting the livelihood and wellbeing of village communities. Top-down approaches to groundwater management have not worked.

Designing participatory processes to assist village level discovery and implementation of solutions for sustaining groundwater use and improved livelihoods (Image: MARVI)
Patterns of social exclusion in watershed development in India
How have watershed development projects fared in India? Have they helped in better distribution of benefits among the poor and marginalised? Posted on 27 Nov, 2020 11:13 PM

How have watershed development projects fared in India? Have they helped in better distribution of benefits among the poor and marginalised? Why is it important to talk about watershed development at this juncture?

This book by Dr Eshwer Kale dwells on these questions and explores issues around social exclusion among resource-poor people in watershed development projects.

Watershed development: Towards equitable outcomes (Image Source: India Water Portal)
Ahar pynes: Traditional flood harvesting systems of South Bihar
The Ahar pynes of South Bihar are a classic example of a community managed irrigation systems and need urgent revival. Posted on 18 Nov, 2020 02:17 PM


Ahar pynes, the ingenious community managed irrigation systems of South Bihar

Ahar Pyne system in Gaya, South Bihar  (Image courtesy: Hindi Water Portal)
Springs that sustain millions
Springs, the greenest source of water, and the strongest bulwark against climate change in the mountains are in dire need of protection. Posted on 16 Nov, 2020 01:07 PM

For a long time, villagers of Thanakasoga in Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh knew about the depletion of their drinking water sources and the thirstier future they faced. “We depend on bawdis and natural springs, from where we fetched water. By 2012, our springs were dying and could hardly cater to the local demand.

Springshed management has brought the much-required difference in people's lives, as the discharge of the springs increased (Image: Kedarnathsmritivan; Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0))
Data, data everywhere, but where?
Involving the community in a data framework with the right incentives will have the second-order benefit of the community becoming decision makers with respect to water use. Posted on 16 Oct, 2020 09:21 AM

A few of us did an exercise where we closed our eyes and thought of the first four words that came to our minds when we thought of water data in India. Here is what we came up with:

The seamless flow of data from one program to another can be enabled if a few principles are kept in mind (Image: José Manuel Suárez, Wikimedia Commons)
Groundwater recharge needs grassroots solutions: A study of two techniques in Kerala
Although groundwater is emerging as a critical issue and has managed to encourage new government schemes, a generic solution of rainwater recharge cannot be applied across different regions. Posted on 09 Oct, 2020 12:42 PM

In Kerala, around half the urban population and 80% of the rural population depend on open wells on their domestic water needs. But in the last decade, the majority of observatory wells recorded an average annual decline of half a meter.

Rainwater is captured from the rooftop of the community hall and diverted to the sump before it is pumped into the open well. (Image by Authors)
Water wisdom of the Gonds of Garha Mandla
A peek into history shows how the Gonds of Garha Mandla managed their water needs with great ingenuity and wisdom by constructing and maintaining water tanks . Posted on 03 Oct, 2020 05:11 PM

The Gond dynasties mainly flourished in the Central highlands of India. This region includes Sagar, Bhopal, and nearly half of Narmada valley, including the flanks of Vindhya and the Satpuda mountain ranges of southern Madhya Pradesh. The principal states of the Gonds were Garha-Mandla (1300 to 1789), Devgarh, Kherla and Chanda.

Kolatal, a traditional tank in Garha region of Jabalpur (Image Source: K. G. Vyas)
Where does the water in a well come from?
In the water sector, the focus on fixing demand and supply is taking us away from the real problem - the unnoticed groundwater dependencies in ever-expanding urban India. Posted on 29 Sep, 2020 12:58 PM

The environment versus development debate has increasingly become more polarised, with discussions in the public domain revealing a stark contrast of views. Development has increasingly come to symbolise ‘doing something’ and ensuring ‘visible outputs’, largely in the form of infrastructure.

An open well in Maharashtra (Image Source: IWP Flickr photos) Image used for representational purposes only.
Uttarakhand: Reaching the unreached
PSI addresses the shortage of safe drinking water in remote Uttarakhand villages through a participatory community-based approach to springshed management. Posted on 11 Sep, 2020 07:48 PM

People in remote hamlets left out by previous schemes like Swajal and Sector Wide Approach Program of the Uttarakhand Jal Nigam and Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan longed for household-level piped water supply for drinking and domestic purposes.

Women trudged long distances daily to fetch water for their basic household needs in Rupail (Image: People's Science Institute)
Drying veins of Ganga: Can we have ‘Nirmal Ganga’ with dying tributaries?
There is an urgent need to prioritise uninterrupted river flow over unpolluted flow in the Namami Gange programme. Posted on 27 Aug, 2020 05:22 PM

India’s Himalayan rivers have been a cradle of civilisational development and a centre for faith and culture for ages. Ganga being a fertile basin has been a significant contributor to our agricultural economy as well as our river-based agrarian development.

The Baand river is nearly dry even when the region saw above normal monsoon this year. Much of the riverbed is encroached by farms. (Image: Adeel Khan and Praharsh Patel)
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