Research Projects

The global requirement for water is escalating over recent years on account of the increased agricultural and domestic demands coupled with burgeoning global population growth rate, especially in developing countries which is evinced by decreased per capita water availability thereby posing a significant challenge for the management of water resources (UNFPA 2008). Currently 3.6 billion people (approximately half of the world's population) reside in water scarce areas and by 2050 this number is expected to increase to 4.8-5.7 billion (WWAP 2018). As a result of climate change, the wet areas are becoming wetter and dry regions are getting even drier throughout the world. At present, 75% of the global water is used in agriculture and additional 5600 km3 per year will be required by 2050 to meet the food requirements for forthcoming generations. Moreover, water scarcity issues concomitant with climate change had engendered vulnerability in rainfed farmers and consequently impacted food production. Therefore, effective management of water resources is prerequisite. One of the management strategies is rainwater harvesting (RWH). Rainwater harvesting is the technique of amassing, storing and conserving rainwater in order to enhance water availability for direct use or recharge subterranean water. Identifying potential RWH sites is a crucial step regarding maximization of water availability and land productivity in water scarce regions. Moreover, the selection of appropriate locations is imperative for serviceability of rainwater harvesting systems because choosing ideal sites for RWH is difficult and requires a lot of spatial data from various sources. Therefore, remote sensing (Rs) and geographical information system (GIs) play a key role in hydrological modeling by virtue of its capability to handle incredible amount of spatial data. Moreover, this methodology works precisely and in a limited time frame, hence could be used for identifying potential zones of RWH zones for planning at macro-watersheds. Increased access to cutting-edge statistical and geospatial tools has opened up new possibilities for assessing and evaluating the criteria for RWH. In India, rainfall distribution is erratic and more than 80 percent of the downpour occurs during monsoon exacerbating surface runoff and soil erosion. Therefore, it is indispensable to identify suitable zones/sites for planning RWH structures in order to increase water storage and groundwater recharge. In order to assure food production over the year, augmenting irrigation is necessary. This can be achieved by harvesting rain water in water scarce areas by developing RWH as supplementary water source.