Drought
Some of the structures in villages were not robust enough to withstand recurrent heavy rainfall and flash floods. The design used was probably not appropriate in the face of more extreme weather events which are expected to be more frequent and intense as a result of climate variability in the region. Accordingly, renovation and upgrading of these structures was included under NICRA project activities to enhance the resilience of the communities to current and future climate risks.
Ex-situ storage of water in seasonal streams at suitable sites is an important strategy to conserve excess runoff water in different rainfall zones. Often, by virtue of the location with reference to nearby hilly areas, the village may receive copious amounts of surface runoff from surrounding areas. This excess runoff could be harvested on streams either for direct use or for improving the ground water availability. In high rainfall areas, though runoff availability is high, often it gets lost due to non-availability of storage structures. In these regions, on-stream storage structures could be built on first order streams to make water available for direct use during long dry spells by farmers. In majority of NICRA villages, check dams (new/desilting of existing ones) were major interventions in drought prone districts in different rainfall zones.
Jalgaon village in Baramati, does not have much runoff from agricultural fields as the rainfall is 550 mm. The village survey indicated two major streams surrounding the village indicating surface inflows from upper catchment areas. Six structures constructed on the streams were not sufficiently catering to the needs due to siltation. One of the major activities carried out over two years is to completely desilt these structures.
Similarly, five new check dams were constructed in the D. Nagenahalli village of Tumkur 3 district, Karnataka. The total water storage capacity increased to 5300 m . Eleven farmers got benefited from this intervention. Apart from this, eight check dams were desilted and widened with additional water storage capacity of 12000 m3.
At Jalgaon, Baramati, desilting resulted in increasing the total capacity of storage from 47750 m3 to 165200 m3. This benefitted in recharging of 96 wells located in the vicinity of these structures. The total area brought under cropping in kharif and rabi seasons due to this storage is about 49 ha and 240 ha, respectively and 27 ha in the summer season.
Desilting of five existing check dams was taken up in Chamaluru village of Anantpur, Andhra Pradesh. This activity resulted in increasing the total capacity of storage from 1150 m3 to 2922 m3.
Similarly, at D. Nagenahalli village of Tumkur
At Boring thanda village, Nalgonda district of Telangana, two new check dams were constructed in addition to desilting and renovation of two existing check dams. A total of 13607 m3 of storage capacity was created.
Central and southern India under IWMP
Source: Smart practices and Technologies for Climate Resilient Agriculture
Last Modified : 2/12/2020
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