Research Papers

Author Sunderajan Krishnan argues that the apparent duality between formal science and one based on traditional wisdom and observations is an illusion and decision making on groundwater management has a lot to gain from traditional knowledge sources.

This PhD dissertation by Jenny T Gronwall for Linkoping University's Tema Institute looks at issues of drinking water access in Bangalore through the framework of human rights, analyzing three interlinked dimensions: the right to water as a human right; water in terms of property rights; and water rights. 

The paper by Carewater INREM Foundation on the groundwater situation in urban India provides an overview besides dealing with the opportunities and challenges. Groundwater plays a fundamental role in shaping the economic and social health of many urban centres of India.

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.

The normative framework underlying the review “Understanding watershed development” requires a “normative framework” embracing the notions of “watershed” and “watershed development’, and how they are translated into practice. Such translation may also be based upon additional assumption about what is possible and desirable, and how to bring these changes about.

This report by Forum for Watershed Research and Policy Dialogue (FoRWARD) attempts to look at the present status of watershed development in the State of Madhya Pradesh so as to be able move towards a vision of better convergence across developmental objectives (including equity), synergy between natural resource regeneration, administrative co- ordination, institutional coherence, and resource mobilization. It is in this larger context, the review focuses is on (a) spatial spread, prioritization, and complementarity across projects; (b) comparison across modes/ approaches and cross learning; and, (c) issues for future policies. 

The report on “Watershed Development in Maharashtra” by Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) ), on behalf of the Forum for Watershed Research and Policy Dialogue (ForWaRD), deals with the present scenario and issues for restructuring the programme. The concept of integrated and participatory watershed development and management has emerged as the cornerstone of rural development in the dry and semi-arid regions of India. Over the years the country has been making increasing investments in this area with the objective of enhancing the production potential of rainfed agriculture.

This article by Rajashree V Bothale deals with the identification of suitable sites for water harvesting structures in Upper Betwa watershed through WARIS. The present study uses decision support system WARIS for identification of suitable sites for water harvesting structures.

The article deals with AVSWAT- A spatial decision support system for land and water management and its application for watershed management in Bankura district of West Bengal. Decision Support Systems (DSS) are defined as computer-based information systems designed to support decision makers interactively in thinking and making decisions about relatively unstructured problems. Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS), which are the integration of DSS and GIS was initiated by Densham and Goodchild ( 1988) are emerging as efficient tools for managing natural resources like land and water.