Water coin – Lets toss it with management
The population in a watershed especially in rainfed area depends on the rains. With the change in climate there is change in:-
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Rain fall frequency
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Rainfall intensity
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Rainfall duration
No doubt, the water is significant for all living beings. The water gives life. But if not managed properly, certainly it takes away the precious life. The entire world, in one or other time, has gone through water disaster. The climate change is the prime cause of such disaster. But it will not be wrong to say it is manmade disaster. Definitely, the control on climate change will take time.
The Water is just like a coin with its 2 sides– life saving and life taking. Watershed management is significant in extracting life saving aspects of water. Hence, Watershed management is important to have proper management of water.
With climate change, the rainfall frequency is declining but the rainfall intensity has increased. Quite often we can experience a heavy down pour for few hours. The intensity of the down pour is too high and hence in no time the nature causes heavy destruction in form of floods, hurricanes, storm etc
The Watersheds are adversely affected in such climatic change. The soil erosion and the land degradation are two important phenomena that cause huge destruction and losses to watershed .The top soil of fertile agriculture field are getting washed away in no time. The land in absence of fertile top soils becomes less productive. The inherent capacity of soil to retain nutrient goes down. The crop production is adversely affected. The income generation through agriculture goes down. Ultimately, it’s the farmers in watershed that are mostly affected.
Hence, Watershed management is the only solution. Watershed intervention like contour trenches can check soil erosion to large extent. It also helps in rain water collection. There are many such watershed interventions. As per existing condition of a particular watershed, the watershed interventions should be executed
