Sustainable strategic for rainwater harvesting using GIS - A feasible farmer centric bottom up approach
Student name: Ms Jyotsana Chuchra and Ms Divya Mishra
Guide: Mr V.S.P.Sinha
Year of completion: 2010
Host Organisation: Regional Remote Sensing Centre/ISRO (West), Jodhpur
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr J. R. Sharma
Abstract: Dry lands are typically defined as those areas of the World were potential average yearly loss in the form of evapotranspiration (1500-2000mm/y) exceeds average yearly moisture gain in the form of precipitation (100-420mm/y). Rajasthan, which is located in the arid zone of India, has been the worst affected of drought. Around 26 million people of 23,406 villages in 26 (of the total 32 Districts) of the State are affected. The Arid zone of India covers about 12% of the country’s geographical area and occupies over 31.7 m hectares of hot deserts and about 7m hectares are under cold desert. Livelihood security in parts of Rajasthan is strongly dependent on rainfall distribution and land management practices among smallholder farmers. Depending upon the local environment conditions water harvesting may provide a supplementary supply, an alternative supply or the only feasible improved supply, especially in the rural areas of arid and Semi-Arid countries. The potential very much depends upon climate, hydrology, landscape and Vegetation.
Remote sensing derived parameters facilitate spatial modeling due to its spatial format. High temporal resolution remote sensing data has been found useful in deriving the land use/cover required for such study as it captures the variation both in spatial and temporal domain, thus, improving the performance. This study is aimed to develop Water Harvesting Strategy by mapping the parts of the Semi-Arid areas of Rajasthan (Few villages of Jodhpur and Barmer), India by using the Geographic Information System. This report provides the basic Water Harvesting information needed for the design of structures at various fields and finding the suitable site of the structure in the field. This was prepared to assist designers, engineers and others to effectively design and implement Water Harvesting at range of sites. It shows in spatial domain the expansive opportunities for Rainwater Harvesting in 50 villages of Jodhpur and Barmer district – Melwa, Godawas, Doli-Kalan, Doli-Khurd, Dharmsar and many more. The major factors like Rainfall, Soil–Type and Land Use were considered and complete GIS Database was generated for the area from the LISS – 1V and the Google imagery in the form of Thematic Maps. These maps were used as input to derive a modified Soil Conservation Service (SCS) runoff Curve Number which was further used to estimate the runoff potential of every field in each village. DEM was used to delineate different slope classes in the area. Based on the Runoff potential, slope, drainage, land use and soil category, a suitable site for construction for Rainwater Harvesting Structure were prioritized. For the convenience of the Farmer complete software related to these aspects is made using Dot Net language which gives feasible options to the Farmer for increasing the storage of Water, but the decision of final prioritization is left to the user after analysis of the other factors which are beyond the GIS Database, such as cultural, financial, political and local preferences.
The results demonstrate the capabilities of GIS and its applications for Water Harvesting planning over larger Semi-Arid Areas.
Keywords: GIS, Rainwater Harvesting, SCS Runoff Estimation, Site Suitability and Dot Net
