Mitigating Floods for Managing Droughts through Aquifer Storage : An Examination of Two Complementary Approaches
Interventions that are robust, cost effective, and scalable are in critical demand throughout South Asia to offset growing water scarcity and avert increasingly frequent water-related disasters. This case study presents two complementary forms of i...
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/145301579805233641/Mitigating-Floods-for-Managing-Droughts-through-Aquifer-Storage-An-Examination-of-Two-ComplementaryApproaches http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33244 |
| Summary: | Interventions that are robust, cost
effective, and scalable are in critical demand throughout
South Asia to offset growing water scarcity and avert
increasingly frequent water-related disasters. This case
study presents two complementary forms of intervention that
transform water hazards (floodwater) into a resource
(groundwater) to boost agricultural productivity and enhance
livelihoods. The first intervention, holiya, is simple and
operated by individual farmers at the plot/farm scale to
control local flooding in semiarid climates. The second is
the underground transfer of floods for irrigation (UTFI) and
operates at the village scale to offset seasonal floods from
upstream in humid climates. Rapid assessments indicate that
holiyas have been established at more than 300 sites across
two districts in North Gujarat since the 1990s, extending
the crop growing season and improving water quality. UTFI
knowledge and experience has grown rapidly since
implementation of a pilot trial in western Uttar Pradesh in
2015 and is now embedded within government programs with
commitments for modest scaling up. Both approaches can help
farmers redress the multiple impacts associated with floods,
droughts, and groundwater overexploitation at a range of
scales from farm plot to the river basin. The potential for
wider uptake across South Asia depends on setting up
demonstration sites beyond India and overcoming gaps in
technical knowledge and institutional capacity. |
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