Extract of the Address at All India Seminar on Sustainable Development of Watersheds and Lakes (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
India occupies approximately 2.4% of the total geographical area of the world, while it supports over 15% of the world population. Unprecedented population pressure and demand of society on scarce land, water and biological resources and the increasing degradation of these resources is affecting the stability and resilience of our ecosystems and the environment as a whole. Therefore, the productive agriculture lands in the country are in constant process of varying degrees of degradation and are fast turning into wastelands. It is precisely to restore this ecological imbalance by developing the degraded non-forest wastelands. To harness the full potential of the available land resources and prevent its further degradation, wasteland development is of great significance. The problem of degraded land, water and its management is complex and multi-dimensional and its development aims to develop human resource in watershed development and management and generate awareness about the impo...
An Approach to Sustainable Watershed Management
Reconsidering the Impact of Climate Change on Global Water Supply, Use, and Management
Western Maharashtra consists of drought prone villages, which around seventy years ago were facing drastic challenges regarding water requirements. People living in such areas started to migrate from these villages in need of food and water. The chapter focuses on few case studies of drought prone areas of Western Maharashtra which made a move towards sustainability and has created an excellent model of watershed projects. Several practices like ban on cutting trees, terrace farming, contour bunding, drip irrigation, sprinkle irrigation, introduction of cooking stoves, rotational grazing, efficient water distribution and change in cultivation of agricultural crops according to the climate were followed which led the village to become a model for Aadarsh Gaon (An Ideal Village). The author has used secondary data from previous research work and critically analyses the case studies on water management in drought prone areas of Western Maharashtra which managed to become a model for su...
A Conceptual Framework for Sustainable Watershed Management
This paper presents an analytical framework that helps to understand the different aspects and elements of sustainable watershed management and their interactions. Each element has been examined as to how it affects sustainability in relation to the other elements. The framework helps to reveal the important factors contributing to land and water management and the livelihood of the people. The framework outlined here should be applicable to watershed evaluation not only in Kerala in South India but also elsewhere in the world with similar situations
IJERT-Environmental Impact Assessment of a Watershed Project – A Review
International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology (IJERT), 2015
https://www.ijert.org/environmental-impact-assessment-of-a-watershed-project-a-review https://www.ijert.org/research/environmental-impact-assessment-of-a-watershed-project-a-review-IJERTV4IS040939.pdf Watershed management means the process of creating and implementing plans, programs and projects to sustain and enhance watershed functions that affect the plant, animal and human communities within a watershed boundary. Watershed management is not so much about managing natural resources, but about managing human activity as it affects these resources. The drainage area of the river provides the natural boundary for managing and mitigating human and environmental interactions. Because human activity includes actions by government, municipalities, industries, and landowners; watershed management must be a cooperative effort. Effective watershed management can prevent community water shortages, poor water quality, flooding and erosion. The expense of undertaking watershed management is far less than the cost of future remediation. All development activity has an impact on environment. While development is necessary to improve the quality of life, it is equally essential to ensure that the development is sustainable. Environmental impact assessment is considered as crucial tool and mechanism for sustainable development. Environment impact assessment can be defined as systematic identification and evaluation of the potential impact (effect) of proposed projects to relative physical, chemical, biological, cultural and socioeconomic component of the environment. With growing scarcity of water and deteriorating quality, water resources management in India is becoming more challenging with the passage of time. This article discusses the likely impacts in the water sector and the overarching actions that India needs to initiate to overcome/manage them.
Watershed is not simply the hydrological unit but also socio-political-ecological entity which plays crucial role in determining food, social, and economical security and provides life support services to rural people. The criteria for selecting watershed size also depend on the objectives of the development and terrain slope. A large watershed can be managed in plain valley areas or where forest or pasture development is the main objective. In hilly areas or where intensive agriculture development is planned, the size of watershed relatively preferred is small. This paper describes the concept, principles and challenges in watershed management.
Sustainability Assessment of Randullabad Watershed in Satara District of Maharashtra State, India
Journal of Sustainable Development, 2019
Sustainability of watersheds being a major issue in India Kakade, 2017 proposed a new comprehensive framework and methodology for sustainability assessment of watersheds, which would also help design sustainable watershed projects. This new methodology was validated undertaking in-depth critical assessment of an integrated watershed development project implemented by Randullabad village Grampanchayat (Note 1) under the facilitation of BAIF (Note 2). Project of 836 ha area and 394 households was implemented during 2008 to 2013. The assessment was carried out to find out sustainability of social, economic and ecological domains at the baseline (2008), at project completion (2013) and five years after completion (2017-18). The indicators used in the framework and methodology by Kakade, 2017 was validated and the final framework emerged through the study has been presented in the paper. Rising trends of sustainability scores in all three domains were observed from inception to completio...