Groundwater Management - Typology of challenges, approaches and opportunities - Research papers from the conference organised by ACWADAM and Arghyam at Pune (May 2009)

A workshop on groundwater was organised by ACWADAM and Arghyam Trust in Pune in May 2009, that brought together several experts in the field, and explored diverse topics such as the importance of scale in groundwater resource planning and management, importance of aquifer typologies, participatory processes of groundwater management, groundwater regulation and groundwater linkages with watershed development, markets and policy matters.

The attempt of the workshop and research papers presented, was to highlight contemporary issues in groundwater management, and to look at it through the multiple lenses of hydrogeology, sociology, economics, livelihoods, environment, disasters and so on.

The list of papers presented were:

• India’s groundwater irrigation economy: The challenge of balancing livelihoods and environment, by Tushaar Shah (International Water Management Institute)
• Groundwater management in India: From typology to protocols and community-driven pilots, by Himanshu Kulkarni, Uma Badarayani, Harshvardhan Dhawan, Devdutt Upasani, Rakesh Gupta (Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management)
• Hydrogeology in watershed planning: A practitioner's view, by P.S. Vijay Shankar (Samaj Pragati Sahayog)
• Groundwater quality in India: Distribution, social burden and mitigation experiences, by Sunderrajan Krishnan (Carewater-INREM Foundation)
• From survey to sustainability - Groundwater experiences of Maharashtra, by Vikas Kharage (Groundwater Surveys and Development Agency - Water Supply and Sanitation Department - Government of Maharashtra)
• Synthesizing informal and formal science towards water resource management: Case studies from Kachchh, by Yogesh Jadeja (Arid Communities and Technologies)
• Groundwater regulation – Need for further reforms, by Philippe Cullet (International Environmental Law Research Centre)
• Megh Pyne Abhiyan: Facilitating in evolving water issues in North Bihar by Eklavya Prasad (Megh Pyne Abhiyan)
• Empowering farming communities to collectively manage their groundwater resources: Experiences from the APFAMGS project, by Ravi Kanth Ganti (Andhra Pradesh Farmer-managed Groundwater Systems Project)
• Rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge in urban centres: Experiences from the field, by Avinash Krishnamurthy, Nathan Stell, Shubha Ramachandran, Sunil M S, Karan Singh (Rainwater Club and Biome Environmental Solutions Private Limited)
• The importance of groundwater in urban India, by S.Vishwanath (Rainwater Club, Biome Environmental Solutions Private Limited, Arghyam, International Rainwater Catchment Systems Association)

Access the research papers compilation here in .RAR format (28 MB) or in .ZIP format (50 MB).

Visit the Arghyam page on this event.