Case Study - Watershed Development
Case Study - Watershed Development
Case Study - Watershed Development
Introduction:
A check dam built at Raj-Sama About 20 km away from the district headquarters of Rajkot(Gujrat), this
village shows how environmental management can bring about a socio-economic turnaround. According
to Narayan Bhai Limb Asia, a 70-year-old farmer: "Around 15 years ago, people were unwilling to marry
their daughters to grooms in this village due to the water crisis." More than 75 per cent of bores in the
village yielded no water, says Hardevsinh Balwantsinh Jadeja, head of the village council.
About 10 years ago, the village was declared a desert area and put under the arid zone development
program of the state government. In 1986-87, the residents undertook watershed management(WM)
projects. Mr Hardevsinh Jadeja, VDC members, sarpanch Mr Devashibhai Kakadia and farmers of
Rajasamadhiayala led the villagers to construct 12 check dams between 1986 and 1988 The villagers
planted thousands of trees, and undertook stone-trenching, bunding and terracing in their fields on the
lines of wm. The state government launched a same project in 1995-96 in this village, and the District
Rural Development Agency (drda) allocated Rs 17 lakh. Since 1998 the villagers have implemented
around 50 micro-watershed projects (a micro-watershed project is within an area of 500 ha).
Today, there is ample water. Farmers have sown cotton, wheat, groundnut and vegetables. Even though
there was only 316 mm of rainfall this year - against an annual average of over 500 mm - the
groundwater level in most of the wells is about three metres, and is 1.5 metres in some wells. "All the
280 wells, 5 handpumps and 35 borewells have water. The surface water is available for at least 10
months now," says Mr. Jadeja. There are 51,000 trees in the village today, as against just 1,600 in 1988.
The farmers are now developing wastelands.
The Government of India (GOI) adopted watershed management as a strategy to address the
sustainable agricultural productivity in the rainfed areas since the last three decades. Further GOI has
adopted watershed management as a national policy since 2003. study the on-site and off-site impact of
considerable rainwater harvesting measures implemented at Rajasamadhiyala watershed, in Rajkot
district of Gujarat since 1978, and the specific watershed development activities initiated from 1995
onwards
Overview:
The overall goal of this case study is to get insights into watershed management programs as
implemented and to identify the avenues for augmenting the progress and impact of it in India. The
specific objectives of the study were to:
i) To assess the impact of watershed development on crop production, crop and fodder
productivity, improved livelihoods, minimizing land degradation and groundwater
availability in the microwatershed
ii) To assess the off-site impact on the downstream villages in terms of groundwater
availability and crop production, because of rainwater harvesting in the micro-watershed
above on a toposequence
iii) To identify the gaps/constraints for increasing water productivity in the watershed for
harnessing full potential of rainfed systems.
Rainfall The annual rainfall at Rajasamadhiyala during 2002–04 was 419, 709 and 490 mm respectively
with a mean annual rainfall of 539 mm (Fig. 2). Mean annual rainfall of Rajkot town located 20 km
downstream West of the watershed village during 1985–04 is 503 mm. The lowest rainfall recorded
during the past 20 years was 172 mm in 1987 and highest was 1016 mm in 1988. Rainfall received was
below normal in 12 out of 20 years (Fig. 1).
Nature of Soil: Soils in the watershed are shallow to medium deep black soils and are formed on hard
rock bed. The soil depth ranges from 0.15 m to 1.25 m. Plant available moisture of soil ranged from 8.0
to 12%. These soils were severely deficient in boron, zinc and sulphur along with nitrogen and medium
available phosphorus content as shown in below table,
Demography
Rajasamadhiyala has a population of 1747 (male 872: 875 female) with 300 households and an average
family size of 5.8 members Forty four percent among these households are marginal with <1 ha land
holding, 38% are large with 74 ha land and 2% households are landless in Rajasamadhiyala (Below
Table ). Watershed project covered 80% marginal, 81% small and medium, 80% large and 100% landless
households.This village has drinking water supplied through pipeline, primary school, primary health
centre, cost office, telephone, electricity, cement concrete roads, street lights, drainage, and a gram
panchayat run fair price food grain shop, well connected with road and an accessible market yard.
Major constraints: Prior to rainwater harvesting, acute water scarcity was the major constraint for
agriculture. As the watershed is in the semi-arid part of Sourasthra with low, erratic rainfall and for a
short duration coupled with high intensity, it leads frequently to crop failure and drought. For domestic
purposes the women of Rajasamadhiyala had to walk as much as 2.5 km previously to fetch water in
summer. Poor soils with low-water holding capacity and inherent low fertility resulted in low crop yields.
Migration of people to Rajkot in search of a livelihood used to be a very common feature.
On-site impact of watershed development Rajasamadhiyala watershed was taken for investigation for
the on-site impact of various watershed activities such as water harvesting structures (causeways-cum-
check dam, earthen bund, farm pond, gully plug and percolation tank), agriculture, afforestation and
animal husbandry. These were implemented to support sustainable development of agricultural
productivity, improving natural resources and environmental quality, and livelihood which would
contribute to food security. Impact assessment is undertaken for the period since 1995 onwards only as
baseline data were available from 1995 when watershed program was initiated although rainwater
harvesting was undertaken 8 since 1983. Large benefits through rainwater harvesting measures for 12
years prior to 1995 were missed out for calculating the impacts whereas the expenses since 1983 were
used as costs. This has tremendously underestimated the impacts in terms of B:C ratio, cropping
intensity, production and productivity gains, groundwater recharge, etc
Water harvesting structure No. of Storage Total storages Average unit Area benefited
structures capacity capacity (m3) cost (Rs m-3) (ha)
range (m3)
Check dam 13 1000–15000 64410 17 149
Causeway-cum- check dam 10 1266–11800 45855 28 132
Percolation tank 14 1100–132500 731811 20 461
Farm pond 6 800 4800 24 9
Earthen Bund 3 2550–4850 7385 7 4
The various activities taken up during the watershed project were construction of water harvesting
structures, agricultural activities, afforestation, and animal husbandry. The total amount spent was Rs
1.8 million, in which Rs 0.12 million spent on entry point activities, Rs 1.55 million on water harvesting
structures, Rs 0.042 million on agriculture, Rs 0.050 million on afforestation and Rs 0.041 million on
animal husbandry. Total storage capacity of all the water harvesting structures in the watershed is
855461 m3 or 79 mm or about 16% of mean annual rainfall (mean of 20 years rainfall is 503 mm). This is
equivalent to the potential runoff during a normal rainfall year in the watershed with an average unit
cost of construction of Rs 19 per m3 . Considering the percolation/seepage and evaporation from the
water harvesting structures, about 40% of mean annual rainfall can be harvested. Despite this fact,
during normal rainfall years, 2–3 times overflow takes place from the structures.
Below Table shows the relation between the areas irrigated and production due to the water harvesting
structures during 1995, 1999 and 2004. The overall production of 6.5 kg m-3 of storage capacity with an
average yield of 5124 kg ha-1 was observed, which is about 33% increase in production (kg) per unit
storage capacity (m3 ), while there was a 15% increase in yield (kg) per unit area irrigated (ha) in 2004
over 1995. This trend of increase in area irrigated and production due to increase in storage of water
harvesting structures was consistent and is further supported by statistical analysis
The storage capacity of water harvesting structures over a period of time in comparison with area
irrigated, production and the coefficient of variation, is quite consistent. The higher degree of
correlation amongst storage capacity of water harvesting structures, area irrigated, and production was
found.
The total recharge taking place through natural and water harvesting interventions is greatly affected by
the amount of rainfall, its intensity, duration of monsoon, ground and sub-surface characteristic (i.e.,
percolation rate and runoff coefficient). The total storage capacity of all the water harvesting structures
is 0.855461 MCM or 79 mm. When all the structures are filled at full reservoir level (FRL) the area
covered by water is 0.3379 million sq. m. A detailed computation of total water recharge and
downstream runoff in Rajasamadhiyala village during good, average and lean rainfall year is presented in
Table 5. Total groundwater recharge and downstream runoff from Rajasamadhiyala watershed during
good, average and lean rainfall years estimated were 45% and 20%; 50% and 12%; 42% and 8% of
rainfall, respectively.
Recharge Total
through CD Natural Total downstream
Rainfall & PT recharge recharge runoff (mm)
Rainfall scenario (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm)
Good Rainfall year (1994) 803 241 (30)* 123 (15) 364 (45) 163 (20)
Average Rainfall year (1996) 573 195 (34) 92 (16) 287 (50) 69 (12)
Lean Rainfall year (1995) 233 61 (26) 37 (16) 98 (42) 19 (8)
* Values in parentheses are the percent of rainfall
The total water requirement for crop irrigation in Rajasamadhiyala for good, average, and lean rainfall
year has been summarized in Below Tables
As many as 255 open wells existed in 1995, with very poor yield with an average water column of 5.9 m
in 1995, but presently there are 308 wells with mean water column of 10.4 m (Fig. 8). The average depth
of wells in the watershed is 18 m. The increase in water column during rainy season was 6.6 m, postrainy
season was 5.3 m, and in summer was 1.3 m. Overall there has been an increase of 4.4 m of water
column in 2004, as compared to that of 1995. . The overall total area increased by 58% under irrigation
Conclusion:
102 bore wells were present in 1995; most of them were defunct with very low groundwater level. At
present 200 bore wells are in use. The density of open wells (number of wells per ha) in 1995, 1999 and
2003 was 0.23, 0.26, and 0.28 respectively, whereas bore wells was 0.09, 0.15, 0.18 respectively; and
cumulative density of both open wells and bore wells was 0.38, 0.41, and 0.47 respectively over a period
of time. The increase in number of wells and area irrigated has been due to the significant improvement
in groundwater level and yield attributed to the water harvesting structures. This has significantly
increased the irrigation facility and equipment’s procured by farmers (Fig. 11 and Table 8). Watershed
development in Rajasamadhiyala has impacted positively in terms Fig. 11 and Table 8). Watershed
development in Rajasamadhiyala has impacted positively in terms Table 8). Watershed development in
Rajasamadhiyala has impacted positively in terms of increased groundwater availability, which farmers
have harnessed through doubling the hours of pumping in 1999 as that of 1995 and also increased
number of bore and open wells considerably. Area under irrigation has also increased from 769 ha in
1995 to 1002 ha in 1999.