An assessment of future water demand under developmental scenarios for the Sabarmati river basin of Gujarat
Student name: Mr Jitender Taneja
Guide: Dr Mala Narang Reddy
Year of completion: 2013
Host Organisation: The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Shresth Tayal
Abstract: In India there are a number of areas that are under water stress and development is
happening all over the country. Gujarat is a state that is well-known for the
developments going on over there. The state is also doing a lot to manage it’s water
resources. Gujarat comes third in India when it comes to the number of dams in a state.
There are about 666 dams all over Gujarat. (CWC, 2010) Out of these there are 49
dams in the Sabarmati basin. (India-WRIS, 2013). The major purpose of most of these
dams is irrigation. There is also a plan to develop a huge reservoir of fresh water
across the Gulf of Khambat. This would solve the water problem to a certain extent.
Still, the region is under water stress. This can also be observed from the fact that the
Sabarmati at many places get dried and there arises a need to divert the water from the
other basins. Now, in this project PODIUM Sim model has been used to understand the
water demand for 2015 and 2020 by using different variables as the input data. The
model is a very useful tool to predict scenarios and is useful for the policy makers. The
model requires refined data that is not so easily available so various assumptions have
been taken like any other modelling practice. It was observed that despite of the fact
that the basin is under water-stress, cotton-cultivation has increased over the years and
this situation would worsen the present scenario as it would have an adverse impact on
per capita water availability.
Various scenarios have been developed and comparison has been done. There has been
an increase in the water demand in different sectors. The groundwater draft in many
districts is very high that needs to be checked. This corresponds to the increase in the
development in the basin along with the increase in the population over the years. A
new concept of environmental flow requirement and environmental management classes
has also been discussed in the report.
Key words: Water-stress, PODIUMSim, Demand, Environmental management class,
Cotton cultivation
