Sustainable Water Resources Management
in India—Some Thoughts
Dr. Sharad Kumar Jain
Director, National Institute of Hydrology
Roorkee, India
Management of water resources in India has become a challenging task, and the
magnitude of the task is rising in recent times due to a number of reasons. Major
reasons are the growing population and economy, leading to rising demands; high
irrigation water demands; impacts due to climate change; and growing environmental degradation. Broadly, most of the challenges in water management in India
can be categorised in the following groups:
(a) Water availability, variability, and increasing withdrawals,
(b) Environment and water quality,
(c) Project construction and maintenance,
(d) Water sharing disputes,
(e) Water governance and institutions, and
(f) Challenges due to climate and land-use/cover changes.
The present talk will discuss these challenges in greater details and will suggest
some possible remedies to address the challenges.
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