VII-3-Capacity of Water Harvesting Techniques for Water Management.

Abstract

Water is essential to all life on earth. The water that future generations will inherit will have to be the one in which ground water plays its full developmental, productive and environmental role. Regions with high population density. intensive agriculture and insufficient surface water availability shows decline in ground water. The problem of ground water decline is a fundamental threat to the wellbeing of humans, so it is necessary to conserve it. To control the ground water decline, rainwater harvesting techniques like ground water recharge and rainwater storage are adopted. Recharging of ground water table is the process by which water percolates down the soil and reaches the water table, either by natural or artificial methods. Storage on the surface or in the ground water reservoirs by suitable recharge techniques is useful for reducing over-draft, conserving surface runoff and increasing available ground water supplies. It is therefore essential to have a good idea of the different recharge and storage mechanisms and their importance in the study area. Choice of methods should be guided by the objectives of the study, available on infiltration capacity of soil, hydro-meteorological, hydrological, hydrogeological data. Economy too is an important factor. In this paper, various water harvesting techniques are outlined and reviewed for enhancing ground water recharge.