Groundwater

   CAREWATER's recent solicitation for comments on IWP blog (click here),  on their research study on dugwell recharge draws attention to a little-known programme of the government of India on decentralized groundwater recharge through the use of farmer d

This is a DVD made by a non-profit group that has been uploaded to the web where it could reach many more people and add visibility to your organisation's work. If you would like India Water Portal to do something similiar with your organisation's DVD , please mail us at portal@arghyam.org

A sharing workshop on groundwater organised by ACWADAM (Advanced Center for Water Development and Management) in Pune on 21/22nd May 2009 saw some very good presentations being made. Dr Tushaar's Shah's keynote speech provided an amazing big picture of groundwater use in agriculture. The presentation can be viewed on slideshare and the entire speech is available on YouTube in 4 parts.

Guest post on the Portal by Sunderrajan Krishnan, CAREWATER, (Center for Action, Research and Education on Water), www.carewater.org . === As a response to water stress in hard rock areas of the country, the Government of India has designed the Artificial Programme on Dug Well Recharge aimed at rejuvenating hard rock aquifers across the country. The idea is to divert rainfall runoff into open wells as a means of harvesting rainfall runoff and increasing recharge into aquifers. Currently as of April 2009, the program is underway in a couple of states, mainly in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, and other states are following suit. The program is ambitious in the sense that it aims to bring in millions of dug well owning farmers towards recharging. How will such a program be implemented, monitored and channeled so that the results are achieved to satisfaction? CAREWATER has designed a network of partners and is conducting studies to understand Dug well recharge and providing feedbacks to this national programme on artificial dug well recharge. Towards this purpose, since September 2008 we have created a partner base of organizations who along with our expertise are carrying out ground studies and analysis. Some of these results are available now on our website http://www.carewater.org (Please click on the link at the bottom of the homepage). We hope to keep updating this page as the program continues and wish to have more partners join our endeavor. In particular we have published a study of dug well recharge. The study is summarized below. We would like a larger discussion of the results of the study. Your comments below will be very useful to take this project forward more effectively.

In this presentation Sakshi Jain,  Vastukala Academy and Suruchi Shah, TVB School of Habitat Studies, New Delhi highlighted the grim water situation in Delhi and have designed a groundwater recharge system which collects rooftop rainwater from settlements around an identified site and recharges it into the ground through adequate filter media.

Water is collected from rooftops and paved ground surfaces and after adequate filtering is recharged into the ground through recharge pits and trenches. Grey water from the dining hall is also filtered and recharged.

These documents deal with proceedings of the discussion initiated by Gomukh Trust, Pune with support from Arghyam, Bangalore on “Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Act” to examine it in the context of Integrated River Basin  Management and community participation.  The objectives of the conference were –

The national seminar on “Changing geohydrological scenario in the hard rock terrain in India”, was jointly organised by the Geological Society of India, Department of Mines and Geology, Central Ground Water Board, Karnataka Jal Biradari and Karnataka Institute of Cooperative Management.

The Central Ground Water Board, Ministry of Water Resources organized a “National Congress on Groundwater” in 2007 to address various issues related to better governance of groundwater as well as facilitate the sharing of information and coordination with various agencies and stakeholders engaged in the programme of groundwater development and management.

Planning commsision releases september 2007 report of the expert group on "Ground Water Management and Ownership". The report looks primarily at the problem of rural depletion of groundwater and looked into the feasibility and necessity of changing groundwater law.