GCSE Geography | Case Study: Wakel River Basin Project (Resource Management - Water 8)

The Wakel river basin is located in the south of Rajasthan, an extremely arid region dominated by the Thar Desert in north-west India. The climate is extreme - it receives less than 250mm of rainfall annually, with most falling during the monsoon season, and the temperature can exceed 50°C in the summer, meaning evaporation rates are high. Despite the harsh conditions here the area is quite densely populated so there is a great demand for water.

The little water that is available for consumption has been managed poorly - too much irrigation has led to waterlogging and salinisation, which has destroyed crops, and over-abstraction by pumps has been a huge issue, leading to the water table dropping significantly and wells drying up. Water use is unregulated so people take what they like and water sources have no time to recharge. This means that water scarcity is a big issue.

The Global Water for Sustainability Programme

This programme has been funded by the US Agency for International Development with the aim of increasing water supply and storage and raising awareness of the need for water management amongst local communities in the Wakel river basin area. Local people are fully involved in this project and are supported by this charity - they are in charge of setting up the scheme and maintaining it, enabling them to improve water security for themselves and reduce their risk of water shortages in the future.

A key part of the project is collecting and storing water through rainwater harvesting, which is a cheap and simple solution, so it appropriate to the needs of local people. With this system water collected from roofs makes its way down to underground storage tanks known as Taankas, which are about 3m across and 3-4m deep (see image below). The water stored saves people from the daily task of walking long distances to fetch water from sources which are often contaminated.

Rainwater is also captured by small earth dams known as johed which have been highly successful in raising the water table by up to 6m, and rivers that previously dried up once the monsoon season was over, are now flowing all year round. This stored water is then transferred to the field to water crops using irrigation channels known as pats, where water is diverted using a small stone dam called a bund, which controls the flow of water (see image at the bottom of the page). Local farmers take turns to use the water - and when it is their turn they are also responsible for maintaining the channel to stop silt building up.

The other important aspect of the project is education around how to conserve water - the charity involved has educated the local population on how to conserve water effectively, and how water conservation will reduce the risk of groundwater pollution, soil erosion and desertification, which will increase water security, and therefore food security.

Sustainable water management

The Wakel River Basin Project is an example of a sustainable strategy to increase water supply. Sustainable solutions have the following features in common...

Small scale - sustainable solutions to increasing water supply are usually small-scale - they improve the quality of life for individual communities, rather than whole regions or countries. They are easy to manage and relatively cheap.

Appropriate technology - these are small projects using basic machinery that are cheap and easy to maintain, for example, hand pumps. This is better than using complex machinery that require specialist skills to operate and maintain.

Community management - sustainable water projects need to be managed by the local community, rather than relying on other people - for example, local people build and maintain them, so it they breakdown they know how to carry out repairs.

Local decision making - local people decide what they need to improve their water supply, where they will build their project, how big it is, etc - this is an important part of sustainable solutions - it’s not just telling the people involved what they need - therefore there is more by-in and projects are likely to be more effective.

Non-governmental organisation - NGOs have no government funding and rely on donations, e.g. Oxfam and Wateraid, who both work across LICs and NEEs to improve access to safe and reliable water supplies. NGOs are important here as they give local communities the support and skills they need to get their sustainable water projects up and running.