Development and water management
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Kerala needs to manage water judiciously. SHYAMA RAJGOPAL says the user will, in all probability, be made responsible for replenishing groundwater in the State.
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Continuing the cycle: Overhead tanks on apartment complexes. In future, large developments will have to ensure that groundwater is replenished.
The driving factor of any development activity is the availability of water resources. Kerala, the land of 44 rivers and good rainfall, however, is facing a shortage of water.
People in the State, which has a high population density, use more water for their daily needs. Modern home appliances also use more water than manual work.
Hence, the groundwater level remains the same in some places, while in others, it goes down without adequate replenishment.
The State government is mulling a rule to ensure recharging of groundwater by the user so that the water table does not dip to dangerous levels. Any large development will have to ensure recharge of groundwater through stipulated measures.
Groundwater blocks are divided into overexploited, critical, semi-critical and safe. Five out of the 152 blocks in the State are overexploited. These are Athiyannur in Thiruvananthapuram district, Kodungallur in Thrissur, Chittoor in Palakkad, Kozhikode and Kasaragod.
There are 15 critical blocks and 30 semi-critical ones across the State, leaving only 102 blocks safe for development activities. The soil thickness in the State is less than in other States. This is one factor why rainwater is not absorbed well. In many areas, the thickness is only 15-20 metres. In hilly areas, the depth goes down to 2-5 metres. Hence, much of the rainwater is lost.
It is up to the people to use water judiciously so that all can share quality water. As the population density has gone up tremendously and the number of houses has increased, water usage has gone up.
The groundwater data collected by the State department is an important aspect in town and water supply distribution planning. The Kerala Water Authority should urgently cover areas with the least groundwater resources. A builder planning a large development in an area first has to get clearance from the local authorities on the availability and protection of groundwater.
The data collected by the State during the first phase of the Hydrology Project from 1997 to 2002 were made available to the government departments. Now, researchers and non-governmental organisations are using the data. The department expects private parties to become interested in the data, which will be provided at a nominal fee.
“We just want to ensure that those taking the data are Indian citizens,” said D.S. Thampy, Regional Director, Central Groundwater Board, Thiruvananthapuram.
The Groundwater Department, in association with the Central Groundwater Board, is into the second phase of the National Hydrology Project that makes it necessary that the data collected by the department are available and useful to the users. The project involves collection of groundwater and surface-water data, of which the latter part is handled by the Irrigation Department.
Every year, groundwater levels in the State are indicated in reports given by the board, which is mainly based on research. Data are collected from over 900 wells across the State. The board publishes district-wise and block-wise reports. Changes in the water levels are given in correlation with the rainfall. P. Balakrishnan, Hydro-geologist with the department, said that collection of data was going to be intensified by bringing in more open wells and borewells in a given area.
In Ernakulam, there are only 42 open wells and 22 borewells that give computerised digital water-level records every month to estimate the water level. However, this number is far too small as one well represents an area of about 10 sq.km and the collected data will not be really reflective of the whole region. A change in water level between 15-20 cm is considered normal variation. But the department sounds the alarm when the difference in water-level fluctuation is about 2-3 metres.
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