Droughts, 'Watershed Development' and Other Water Resources Experiences in India 'Namaste' (Greetings) from India!

摘要

On a sabbatical of sorts, I left chilly Toronto in late October and flew to India, returning to Udaipur, the city in western India, where I grew up. Udaipur, like most of western India, is experiencing its fifth consecutive year of insufficient rain and drought. For urban centres like Udaipur, drought means that the frequency of water supplied by the government water agency drops from once a day to once every two or three days. Because water is supplied for only a few hours a day, water for use during the day is stored in rooftop tanks from where it flows down into the taps and toilets. In drought years, the water is not supplied at sufficient pressure to raise it to the roof to fill the rooftop tanks. Instead, water flows into tanks constructed at ground level, from which it is pumped periodically to the rooftop tanks.