Deep Aquifers

Featured Articles
July 11, 2022
Greening of barren lands – the local way
The Chauka system of Rajasthan can not only provide a sustainable way to manage water resources in water stressed regions, but also support livelihoods through development of pastures.
Can greening of barren lands happen? (Image Source: India Water Portal Flickr photos)
July 29, 2021
Demystifying groundwater for collective action
Experiences from participatory groundwater management efforts in Maharashtra
Unless work on managing the demand is undertaken, the notion of ‘infinite’ groundwater will be hard to address. (Image: Rucha Deshmukh, ACWADAM)
December 4, 2019
Looking back into history to understand droughts
The 2015­-2018 drought, the longest, but less severe of droughts experienced by India raises alarm on the negative effects of future droughts on water security in the country.
India will see more droughts in the future. (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)
October 25, 2019
Mapping Pune’s aquifers
Groundwater use has doubled in Pune. Comprehensive mapping of groundwater resources and better management and governance is the need of the hour.
Groundwater, an exploited resource (Image Source: India Water Portal)
October 1, 2019
From droughts to floods: India’s tryst with climate extremes
Deconstructing the traditional narrow engineering based policy discourses around floods and droughts and connecting them to social and cultural realities is the need of the hour in India.
Water talk Series at Mumbai (Image Source:Tata Insitute of Social Sciences)
September 30, 2019
The Water Future Conference in Bangalore: Towards a Sustainable Water Future
The recently concluded 4 day conference in Bangalore looked at the current state of global water resource challenges & future pathways to achieve the SDGs, while ensuring equity in access to all.
Charles Vorosmarty, Chair, COMPASS Initiative, Water Future at the opening plenary on advanced water system assessments to address water security challenges of the 21st century.
Uttarakhand: Reaching the unreached
PSI addresses the shortage of safe drinking water in remote Uttarakhand villages through a participatory community-based approach to springshed management.
Puran Bartwal
People’s Science Institute
Posted on 11 Sep, 2020 07:48 PM

People in remote hamlets left out by previous schemes like Swajal and Sector Wide Approach Program of the Uttarakhand Jal Nigam and Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan longed for household-level piped water supply for drinking and domestic purposes.
Women trudged long distances daily to fetch water for their basic household needs in Rupail (Image: People's Science Institute)
Drying veins of Ganga: Can we have ‘Nirmal Ganga’ with dying tributaries?
There is an urgent need to prioritise uninterrupted river flow over unpolluted flow in the Namami Gange programme.
Adeel Khan
Praharsh Patel
Posted on 27 Aug, 2020 05:22 PM

India’s Himalayan rivers have been a cradle of civilisational development and a centre for faith and culture for ages. Ganga being a fertile basin has been a significant contributor to our agricultural economy as well as our river-based agrarian development.
The Baand river is nearly dry even when the region saw above normal monsoon this year. Much of the riverbed is encroached by farms. (Image: Adeel Khan and Praharsh Patel)
Understanding Atal Bhujal Yojana through the program guidelines
The program envisages promoting panchayat led groundwater management and behavioural change with a primary focus on demand-side management.
Manisha Shah
Nikita Deshpande
Posted on 10 Aug, 2020 03:59 PM

Groundwater fulfills the drinking water requirements of nearly 85% and 50% of the rural and urban Indian population, respectively. 65% of the total irrigated area utilizes groundwater. It also caters to the water needs of the industrial sector in India.
Community participation is expected to facilitate bottom-up groundwater planning process to improve the effectiveness of public financing and align implementation of various government programs on groundwater in the participating states (Image: Water Alternatives, Flickr Commons)
Pumping groundwater to harnessing rainfall: A tale of two states
Saurashtra, and Vidarbha and Marathwada have similar climatic and aquifer characteristics. Why do the latter suffer from droughts when Saurashtra has been able to improve its groundwater levels?
Praharsh M.Patel
Dipankar Saha
Tushaar Shah
Posted on 01 Jul, 2020 12:04 PM

Groundwater depletion, a growing challenge for India
Groundwater decline in India (Image Source: India Water Portal)
Need to protect the unique geological features in the Upper Ken basin
An attempt to document the geological features, water potential, and traditional wisdom around them in the Upper Ken basin.
Seema Ravandale
Posted on 07 Jun, 2020 12:52 PM

Kathayi, a scheduled tribe (ST) dominated village in the midst of the forested stretches of Shahnagar block in Panna district faces acute water scarcity during the 3-4 summer months. Through the government schemes, three wells and two hand pumps were installed in this 75 household village in the last 10-15 years, but most of them are dysfunctional now.
Panghata Kund in village Aloni, Panna (June 2014, after initial monsoon) (Image: Seema Ravandale)
Developing an effective participatory groundwater monitoring program at village level
Issues in groundwater management and recharge have been dealt with in a series of booklets as a part of the MARVI project.
Amita Bhaduri
Aarti Kelkar Khambete
Posted on 16 May, 2020 03:52 PM

The ‘Managing Aquifer Recharge and Sustaining Groundwater Use through Village-level Intervention’ (MARVI) project is being undertaken since February 2012 with the overall aim to improve the security of irrigation water supplies and enhance livelihood opportunities for rural communities in India.
One of the Bhujal Jankaars measuring groundwater levels manually (Image: Basant Maheshwari)
Springing back to life
Jal Jeevan Mission can go a long way to promote springshed management and ensure source sustainability of spring based piped water supply.
Amita Bhaduri
Manisha Shah
Posted on 20 Apr, 2020 11:45 PM

Springs are the key source of water for rural households in Uttarakhand, yet they have seen an overall neglect over the decades with discharge from many springs declining bit by bit. The depletion of aquifers, changes in land use and ecological degradation have led to several initiatives to address springshed management in the state. We speak to Dr.
Image: Flickr Commons
Decentralised groundwater governance to deal with the groundwater crisis
Decentralised groundwater governance frameworks that integrate democratic institutional mechanisms are needed to deal with the current groundwater crisis in India.
Aarti Kelkar Khambete
Harshavardhan Dhawan
Posted on 17 Feb, 2020 05:43 PM

The challenges to sustain groundwater dependency in India are many where groundwater over extraction is not only leading to rapid depletion of the resource, but also giving rise to water quality issues in a situation where the response at the level of policy continues to be lukewarm.
The need for decentralised governance to deal with the current groundwater crisis (Image Source: ACWADAM)
Budget 2020: Is the allocation enough to meet the piped water dream
Experts discuss if the budget has enough funds for water access and security.
Amita Bhaduri
Posted on 09 Feb, 2020 09:25 PM

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget announcement on February 1, 2020 made a push for piped rural drinking water supply and promised full coverage of all households by 2024.
Just 21.4 percent of India’s households have access to piped water, as per NSSO data (Image: Niyantha Shekar, Flickr Commons; CC BY-NC 2.0)
Perils, politics and prospects of groundwater in India
How can India change the game on groundwater management to deal with its overexploited aquifers?
Manisha Shah
Bishwadeep Ghose
Posted on 05 Feb, 2020 03:15 PM

After independence, India was largely food insecure but post Green Revolution around the 1970s, foodgrain production increased manifold consequently reducing food insecurity and poverty in the country, in spite of rapid population growth. Its ability to achieve targeted results was largely dependent on the explosion of groundwater abstraction mechanisms like tubewells.
An irrigation well at Randullabad, Maharashtra. (Image source: India Water Portal on Flickr)
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