WATER RESOURCES OF INDIA

(extracted from Kumar et al. (2005))

 Water Resources of India

• India supports about 1/6th of world population

• 1/50th of world’s land

• 1/25th of world’s water resources.

• India also has a livestock population of 500 million – about

20% of the world’s total livestock population.

• The total utilizable water resources of the country are

assessed as 1086 km3.

 Introduction

• The total average annual flow per year for the Indian rivers is

estimated as 1953 km3.

• The total annual replenishable groundwater resources are

assessed as 432 km3.

• The annual utilizable surface water and groundwater

resources of India are estimated as 690 km3 and 396 km3

per year, respectively.

Introduction [contd...]

• Spatial and temporal variability in precipitation

– problem of flood and drought syndrome

• Over exploitation of groundwater

– reduction of low flows in the rivers

– declining of the groundwater resources

– salt water intrusion in aquifers of the coastal areas.

• Excess of canal-irrigation
– Waterlogging and salinity
Introduction [contd...]

• Quality of surface and groundwater

– deteriorating because of increasing pollutant loads

>> point and non-point sources

– Waterlogging and salinity

• Climate Change

– affects precipitation and water availability

Introduction [contd...]

• Hydrology Project – Phase-I

Data Collection, storage and retrieval

Hydrology Project Phase-II

Decision Support System proposed
– to bridge the gaps between the developed advanced technologies

and the field practice in

• water resources planning, designing and management

Introduction [contd...]

• National Water Policy in the planning and operation of

systems-water allocation priorities should be broadly as

– drinking water

– Irrigation

– Hydropower

– Ecology

– agro-industries and non-agricultural industries

– navigation.
Introduction [contd...]

• India

– a river system comprising more than 20 major rivers with

several tributaries.

– Southwest Monsoon is the main contributor

• Tamil Nadu

– the influence of north-east monsoon during October and

November
Introduction [contd...]

• Average water yield per unit area of the Himalayan rivers

– is almost double that of the southern peninsular rivers

– indicating the importance of snow and glacier melt contribution from

the high mountains.

• Groundwater
– important source of water for drinking, irrigation, industrial uses

– It accounts for about 80% of domestic water requirement

– and more than 45% of the total irrigation in the country.

Introduction [contd...]

• In India per capita surface water availability

– in the years 1991 and 2001 were 2309 and 1902 m3

– these are projected to reduce to 1401 and 1191 m3 by the

years 2025 and 2050 respectively.

 Man’s influence on hydrological cycle

• Human activities affecting the hydrological regime can be

classified into four major groups
– activities which affect river runoff by diverting water from rivers, lakes,
and reservoirs or by groundwater extraction

– activities modifying the river channels, e.g. construction of reservoirs

and ponds, levees and river training, channel dredging, etc.

– activities due to which runoff and other water balance components

are modified due to impacts of basin surface

– activities which may induce climate changes at regional or global

scale
Precipitation Variability [contd…]

• The highest rainfall

- 11,690 mm is recorded at Mousinram near Cherrapunji in

Meghalaya in the northeast.

• In this region 1040 mm of rainfall was recorded in a day.

• Jaisalmer, in the west, which receives barely 150 mm of rain.

Precipitation Variability [contd…]

• 75% of the rain pours down from June to September.

• as much as 21% of the area of the country receives less

than 750 mm of rain annually while 15% receives rainfall in

excess of 1500 mm.

• nearly 2500 mm along almost the entire west coast and

over most of Assam and sub-Himalayan West Bengal.

Precipitation Variability [contd…]

• less than 600 mm – large areas of peninsular India receive

rainfall

• less than 500 mm – is experienced in western Rajasthan

and adjoining parts of Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab.

• Rainfall is equally low in the interior of the Deccan plateau

• Snowfall is restricted to the Himalayan region

Water Resources of India [contd…]

Surface Water Resources

• The utilizable annual surface water of the country: 690 km3

• There is considerable scope for increasing the utilization of

water

– by construction of storages at suitable locations in

neighboring countries.
 Water Requirements of India
• development of irrigation to increase agricultural
production for making the country self-sustained and for
poverty alleviation

• Giant schemes are taken to increase irrigation potential

and maximize agricultural production, for example
– the Bhakra Nangal,

– Hirakud

– Damodar Valley

– Nagarjunasagar

– Rajasthan Canal project to increase

Water Requirements of India [contd…]

• the projected food-grain and feed demand for 2025 would be

– 320 million tonnes (high-demand scenario)

– 308 million tonnes (low-demand scenario).

• The requirement of food grains for the year 2050 would be

– 494 million tonnes (high-demand scenario)

– 420 million tonnes (low demand scenario).

Water Requirements of India [contd…]

• The figure adopted by the NCIWRD was 220 litres per capita

per day (lpcd) for class I cities.

• For the cities other than class I, the norms are 165 lpcd for

the year 2025 and 220 lpcd for the year 2050.

• For rural areas, 70 lpcd and 150 lpcd have been

recommended for the years 2025 and 2050.

Water Requirements of India [contd…]

Irrigation

• The ultimate irrigation potential of India has been estimated

as 140 Mha.
– 76 Mha would come from surface water and

– 64 Mha from groundwater sources.

• Water used for irrigation last century was of the order of

– 300 km3 of surface water and

– 128 km3 of groundwater,

– total 428 km3.

Water Requirements of India [contd…]

• By the year 2025, the water requirement for irrigation

– 561 km3 for low-demand scenario and

– 611 km3 for high-demand scenario.

• By the year 2050, the requirements are likely to further

increase by

– 628 km3 for low-demand scenario and

– 807 km3 for high-demand scenario

Water Requirements of India [contd…]

Hydroelectric power

• The hydropower potential of India estimated - 84,044 MW at

60% load factor.

• At the time of independence the installed capacity of

hydropower projects was 508 MW.

• By the end of 1998, the installed hydropower capacity was

about 22,000 MW.

Water Requirements of India [contd…]

• India has plans to develop 60,000 MW additional

hydropower by the twelfth five-year plan.

– 14,393 MW during the tenth five-year plan (2002–2007);

– 20,000 MW during eleventh (2007–2012)

– 26,000 MW during the twelfth (2012–2017)

• A potential of the order of 10,000 MW is available for

development of small hydropower projects in the Himalayan

and sub-Himalayan regions of the country.

 Water Resources Management in India
• water resources management practices
– based on increasing the water supply

– based on managing the water demand under the stressed water

availability conditions.

• Important aspects of water resources management

– Data monitoring

– processing,

– Storage

– Retrieval

– dissemination
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• decision support systems – inputs to the decision makers

for water resources management.

• Knowledge sharing, people’s participation, mass

communication and capacity building are essential for

effective water resources management.

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

Flood Management

• The annual average area affected by floods is 7.563 Mha.

• 1.26 Mha in 1965 to 1.75 Mha in 1978.

• Floods have affected about 33 million persons during 1953

to 2000.
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• The main causes of floods in India

– inadequate capacity within river banks to contain high flows
– river bank erosion and silting of river beds.
• Additional factors
– land slides leading to obstruction of flow and change of the river
course
– retardation of flow due to tidal and backwater effects
– poor natural drainage in the flood-prone area
– cyclone and associated heavy rain storms or cloud bursts
– snowmelt and glacial outbursts
– dam break flows.
• After the disastrous floods of 1954 a national programme of
flood management was launched.
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

Working groups on flood control

– Rashtriya Barh Ayog

– National Water Policy (1987)

– National Commission for Integrated Water Resource

Development (1996)

– Regional Task Force (1996)

– National Water Policy

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• Various types of structural and non-structural measures

have been taken up to reduce the damages in the flood
plains

Structural Measures
• Total length of constructed embankments is 16,800 km and drainage
channels are of 32,500 km.
• A total of 1040 towns and 4760 villages are currently protected against
flood.
• Reasonable protection to an area of about 15.07 Mha.
• Reservoirs have been constructed - have resulted in reduction of
intensity of floods.
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

Non-Structural Measures

• Flood forecasting and warning

• CWC has established a flood forecasting system covering

62 major rivers with more than 157 stations for issuing

flood forecasts covering almost all the flood-prone states.

• Response of state governments

– flood plain zoning bill – not encouraging.

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• The working group recommended flood risk zoning using

satellite-based remote sensing

– towards implementation of flood plain zoning measures.

• The total live storage capacity of completed projects in India

is about 174 km3.

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

Drought management
• The drought-prone area assessed – order of 51.12 Mha.
• Randomness and uncertainty in defining the start and end
of droughts.
• Most of the drought planning and management schemes
are generally launched after persisting drought conditions.
• Drought monitoring
– real time remote sensing
– GIS
– GPS and modeling techniques for ensuring transparency and quick
response.
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• Drought Management Measures

– Robust – off-farm livelihood opportunities

– Conjunctive use of surface and groundwater,

– aquifer recharge and watershed management with community

participation
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• An integrated basin development approach is required to be

developed and implemented for
– preparing the drought management plan before, during and after the
occurrence of the drought.

• Need for the development of the decision support systems

• DSS for the monitoring and management of the drought on

basin scale utilizing
– remote sensing

– geographical information system

– knowledge-based systems.
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

Groundwater management

• Groundwater management policy oriented towards the

promotion of
– Efficiency

– Equity

– sustainability

• Exploitation of groundwater resources should be regulated

– not to exceed the recharging possibilities

– to ensure social equity.

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• Overexploitation of groundwater should be avoided,

especially near the coasts
– to prevent ingress of seawater into freshwater aquifers.

• A joint management approach combining government

administration with active people participation is a promising
solution.

• Critically overexploited areas, bore-well drilling should be

regulated

• Artificial recharge measures – to be implemented

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• Cleaning of the bed of Percolation tanks – make them

reusable

• The role of government will have to switch from that of a

controller of groundwater development to that of a facilitator

of equitable and sustainable development.

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

Water conservation

• Water conservation implies improving the availability of

water through augmentation by means of storage of water in

surface reservoirs, tanks, soil and groundwater zone.

• Modify the space and time availability of water to meet the

demands.

• Highlights the need for judicious use of water.

• large population is putting massive stress on all natural

resources.
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• The greatest potential for conservation lies in increasing

irrigation efficiencies.

• Just a 10% improvement in irrigation efficiency could

conserve enough water to double the amount available for

drinking.

• Sprinkler irrigation is being adopted in Haryana, Rajasthan,

Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• Use of sprinkler irrigation saves considerable water quantity

as compared to the traditional gravity irrigation

– about 56% of water for the winter crops of bajra and jowar

– about 30% for cotton

• Prices of water for all uses should be fixed, keeping in mind

its economic value, control of wastage, and the ability of

users to pay.
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

Watershed management

• For an equitable and sustainable management of shared

water resources, flexible, holistic approach of Integrated

Water Resources Management (IWRM) is required

• Watershed is the unit of management in IWRM,

• (Young India Association) or TBS is an NGO which promotes

sustainable water management through rainwater harvesting

in Rajasthan.
Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• The central message of TBS is that good water management

requires good land management.

• Coordinated watershed development programmes

– need to be encouraged

– awareness about benefits of these programmes must be created

among the people.

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

Rainwater harvesting

• Benefits of rainwater harvesting are:

– It increases water availability

– It checks the declining water table

– It is environmentally friendly

– It improves the quality of groundwater through dilution, mainly of

fluoride, nitrate, and salinity

– It prevents soil erosion and flooding, especially in the urban areas.

Water Resources Management in India [contd…]

• In arid regions of Rajasthan

– rainwater harvesting structures locally known as Kund (a covered
underground tank),

– are constructed near the house or a village to tackle drinking water

problem.

• In Meghalaya
– Bamboo Rainwater Harvesting for tapping of stream and spring water
through bamboo pipes to irrigate plantations is widely prevalent.

• In urban areas
– rainwater will have to be harvested using rooftops and open spaces.