Water Harvesting

“When well is dry, we know value of water”.

With increased use of water for industries, growing population and pollution of water sources due to industrial and biological waste, we are realising value of this precious resource which nature has been providing us for centuries. We are running out of fresh water at a rapid pace.

Statistics says that by the year 2025, the world will have 2.6 billion more people than it has today. As much as 2/3rd of that population will be living in conditions of severe water shortage and 1/3rd will be living with absolute water scarcity. Demand for water will exceed availability by 56 percent.

We need industrial progress to lead a comfortable life, we need large dams to provide water and hydroelectric power generation, we need large irrigation projects to meet demands of the growing population. We have achieved these through industrial and green revolution.

But sometimes our technological advances are posing very serious threats to our environment. The technology has changed the amount of influence we can have on nature. As Patrick McCully says in his book, ‘Silenced Rivers’, the traditional wells cannot seriously deplete the aquifer since they are limited both in  the depth to which they can be dug,  and by the ability of human and animal muscle to draw water. This all changed with introduction of sophisticated machinery which can go to any depth and can pump up any amount of ground water.

Hence, in addition to these modern technologies, we have to think about non-invasive, appropriate technologies which will have minimum impact on the environment. In other words, as Brundtland report says “sustainable development should be achieved to meet the need of the present without compromising the ability of futures generations to meet their own.”

In India, due to unequal distribution of rain fall over the duration of the year, in rainy season there is excess water and by summer, many regions face severe water shortage. Cheera -punji, one of the world’s wettest places, suffers from floods in the rainy season and severe water shortage for the rest of the year.

With depleting groundwater resources and polluted surface water sources, capturing and utilizing maximum rain water is the need of the hour. In older times, people had recognized the need to capture and utilize this rain fall, which ultimately goes to oceans as runoff and is thus lost to us. India has a rich tradition of water harvesting. For centuries, people from different regions have practised various techniques of water harvesting.