Saturday, April 30, 2016

Water Crisis - 1

We have been noticing that lately water level of ground water in Maharashtra State has gone down considerably so much so that people cannot draw water from even deeply bored bore wells. When I studied, the water problem that continues in this state. I found that in last one thousand years there was famine condition for about 720 years and for the rest period, it was not that bad. However, it was never very good! This indicates that Maharashtra state is a naturally scarcity prone region. Nevertheless, throughout that scarcity time, people did not have problem of getting water from their ground level wells; for drinking and other domestic purposes. Today we see that even that meager supply of water is not possible for those ground level wells. That means something has seriously gone wrong in the system. It is noticed that the ground water level is maintained by a natural phenomenon.

To understand that phenomenon, we should see how rainwater moves in the ground. As far as state of Maharashtra is concerned, we notice that almost 80 % rainfall takes place in the mountainous region of Sahyadri range. These mountains absorb about 30 % water that rain has given and rest of the water flows over into rivers. One study shows that this hilly region has about 20 % porosity. That mean, if we measure total volume of this mountain range we may say 20 percent of that is void. During rainy season that void is filled by rainwater and it is retained there in the pores. In a way, we may say that these hills are natural water storage tanks. Due to gravity in due course, this accumulated water slowly flow down under gravitational force. This water gradually carried in the under ground veins, those exist throughout the ground. These veins are the primary supply lines of water to underground water. If this process works well, we can have good supply of water in bore wells as well as ground level wells. Now let us see what happens with that water which flows in the rivers. During rainy season as heavy rain causes floods in the rivers and the floodwater after filling the river trough overflows into the plains. This causes much loss of property and life. This loss is an apparent effect along with that there is one more important effect of the flood; these floods soak the entire ground of that region and this flood eventually help in increasing the water table of that region by the process called recharging of ground water table.

During our five year plans, our not so prudent, planners decided to build dams on all those rivers those cause spate and by that to stop occasional floods during rainy season. We build dams, stopped floods successfully, and with that stopped that process of recharging of ground water table by these floods. This explains why we have water problem today even for domestic water use. Dams are made so big that almost all water is stored in them. A very trickle is only allowed to flow in the river trough. As a result natural process of recharging ground through the flowing water in the riverbeds is also stopped. We should take a very serious note that we have plans to flatten mounds to prepare flat ground for farming; this flattening of mounds amounts to removal of natural water tanks. Eventually turning many wells in that region, dry!

It is a situation where any repair is not apparently visible. However, we shall consider what can be done to help the natural process of recharging of ground water table that I shall consider in my next post.

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Ashok Kothare, http://ashokkotharesblog.blogspot.com/ for stories
I reckon, http://kotharesviews.blogspot.com/ for philosophy
You may visit blog, Ideas and tips on any subject, http://kotharay.blogspot.in/ for intelligent discussions.
Freedom of Expression, http://blogs.siliconindia.com/kothare/ for intelligent discussions.

My New Marathi Blog, http://kothare-marathi.blogspot.in/ मला असे वाटते

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