Abstract:
Extensive discussions and consultation among several international
organizations and experts led to the preparation of World Water Vision. This was
presented during the World Water Forum held at The Hague, The Netherlands during
the year 2002. This vision document had projected large increases in global water
withdrawals and storage of water for expansion of irrigation, the projected increase
was quite substantial for the developing countries. However, there was no unanimity
on the general conclusions and as a follow up, the International Commission on
Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) initiated a project entitled “Country Policy Support
Program (CPSP)”.
CPSP envisages a more detailed assessment of the water situation in a few
representative river basins for conditions as in the past, as at present, and likely in
future, discussions on these assessments through consultations at the respective basin
and national levels, and the use of these findings in a review of the national policies
related to water resources. The CPSP specifically envisages addressing future water
scenario for food & rural development, water for people as also water for nature, in
the attempt to consider the needs of the three sectors in an integrated manner in the
broader context of Integrated Water Resources Development and Management
(IWRDM) for sustainable water use.
The current form of Indian component of the CPSP is based on the study of the
comparatively wet east coast Brahmani River flowing into the Bay of Bengal and the
relatively dry west coast Sabarmati River flowing into the Arabian Sea. A preliminary
assessment of the water availability and water use conditions of these basins was
made and formed the basis of the basin level consultations during January 2003 at
Bhubaneswar & Ahmedabad. Subsequently, the preliminary studies were presented in
3rd WWF in March 2003 in the ICID Session at Kyoto, Japan. Efforts for
improvements in the approach used in the preliminary basin assessments as well as
collection of more detailed sub-basinwise and seasonal data for refining assessments
have continued.
A workshop was held at NIH, Roorkee, on Dec. 12, 2003 in which the results
of the application of the CPSP hydrological model for Sabarmati and Brahmani basins
were presented. It was felt that some additional studies have to be undertaken to assess
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the water situation in other river basins of the country. On the request of ICID, NIH
has agreed to apply the existing CPSP model for two other river basins in India, Tapi
and Pennar.