WATER RESOURCES
Topics in the Chapter
• Water
→ Some facts and Figures
• Dams
• Multi-purpose river projects
→ Objectives of multi-purpose river projects
→ Disadvantages of Multi-purpose river projects
→ Movements against Multi-purpose river projects
• Rainwater Harvesting
→ How Tankas works
WATER
• Water is a renewable resource
• Three-fourth of the earth’s surface is covered with water but only a small proportion of it
accounts for freshwater fit for use.
Some facts and Figures
• 96.5 percent of the total volume of world’s water is estimated to exist as oceans and only
2.5 per cent as freshwater.
• India receives nearly 4 percent of the global precipitation and ranks 133 in the world in
terms of water availability per person per annum.
• By 2025, it is predicted that large parts of India will join countries or regions having
absolute water scarcity.
Water Scarcity and need for water conservation and management
• The lack sufficient water as compared to its demand in a region is known as Water
Scarcity.
• Causes of Water Scarcity are:
→ over-exploitation
→ excessive use and unequal access to water among different social groups.
→ Large population
DAMS
• A dam is a barrier across flowing water that obstructs, directs or retards the flow, often
creating a reservoir, lake or impoundment.
MULTI-PURPOSE RIVER PROJECTS
• Multi-purpose river projects large dams that serve several purposes in addition to
impounding the water of a river and used later to irrigate agricultural fields. For example, the
Sutluj-Beas river basin, the Bhakra–Nangal project etc.
Advantages of multi-purpose river projects are:
→ Electricity generation
→ Irrigation
→ Water supply for domestic and industrial uses
→ Flood control
→ Recreation
→ Inland navigation
→ Fish breeding
Disadvantages of Multi-purpose river projects are:
→ It affects the natural flow of river causing poor sediment flow and excessive sedimentation
at the bottom of the reservoir.
→ It destroys the habitats for the rivers’ aquatic life.
→ It submerges the existing vegetation and soil if created on the floodplains.
→ It displaces the local people of the place where it is created.
→ These are unsuccessful in controlling floods at the time of excessive rainfall.
→ These projects induced earthquakes, caused water- borne diseases and pests and
pollution resulting from excessive use of water.
Movements against Mult-purpose river projects
• These projects cause of many new social movements like the ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’
and the ‘Tehri Dam Andolan’ etc.
→ This is due to the large-scale displacement of local communities.
• Inter-state water disputes are also becoming common with regard to sharing the costs and
benefits of the multi-purpose project.
RAINWATER HARVESTING
• Rainwater Harvesting refers to the practice of storing and using of rainwater from the
surface on which it falls.
• In hill and mountainous regions, people built diversion channels like the ‘guls’ or ‘kuls’ of
the Western Himalayas for agriculture.
• In Rajasthan, ‘Rooftop rain water harvesting’ was commonly practised to store drinking
water.
• In the flood plains of Bengal, people developed inundation channels to irrigate their fields.
• In arid and semi-arid regions, agricultural fields were converted into rain fed storage
structures that allowed the water to stand and moisten the soil.
• In the semi-arid and arid regions of Rajasthan, almost all the houses traditionally had
underground tanks or tankas for storing drinking water.
• HOW TANKAS WORKS:
→ Tankas were connected to the sloping roofs of the houses through a pipe.
→ Rain falling on the rooftops would travel down the pipe and was stored in these
underground ‘tankas’.