47-Management Aspects of Groundwater Resources, Community Participation, Augmentation and Restoration

Abstract

Ground water is the major source to meet the domestic, irrigation and industrial demands. Ground water occurs in a wide range of rock. types and usually requires little or no treatment; therefore, it is often the cheapest and simplest water supply option. In India too, ground water is the main source both for irrigation and drinking purposes. In early days, abstraction from the shallow aquifer has been limited, mainly because water-lifting devices were animal-powered. However, since the 1950s groundwater abstraction has increased substantially, both as a consequence of the increase in the number of wells and of progressive replacement of the animal-powered lifting devices by energized pumps capable of much higher yields. This rapid development of groundwater resources in India and other developing countries had resulted in the declining of water table/levels rapidly in many parts of the country causing shallow wells to dry up with a particular impact on those rural poor farmers unable to deepen their wells to chase the declining water levels. In coastal areas, declining water levels are also associated with the ingress of saline water, leading to reduced crop yields, loss of drinking water supplies and ultimately loss of both fertile land and water supply wells. Monitoring water level over three decades (from 1970), in many parts of the globe have provided clear evidence of a long-term water-level decline, as a result of increased groundwater abstraction. This has resulted in the deterioration of water quality and the widespread drying-up of wells following a 'failure' of the monsoon. Deepening of wells does not appear to be a viable option as most wells already fully penetrate the shallow weathered aquifer. This has resulted only in debt trap of farmers particularly from the monsoon climatic countries such as India and African continent. Therefore, a detailed discussion on the management of aspects have been given in this paper.