Surface Water

A special issue of the Livelihoods magazine (March 2010) brought out by the Akshara Network for Development Support Services, on Watersheds+.

Increasing productivity of dry lands is possible through soil and moisture conservation (SMC) efforts results in growth led by increases in the farm output. Separate efforts are required to include the land-less and the vulnerable in this growth, so that they also realize the benefits of improved food security, increased employment and diversification of livelihoods. Such activities are known as ‘Watershed Plus’ interventions, and ‘livelihoods’ explores these activities.

The Vembanad estuarine system, the largest of its kind on the west coast of India is known to be abundantly enriched with diverse fishery resources, providing feeding, spawning and rearing areas for a very large proportion of commercial (fin) fish and shellfish. However, ecosystem health of the Vembanad wetlands is alarmingly declining due to a variety of reasons - obstruction of river courses, sand mining & habitat destruction, loss of riparian canopy cover, encroachment, pollution and unethical fishing practices. Reduced summer flow due to drying up of rivers and pollution hazards from agro-chemicals and sewage also lead to mass mortality of fishes. Depletion of fishery resources has changed this ‘inland fish basket’ to an ‘inland wastebasket’, driving the fisherfolk, the primary stakeholders of the lake into a livelihood crisis.

Content Courtesy: GIS Development

Forwarded to the portal by: Sangeeta Deogawanka

Ponds are important sources of fresh water in the world as they store surface runoff produced by the storms. In this research paper, demarcation of the portion of land contributing runoff to ponds in village Nandgaon (Uttar Pradesh) has been done using topographical information of the surrounding area of the ponds, in a GIS interface.

Awards distributed to the winners of Lost lakes of Bangalore – A video contest

The awards ceremony of the Lost lakes of Bangalore video contest was held on July 3, 2010 at the TERI auditorium, Domlur.

The contest had two categories of entries – general (aimed at citizens) and the student category.

The Lost lakes of Bangalore contest elicited 23 student category and 15 general category videos, covering 32 lakes of the city.

The awards ceremony was well attended by students, participants and several citizens of Bangalore. Ms. Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Arghyamreinvigorated the youth to participate in redefining our lifestyles in order to reach sustainable consumption patterns.

This document by Jayanta Bandyopadhyay, highlights the importance of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin as an important source of water for many of the countries in South Asia, and the crucial role of negotiations in the context of the impending water crisis threatening the basin with the phenomenon of climate change.

The document argues that traditional water engineering has been found to be highly reductionistic and ineffective in bringing about development in the GBM basin and the continuing poverty in the GBM basin can be linked to the absence of a holistic ecological perspective, use of an incomplete framework for economics and ignoring of long-run economic costs of the actions proposed.

Article Courtesy: Association for India's Development

Honorable Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh,

We, the undersigned, are writing this letter to ensure that the farmers and tribals displaced by the Sardar Sarovar and Maheswar dams are satisfactorly resettled and rehabilitated and that there is full compliance with environmental safeguards, before any permission is given for further construction work on these dams.

We deeply appreciate the fact that the Central Government has recently ordered suspension of work on the Maheshwar dam since the oustees are not resettled and rehabilitated, as per the requirements of the environmental clearance dated 01.05.2001. While over 80% of the construction work of the Maheshwar dam has been completed a mere 5% of the 70,000 oustees have been rehabilitated.

The paper discuses climatological and fluctuation features of important parameters of the Hydrological Wet Season (HWS), viz. starting and ending dates, duration, seasonal rainfall/rainwater and surplus rainfall/rainwater potential individually for the eleven major and thirty six minor river basins, the West Coast Drainage System (WCDS) and the rest of the country. It is based on reliable monthly rainfall data from a well spread network of three hundred and sixteen rain gauge stations from 1813 upto 2006.

The paper observes that the average period of the HWS is in close conformity with the southwest Monsoonal Rainy Season (MRS) over the basins in the Core Monsoon Rainfall Regime (CMRR). In the Mixed Monsoon Rainfall Regime (MMRR) covering south peninsula, northeast and extreme north, the HWS is of longer duration compared to the MRS due to extra-monsoonal rainfall over there. The mean starting date of the HWS is May 30, ending October 11 and the duration is 135 days for the entire country.

Article Courtesy: Funds for NGOs.org

“The Ramsar Small Grants Fund (SGF) was established in 1990 as a mechanism to assist developing countries and those with economies in transition in implementing the Convention and to support the conservation and wise use of wetland resources, with a strong human and social dimension. From 1991 to 2008 the Fund has provided a total of 7.5 million Swiss Francs to 227 projects from 108 countries, providing up to 40,000 Swiss francs (about US$32,000) per project.”

The paper critically evaluates the Greater Bangalore Water and Sanitation Project (GWSAP), implemented by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). This project aims to extend piped water supply from the Cauvery to over two million residents in peri-urban Bangalore. This ambitious project has been viewed against the backdrop of the broader trends and debates around market-based reforms in the water sector in Karnataka.

The report presents field experiences and lessons in developing Incentive-based Mechanisms (IBMs) for watershed protection services and improved livelihoods at micro and macro-scales, derived from an action-learning project in India at three locations in the states of Himachal Pradesh (HP) and Madhya Pradesh (MP).

An inter-village transaction was facilitated at one site (the Kuhan micro-catchment in HP), while at the second site (Suan micro-catchment in HP) a transaction failed to materialize despite initial interest. At the third site in MP, there was interest in undertaking a transaction between the city of Bhopal and the catchment of its lake, the Bhoj Wetlands. 

The action research has yielded insights into the role of hydrological information, types of incentive mechanisms, the importance of institutions and the implementation of IBMs.