Irrigation

The UN Panel on Climate Change is informing the world on what damage global warming can cause. But a recent study shows how temperature changes have already hit the global economy and Indian agriculture is suffering the brunt of it.

The document informs that traditionally Indians worshipped both water and rain as “Jala” and “Varuna”. Even rivers were worshipped. Till 3000 B.C., RWH happened without human effort as rain got collected in rivers and natural depressions. Civilizations flourished on river banks all over the world Indus valley civilization in India.

The School of Environmental Studies - Jadavpur University (SOES-JU), has done path-breaking research in reporting and documenting the issue of Arsenic contamination in the country.

India is gifted with heterogeneous landforms and variety of climatic conditions such as the lofty mountains, the raverine deltas, high altitude forests, peninsular plateaus, variety of geological formations endowed with temperature varying from arctic cold to equatorial hot, and rainfall from extreme aridity with a few cms (<10 cm) to pre humid with world's maxim

This talk is part of a multimedia course series developed by Arghyam for the India Water Portal. The talk is in Hindi, with some subtitles in English.

The work done by the villagers of Hiware Bazaar (Maharashtra) in transforming their village, through soil and water conservation works with Government / Panchayat funds is well known.

Consisting mainly of arid and semi-arid areas and the country's 200 backward districts, these rainfed regions are concentrated in 13 states.

Centuries old dried up water tanks have been revived with the combined efforts of the local community and the authorities.

The map indicates that across the main 19 river basins of the country, water resource projects with a total live storage of 174 BCM (Billion Cubic Metres) have been completed, 75 BCM are ongoing, and 132 BCM are being planned.

Tarun Bharat Sangh and Rajendar Singh started a massive campaign to spread awareness of traditional water harvesting structures in order to restore the water resources of arid Rajasthan. The aim was to popularize the use of such traditional structures across the country.