Doha model for conservation and delineation

The disappearing water bodies left the rural Bihar with a sharp dip in water table. Several parts of northern Bihar too are facing acute water shortage. One reason for the sharp decline of water table is that the monsoon ended earlier in the year 2018 and there were no winter rains to replenish the sub surface water. Control rooms are being set up to monitor water supply in the affected urban  areas  but  rural livelihoods are more intricately linked to water and face higher risk from water related challenges. Thus water related challenges faced by urban community are far different compared to rural community. To find a solution in the rural Bihar, we need a multi pronged approach. In which revival and existence of traditional structures are maintained through MNREGA and new infrastructures are created for water conservation through the schemes as well, in quite good numbers. Further a lot has to be done to recharge the ground water level in watershed areas and increase the water use efficiency in agriculture by adopting new water management techniques

Still a large number of traditional water bodies and watersheds are unattended where MNREGA or panchayat didn’t take up any schemes to revive them. There are so many dried river beds with shrinking volume day by day. Majority of watersheds are seen fighting for their existence just after the monsoon. Many of them lose their existence due to the various human activities occurring on that given area of land (Watershed) that they have effect on, or people being affected by the resource water. Moreover natural boundaries of watershed rarely coincide with the administrative boundaries and so we don’t have a proper careful planning but watershed approaches are easiest to implement at local level, they can be difficult to implement at large scales where the political, institutional, and funding decision making growing complex.

Doha model is a stream based water storage model, designed and used in Maharashtra by an NGO named Dilasa Sanstha. It is a low cost structure built in bed level of stream to harvest rain water below ground level. It is aimed to recharge ground water tables of that area without construction of any pacca infrastructure.  In the two districts of Maharashtra, Doha intervention has a significant impact on agriculture; cropping intensity has increased for farmers near the stream. Significant increase in water availability during non monsoon season is witnessed that has led to an increase in the coverage of irrigated land by few months per year.

In this model storage tank depth of usually 2 to 4 meters are created below the stream bed level by excavation of stream in saucer shape and left natural bunds at regular intervals to minimise the siltation process with widening and deepening up to 20 percent of the existing section. The structure is effective in recharging the ground water with 200 mm rainfall. No land acquisition is required; water logging in nearby land is reduced.

In Bihar hundreds of such structures are available in each district to implement this model. This low cost structure will reverse the overexploitation of ground water for agriculture and strengthen the existing livelihood option especially cattle rearing. This is high time to intervene otherwise soon we will witness critical groundwater conditions in flood prone districts too. This way we can delineate the water bodies and streams from the nearby lands and habitation.