Projects in the Maharashtra State of India, especially among rural dwellers in the Ghats Mountains area, to improve water use and availability were actively pursued by Canadian and Indian researchers in the 1990s. This project was carried out with local people, paying particular attention to the traditional methods of water gathering and water-spreading. This was proposed as positive alternatives to more high-tech methods of water transport and storage such as two level pumps and filtration plants, especially in areas where flooding occurs as a result of monsoons in the summer. The rural poor are not able to meet their nutrition needs as a result of a century of deforestation, desertification, erosion of soils and escaping water; the goal is to find ways to restore and revitalize the area to prevent western technological industrial solutions which may worsen life; i.e. the idea of a sugar plantation economy developing with money aid to build a pipeline from a dam as a main water source. The work of Simpson and Sohani from the University of Windsor, Canada, in employing traditional countour bunding provided solutions that improved quality of life and sense of empowerment among the poor, often primarily women rural farmers in the mountainous regions of an area known for its spectacular biodiversity. Monoculture will only destroy further the biodiversity which includes medicinal knowledge and local agriculture in favour of profit and exploitation and increasing denuding of the nutrients and the landscape itself.
[...] et al: 84) Ways to measure run-off include construction of a checkdam, another storage facility, that notes water velocity, and can give information on soil erosion as well .(Kakade et al: 84) Simpson and Sohani comment on the use of check dams in Akote, “Check dams were constructed across the valleys of ephemeral streams. Straight stretches of the valley with low gradient on the up-slope side of the dam and shallow bedrock for its foundation provided optimum conditions. Masonry check dams, gabion structures, and gabion structures with impervious, ferrocement barriers were employed at different locations. [...]
[...] (Simpson and Sohani: 739) This is based on the work of the two experts and others from University of Windsor, Canada, working in the Akole Takula area from 1992 to 1996. (Simpson and Sohani: 739) 2c) Silvipasture: Planting trees and grass to reverse deforestation and other forms of denuding of landscapes, an historical and contemporary problem (Kakade B et al: 85) In general solution Local solutions, diverse agriculture versus monoculture, local control. This can be a component or integrated with contour bunding methods, i.e. [...]
[...] ( http://www.nri.org/projects/WSS-IWRM/Reports/WHiRL_working_paper_5.pdf) Accessed June Khanna, Sulbha, “Integrated Participatory Watershed Development: A Study of the Manhere Watershed of Maharashtra” BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune, India pgs Namara, R et al., Innovative land and water management approaches in Asia: productivity impacts, adoption prospects and poverty outreach” Irrigation and Drainage, Vol pp 335-348, (useful charts and graphs) Putty, M.R.Y and Pradad, R. “Runoff processes in headwater catchments an experimental study in Western Ghats, South India,” Journal of Hydrology, vol pp 63-71. Simpson, Frank and Sohani, Girish, “Water Harvesting and Spreading For Conjunctive Uses of Water Resources” in Hazeltine, Barrett, ed, Water Supply, Based on Surface Water Treatment by Roughing Filters--A Design, Construction and Operation Manual, Text Revisers: Sylvie Peter, Brian Clarke, Swiss Centre for Development Cooperation in Technology and Management (SKAD, CH-9000 St. [...]
[...] Removing of soil can form a ridge which helps to make a farm pond, another storage water system for irrigation (Simpson and Sohani: 742) Therefore, different alterations can aid in helping to produce other systems of storage and use for water. Analysis of Alternative Solutions As Kakade et al note, in a study of five diverse regions of India where groundwater resources were implemented the use was individualized even if there was collective involvement. (Kakade et al: 49) A problem with this is how to measure use and contain the groundwater resources, i.e. [...]
[...] (Hazeltine: 740) However, local leaders do not want to invest in sugar as monoculture, arguing that there are better ways to catch and utilize monsoon rain water, for example, without the help of big sugar interests. The already impoverished people of the area could be facing greater hardship if the sugar plantation becomes the main land holder as well as employer in the zone. Local leaders propose water catching and water spreading technologies which are not being proposed by the sugar interests. [...]
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