Water management in Rural India.

India being an agricultural country, it’s dependency on water has been increasing tremendously. Therefore, rainfall plays a vital role in growth of crops. But due to environmental changes variations are observed in rainfall. Let’s discuss the reasons behind this along with the solutions.

What are the effects of climate change and global warming?

• rising maximum temperatures.
• rising minimum temperatures.
• rising sea levels.
• higher ocean temperatures.
• an increase in heavy precipitation (heavy rain and hail)
• shrinking glaciers.
• thawing permafrost. (Source~my climate.org)

According to a report, Most Indian farmers rely on good crop produce during Monsoon to earn their living and in order to overcome debts incurred. Crop failure and/or deficient rainfall is one big reason for mass farmer suicides across the country. This further cements the importance of Monsoon in an agrarian economy like India.

The crops that require rainfall or large amount of water for its growth are Rice, wheat, millet, bajra etc which has a great proportion of India’s agriculture.

Over the last around 100 years, the world has witnessed two major shifts in water management:

One, individuals and communities steadily handed over their role to the State despite the fact that more than 150 years ago no government anywhere in the world provided water.

Second, the use of simple technologies of harvesting and using rainwater declined. And, exploitation of rivers and groundwater through dams and tube wells became the key source of water.

Water in rivers and aquifers was only a small portion of the total rainwater. So, there was an inevitable, growing and, in many cases, unbearable stress on them.

Dependence on the State also meant that costs of water supply were high. Poor cost of recovery drove financial sustainability of water schemes aground and repairs and maintenance were in an abysmal state

Census 2011 showed that India had 0.64 million inhabited villages with a total population of 833 million. This means every village has an average population of 1,300. India’s average annual rainfall is about 1,088 mm.

It varies from about 200 mm in the deserts of western India to more than 25,000 mm in the hills of the North East. Nearly 12 per cent of the country receives an average rainfall of less than 610 mm per annum while 8 per cent receives more than 2,500 mm. But more than 50 per cent of this rain falls in about 15 days and in less than 100 hours, of the total 8,760 hours in a year.

But inspite of being such a huge agricultural country why do our farmers only depend upon rain in so many rural region of India? Are there no any alternatives if rainfall in inadequate?

Yes, surely there are ways in order to reduce to the dependency on only rainfall. For example many countries like Israel, Japan have various canals and underground storage facilities that can be used when there is inadequate rain.

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is the collection and storage of rain, rather than allowing it to run off. Rainwater is collected from a roof-like surface and redirected to a tank, cistern, deep pit (well, shaft, or borehole), aquifer, or a reservoir with percolation, so that it seeps down and restores the ground water. Dew and fog can also be collected with nets or other tools. (Source~ Wikipedia)

RWH can be used to store rainwater and utilised when there is unavailability of rain. Moreover canals and dams can be constructed along the crops growing areas. This may take a long time but benefits can be seen on a long run.

On average, 65% of rainwater is lost and not available to crops in rain-fed agriculture. Farmers need to capture and store water so they can use it during the dry period. Conservation or minimum tillage is a farming practice in which crops are grown with minimum soil disturbance. (Source~IAEA)

On the other hand crops grown near the coastline can be mostly benefited but it in reality it is seen that, due to lack of technology and lack of utilisation they are mostly disrupted. Ways such as converting sea water to useful water can be developed near such places which can be studied from Japans seawater converting plant.

Thus, in order to maintain the agricultural country and for saving the lives of farmers, methods should be used during inadequate rainfall.

Moreover, recognising the fact that almost all the rain came down in a few days, ancient Indians learnt to harvest rainwater in a variety of ways. In Rajasthan, people collected water flowing down from rooftops and stored it in tanks built in their courtyards. They stored the rain falling on open community lands in artificial wells, called kundis.

In water-surplus areas, people harvested monsoon run-off by capturing water from swollen streams and stored it in zings in Ladakh, ahars in Bihar, johads in Rajasthan and Eris in Tamil Nadu, to name a few. Even in north Bihar and West Bengal, people harvested water from flooded rivers.

So, it is possible to drought-proof the entire country. It is possible to provide not just drinking water to all but also irrigation water to most of the agricultural fields — of course for growing crops that are less water-intensive.

The strategy is to ensure that every village captures all the run-off resulting from the rain falling over its entire land and the associated government revenue and forest lands, especially during years when the rain is normal. Then the villages should store it in tanks or ponds or use it to recharge the depleting groundwater.

Only then the country can have enough water in its tanks and wells to irrigate lands in every single village.