World Water Day - Time to get water wise

 
Published: Friday 21 March 2014

How can we chart a course that could lead to a water future which would be sustainable? Sunita Narain offers some insight
Author: Sunita Narain
It was only in March 2013 that the drought crippling large parts of Maharashtra finally grabbed the nation’s attention. The region had been reeling under water scarcity for two years – by 2013, agriculture was severely hit, as was industrial output. Maharashtra is no stranger to droughts. In the 1970s, the state had initiated the country’s first employment guarantee programme to provide drought relief. But the drought of 2013 was different. It brought home the fact that a state can suffer the consequences of increasing variability of rainfall if it mismanages its water. Maharashtra’s drought is a reminder of what awaits India in its water future.
 
When communities take the lead
Thousands of people working under NREGS bring a 38 km stream back from the dead in Uttar Pradesh
Author: Jitendra
Thirty nine-year-old Ram Ishwar gave up farming to pull a rickshaw outside the railway station in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur town. He says scarcity of water and a resultant increase in the cost of irrigation rendered farming unprofitable. Wheat production from his 0.4 hectare (ha) farmland shrank from one tonne to half a tonne in a harvesting season. However, a unique initiative to revive the Sasur Khaderi-2 rivulet in Fatehpur district has given a ray of hope to the many small farmland owners like Ishwar in the district who were forced to quit farming.
 
A farmer in Madhya Pradesh uses discarded saline bottles to irrigate fields
Author: Kundan Pandey
Drip irrigation is a water-efficient means of irrigating fields in drought-prone areas. The infrastructure it requires often proves expensive for small farmers. Now Ramesh Parmar, a small farmer in Rotala village in Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, has devised a simple, inexpensive and effective way of drip irrigating crops. The 33-year-old could earlier cultivate only 1.5 bigha (1 bigha = 0.167 hectare) of the 60 bighas he owned due to severe water scarcity. With his new system, involving the use of a few saline bottles, a small water tank and a bucket, Parmar can conveniently irrigate his fields.
 
With help from a non-profit, graziers reinvent a soil conservation practice, turn into thriving farmers
Author: Jitendra
Moolchand looks up after piling a stack of his wheat harvest, wipes sweat from his face, and smiles. “Harvests are more compared to last year and I will be busy till the wheat reaches my house,” he says. The 63-year-old farmer from Nivera village in Rajasthan’s Karauli district points towards a low cement structure across the dried stream Karaiwahada, and says, “this pagaraa has changed my life. There was a kuchcha pagaraa here 10 years ago but we could harvest only a third of what we do now.” Moolchand then gets busy making a machaan (tree-house) where he will stay the night to guard the harvest against wild animals. He has harvested seven tonnes from his 1.2-hectare farm. Asking his son Kuber to look after the grain, Moolchand says, “Earlier, we were completely dependent on cattle rearing.
 
With about 4 per cent of the water resources of the world, India should have been a water-adequate nation. However, in 2011 India turned into a water-stressed nation, according to experts. Let us have a look at what caused this stress and what steps need to be taken to bring India back to water-adequacy
 
VIDEOS
FROM CENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT
 
Our campaign for people’s water management
 
The relationship between rich people's shit and poor people's water
This is a clip from the film. To order, visit: http://csestore.cse.org.in/faecal-attraction.html
 
INFOGRAPHIC
 
 
DTE Archives
Ganga needs water, not money
Dream stuck in pipeline
Draft a Bill to protect Ganga, PMO tells environment ministry
Maharashtra groundwater bill gets presidential nod
Why 700 litres free water daily may remain a far cry for Delhi
Better sanitation key to improving children's health: World Bank report
Uttar Pradesh to revive dry rivulets under MGNREGS
Green tribunal orders release of funds for conservation of lakes of Bhopal
Bullets for water
Rivers, up close and personal
Drought of equity
Lessons in becoming water wise
Local communities can manage aquifers better: FAO study
Fertile rocky land
Dye filter
Bangladesh courts to the rescue of wetlands
Barind's three crop revolution
World Water Day 2013
In deep water
A million opportunities lost
Monopoly on Mahanadi
Andhra's groundwater crisis & a trail of suicides
Unsafe water stunting growth of Indian children: report
Kerala's answer to drought: PPP model for water management
The true cost of water
Private desires, public fears
Revised draft national water policy restores priority to agriculture
Public private prank
Emergency
Kumbh: time to come clean
Can faith heal?
Chance of revival for Bengaluru’s dying lakes
Everybody loves waterbody
In deep water
Natural highways
Grand distraction called river interlinking
Why floods despite dams
Wetlands and lakes will now be protected under single new conservation programme
Subverting a basic human right
National Water Resources Council approves water policy
National Water Policy, 2012 silent on priorities
500,000 billion litres
Rainwater harvesting aids tsunami-hit Sri Lankan villages
Andhra's groundwater crisis & a trail of suicides
Initiatives
An oasis put to test
Beris to the rescue
Water ATM
Bundelkhand's dalit women join hands to drought-proof their villages
Penny foolish, pond wise
Angioplasty of streams
Soak pit revolution: two villages in Mewat treat their own wastewater
Sewage treatment wetland in making
Fish and a philosophy
Tamil Nadu's temple tanks hold key to water recharge
Drought-proof village in bone dry district
Singapore taps its water
Humble filter makes a comeback
Common sense delivers
Water wise
Reaping rainwater
 
 
 
Resources from India Environment Portal (IEP)
Water Policies/Legislation/
Guidelines – India
National
Water Policies/Legislation/Guidelines – India
State-wise
Water Resources – India
Groundwater - India
Lakes - India
Industry – India
Water Pollution – India
Wetlands - India
Water Resources – Global
Industry – Global
Wetlands – Global

 

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