Water Management

Microorganisms occur in piped distributions from source water, through contamination during distributions and because of growth. Different organisms may cause a range of adverse health effects. Effective management varies with the organisms and their origin.

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.

This series, published by the GWP Secretariat in Stockholm has been created to disseminate the papers written and commissioned by the TEC to address the conceptual agenda. Issues and sub-issues with them, such as the understanding and definition of IWRM, water for food security, public-private partnerships, and water as an economic good have been addressed in these papers.

The Uttaranchal decentralised watershed development project was being implemented (1999 – 2005) with World Bank assistance in the state.

This deals with the Andhra Pradesh water land and trees act, an act to promote water conservation, and tree cover and to regulate the exploitation and use of ground and surface water for protection and conservation of water sources, land and environment.

The Parthasarathy Committe was a Technical Committee on DPAP, DDP, IWDP Programmes constituted by the Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) in 2006 and its report has attempted an exhaustive review of the experience of the watershed programme in India.

Short films about the management of urban water in India click here

Short movies on "watershed development" click here

A report for the Planning Commission presents the water policy and action plan for the year 2020 for the country. The goals  put forward in the policy are such as would do justice to all users of water and yet would be practical and achievable. At present it is the central and state governments that play the key role in the management of water resources. The policy proposed, on the other hand, seeks to involve all the people at the level of the local communities so that they can conserve, develop and manage the water resource at the local level itself.

This paper by Priya Sangameswaram in the Economic and Political Weekly deals with equity in watershed development in Hivre Bazar in Western Maharashtra.

This report by FoRWARD deals with the reorientation of the watershed development programme in India. The government is apparently committing larger resources for watershed development and plans to bring most of the dryland, degraded lands under the coverage of the programme over the next 25 years or so.