What is water management?
Water management refers to the process of planning, developing, distributing and the management of water resources for optimum usage. Water is used for industrial, commercial and domestic use hence its management should be practiced at all levels to ensure there is no wastage.
Importance of water management:
Water management is an emerging field that will decide the future of irrigation. Water is an essential resource that is used industrially, commercially and domestically. With depleting natural sources of water, it is important to develop and install systems that will help in the treatment and recycling of water by everyone to combat the scarcity and limitation of consumable water.
Agriculture uses 70 of freshwater globally and it is required to produce food, hence a higher population will lead to a higher demand in consumable water. Water scarcity affects over 40% of the world’s population and the increasing scarcity calls for the urgent and effective need of water management systems.
Objectives of water management:
• Supply of clean and sufficient drinking water for the population
• Reducing the impact of natural hazards due to climate change
• Improvement in infrastructure for storage and transport of water for industrial and domestic use.
• Improvement and restoration of soil quality for agriculture
Benefits of water management:
• Reduction in water and sewer costs
• Reduction in energy usage
• Reduction of unbilled water
• Wastewater treatment energy usage
• Weather based irrigation controls
• Reduction an elimination of water wastes
• Reduces scarcity of water for commercial and domestic use
• Reduces risks of agricultural industry
• Sustainable for the environment in the long run
Water Management system in India:
India has about 18% of the world’s population and only about 4% of the world’s water resources. The country is severely water stressed making water management a national objective and priority.
The water management system in India works with various communities to harvest and store rain water and storm water for direct use or to replenish the ground water by building, restoring and developing the infrastructure in villages. It assists in the revival of traditional water bodies, construction of water storage facilities and the safe disposal of waste water.
The system in India focuses on replenishing the depleted underground water and augmenting groundwater with rain water harvesting. Rain water harvesting has been made compulsory for all buildings (domestic, commercial and industrial) in many states. Water resource augmentation structures include dams, tanks, ponds, wells etc.
Types of sustainable water management:
- Rain water harvesting: This refers to the collection of rain and storm water into underground tanks or reservoirs. Certain states have made it mandatory for every building, commercial or domestic to have a rain water harvesting system.
- Ground water harvesting: This refers to a method of conserving and preserving water already present under the ground. This can be enhanced with the use of infiltration basins, dams, trenches and injection wells.
- Artificial ground water recharge: This refers to the process of increasing the amount of water that enters an aquifer by human controlled means. Ground water can be artificially recharged by redirecting water across the land surface through canals, ponds or by adding irrigation furrows and sprinkler systems. This is becoming extremely common in India due to the over pumping of ground water by farmers causing a depletion of the same.
- Drip irrigation: This refers to a form of micro irrigation system where water is dripped slowly to the roots of crops. The goal is to place water directly into the roots of the plants to avoid evaporation. This system uses pipes and tubes to emit the water directly in the exact location. Each dripper releases a precisely measured quantity of water, reducing wastage and ensuring that all plants get the required nutrients and other growth substances that may be required.
- Aquifer Storage and recovery: This refers to the direct injection of surface water like potable water, rain water or river water into an aquifer for recovery and use on a later date. This is usually done by the use of a well where rainwater can not get absorbed by the soil fast enough.
- Greywater system: This refers to a system where greywater that is, waste water from non-toilet sources like hand basins, washing machines, showers etc. is treated and recycled. This wastewater has less contaminants than black water and is hence easier to filter and treat.
- Desalination: This refers to a process where mineral components are taken out of saline water to make it suitable for human consumption or irrigation. The by-product of this process is brine and is one of the few rains fall independent sources of water management.
- Sewage water treatment: This refers to the process of removing contaminants from municipal wastewater (household and industrial) to produce a treated water that can be safely released into the environment.
- Other methods: Fixing leakage from dams and canals, building reservoirs, preventing water loss in municipal pipes etc.
Agricultural Water Management:
This refers to a process where water is used in such a way that it provides the crops and animals the water that is required, enhances productivity but conserves the natural resource at the same time. It focuses on improving the water efficiency on large scale irrigation schemes where the focus is on controlling water and not the management of the same. As a majority of farmers are investing in small scale irrigation systems and the regulation of these systems is either uncoordinated or entirely absent, there is an urgent need for water management in the agricultural sector.
Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM):
This refers to a process that promotes the coordinated development and management of water and land resources so as to maximize the social and economic welfare. The basis of Integrated Water Management Resources is that many different water resources are interdependent. Increase in irrigation demands and pollution of drainage results in the contamination of fresh water which is available for consumption.
IWRM helps in protecting the world’s environment, increase economic growth and sustainable agricultural development. This is a cross sectoral policy designed to replace the traditional water management approach.
What is the need for Integrated Water Resource Management?
Water is essential for human survival and is a fundamental resource for human development. The world’s fresh water resources available are under increasing pressure due to a growth in population and the global economic activity.
• Only0.4% of the total water is accessible and safe for consumption
• More than 2 billion people are affected by water shortages across the world.
• The increase in world population has increased the demand for water consumption and irrigation for food produce.
• Increase in pollution has increase the scarcity of the fresh water resources.
• Current concerns about climate change and climate variability calls for an urgent need of IWRM
