Two major problems faced by the country are drought and floods, which are discussed in the succeeding paragraphs: The annual recharge of groundwater is 433 km3. Due to hydrological, topographical and geological limitations, however, only 690 km3 of surface water can be utilized by conventional storage and diversion structures. The average annual water resource potential of the country is estimated to be 1 869 km3.
The distribution of the water thus available is not uniform and is highly uneven in both space and time. Out of about 4 000 km3 of precipitation in a year, as much as 3 000 km3 comes as rainfall in a short monsoon period of three to four months from June to September. Out of the 2.7 per cent of a total amount of 1 400 million km3 of freshwater, the major portion occurs in the form of permanent snow cover or deep aquifers and only a small fraction is available for use.Īlthough India has to support 16 per cent of the world’s population and 15 per cent of livestock, we have only 2.4 per cent of the land and 4 per cent of the water resources of the world. Availability of freshwater globally however, is limited. We know that water is necessary, both for sustainable human development and for the healthy functioning of the planet’s ecosystem.
By S.K. Das 1, Ramesh Kumar Gupta 2 and Harish Kumar Varma 2
0 kommentar(er)
