Water Management

Content Courtesy: DevNetJobsIndia

• Technical Officer

WaterAid India

Location: Bhubaneshwar
Last Date: September 5, 2010

This document is an educational booklet on water management, published by Utthan, which works towards empowering women's groups to seek clean and adequate quality of water for all. 

The booklet provides background information on water as an important natural resource and the importance of protecting and maintaining the quality and quantity of this natural resource.

The details have been explained in a manner that is simple and understandable and include illustrations that are self explanatory and easy to follow.

The booklet is divided into the following sections:

This paper published in the South Asian Journal of Tourism and Heritage describes the water quality status of Gundolav Lake in Rajasthan, which was once used for drinking water as well as for recreational activities under the tutelage of the princely state of Kishangarh. This has now become a site of wastewater disposal and facing a critical threat for its sustenance. 

Recent years have led to an increasing awareness of the importance of water bodies and  the need for conservation of water bodies, especially freshwater wetlands. The Ramsar Convention (2002) identifies wetlands as the starting point for integrated water management strategies. This is because they are the source of fresh water, maintain the health of the water course and water bodies, have the capacity to supply water to meet the human needs and are a key to future water security.

The presentation by ACWADAM deals with a case study of augmenting groundwater resources by artificial recharge in Kolwan valley, Mulshi taluka, Pune. The DfID funded project was undertaken by the British Geological Survey in collaboration with its partners in India from 2002–2005. The objectives of the study were:

• Improved knowledge of the impacts of managed aquifer recharge in different physical and socio-economic settings.
• Guidance on scope and effectiveness of managed aquifer recharge for implementers, funders and policy makers.
• Dissemination of knowledge.

The SANDRP newsletter for June-July 2010 continues its critical analysis of dams, irrigation and related issues:

• Unprecedented floods in Ghaggar Basin in Punjab and Haryana
• Free-flowing rivers around the World
• Artificial Glaciers to Survive Global Warming
• Babli row between AP & Maharashtra
• Successful campaign against Rupsiyabagar Khasiyabada HEP

In order to maintain the ecological goods and services of rivers and other hydrological regimes like wetlands, lakes, etc., environmental flow allocations (eflows) are a necessity. At the same time, water demands in India are increasing and will keep increasing and solutions like waste water treatment, pollution control, correction of leakages and wastage of water, efficient irrigation systems, efficient agricultural systems, etc., will take considerable time to evolve, even with our best efforts. So what should we do in the meantime? There are vulnerable ecological systems on the verge of collapse..How do we respond to these challenges?

The presentation by ACWADAM is part of the training module developed by them on “Planning, development and management of groundwater with special reference to watershed management programmes”. Pumping a well and observing the effect of such pumping on the water level in the pumped well as well as in the adjoining parts of the aquifer through observation wells is the basic procedure involved in a pumping test.

The Schools Water Portal is a section under the India Water Portal, an open, inclusive, web-based platform, for sharing water management knowledge amongst practitioners and the general public. It is a voluntary effort co-ordinated by Arghyam, a non-profit trust set up with a personal endowment from Ms. Rohini Nilekani, which works in the area of water.

The Schools Water Portal is organizing "Drop Shot - Photo Contest" for all the students above VIII std to XII std and the undergraduates (2 categories).

The study was done under the "Strategic Analyses of India’s National River Linking Project", of the Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF) to estimate the available runoff in the potential regions to mitigate the terminal drought in the dominant rainfed districts of India.