Water Management In India

This book, the second volume in the series, continues to raise contextual issues and presents perspectives regarding multifaceted challenges in management and governance of water in India. This volume attempts to broad base and expand the dialogue started in the first volume and would touch upon issues that need immediate discussion but have been left unattended like politics and management of groundwater, efficient utilization of water in agriculture (irrigation) and improving water use efficiency and building resilience. As in the first volume, this book presents a set of suggestions and recommendations in each chapter that can help frame policy guidelines in the country.

This comprehensive volume explores the interface between politics and policy making in the water management sector of India. The authors discuss the nature of the political discourse on water management in India, and what characterizes this discourse. They also explore how this discourse has influenced the process of framing water related policies in India, particularly through the ‘academics-bureaucrat-politician’ nexus and the growing influence of the civil society groups on policy makers, which are the defining feature of this process, and which have produced certain policy outcomes that are not supported by sufficient scientific evidence. The book reveals that the social and management sciences, despite being increasingly relevant in contemporary water management, are unable to impress upon traditional, engineer-dominated water administration to seek solutions to complex water problems owing to a lack of interdisciplinary perspective in their research. The authors also examine the current deadlock in undertaking sectoral reforms due to existing water policies not being honoured. This collection includes several research studies which suggest legal, institutional policy alternatives for addressing the problems in areas such as irrigation, rural and urban water supply, flood control and adaptation to climate variability and change. It was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development.

India is endowed with varied topographical features, such as high mountains, extensive plateaus, and wide plains traversed by mighty rivers. Divided into four sections this book provides a comprehensive overview of water resources of India. A detailed treatment of all major river basins is provided. This is followed by a discussion on major uses of water in India. Finally, the closing chapters discuss views on water management policy for India.

This proceedings volume, with more than 30 chapters, is based on the presentations given at the National Conference on Water Resources and Hydropower (WRHP-2016) and represents the state-of-the-art in water resources in India. It includes experimental investigations, field studies, theoretical developments, numerical methods, as well as engineering achievements in water resources. The contributions are organised under four main topics: • Water Resources and Management: covers the issues related to water resources planning and management, water conservation, flood mitigation, policies and governance, conflict over rivers and planning of groundwater evolution, Assessment of Sedimentation, Surface water quality, Rainfall assessment, • Climate Change and Global Warming: includes chapters on the impact of climate on water resources and groundwater, hydrological impacts of climate change, Ground Water Contaminants, Assessment of Evaporation and evapotranspiration effects on global warming • Hydraulic Structures: presents contributions on fluvial hydraulics,flow through Weirs, Open Channel flow, river flood control, scour and erosion, dam and dowstream block failures and protection, Losses in pipes By combining these topics, the book provides a valuable resource for practitioners and researchers, including field engineers, academicians, planners, health specialists, disaster managers, decision makers and policy makers engaged in various aspects of water resources and hydropower. The WRHP-2016 was organised in association with the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttrakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited and the Indian Society for Hydraulics, Pune and was held in University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India from June 17-18, 2016.

This report calls on policy makers to recognise the issues at stake in water resource management in agriculture and gives them the tools to do so, offering a wealth of information on recent trends and the outlook for water resource use in agriculture.

Few people actively engaged in India's water sector would deny that the Indian subcontinent faces serious problems in the sustainable use and management of water resources. Water resources in India have been subjected to tremendous pressures from increasing population, urbanization, industrialization, and modern agricultural methods. The inadequate access to clean drinking water, increase in water related disasters such as floods and droughts, vulnerability to climate change and competition for the resource amongst different sectors and the region poses immense pressures for sustainability of water systems and humanity. Water Security in India addresses these issues head on, analyzing the challenges that contemporary India faces if it is to create a water-secure world, and providing a hopeful, though guarded, road-map to a future in which India's life-giving and life-sustaining fresh water resources are safe, clean, plentiful, and available to all, secured for the people in a peaceful and ecologically sustainable manner.