Monday, June 27, 2011

PAU EXPERTS EMPHASIZE ON GROUND WATER RECHARGING THROUGH RAINWATER HARVESTING

LUDHIANA, JUNE 27:-----



Rainfall is a primary source of water and roof top harvesting of rainwater has tremendous scope in improving groundwater availability and quality, observed PAU expert Dr Rajan Aggarwal of the Department of Soil and Water Engineering. Providing an in-depth knowledge to the farming community, the scientist disclosed, "More than 96% of cultivated area in Punjab is under irrigation and out of this; about 70% is irrigated by groundwater. The number of tubewells has increased from 1.92 lakh to 12.76 lakh in the period between 1970 to 2008-09. The excessive exploitation of groundwater has created a declining water table situation in Punjab," said Dr Aggarwal. He stressed that there is a dire need to conserve water using all possible techniques to enhance groundwater availability.



The expert, educating the farmers, told that the rainwater collected from the rooftop, is free from chemicals and biological contamination. Moreover, with 1 cm of rainfall, 1000 litre of water can be harvested through 100 m² roof area. In Punjab, there are 1376,189 and 2545,919 residential houses in urban and rural areas, said he and added that assuming average covered area of each house to be 100 m², about 135 million m³ of rainwater can be harvested for groundwater recharge each year, based upon average rainfall condition of each district. Cost of the structure depends upon the roof area, rainfall pattern and geological condition of the area, he said. In general, the cost varies from Rs 15 thousand to 50 thousand depending upon the site for the roof area 100-500 m2. The life of these structures is 15-20 years which can be improved by cleaning the filtration unit/roof periodically or by not allowing the first rain storm water through filtration unit. Informing that the Department of Soil and Water Engineering has established few such demonstration units at different locations in Ludhiana, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar and Hoshiarpur, Dr Aggarwal emphasized that there is a need to adopt this technique at mass level to get significant results.



PAU scientist revealed, "In Punjab, ̴ 26 lakh hectare area is under paddy cultivation. The paddy field can also be used for conserving rainwater by increasing the dike height of the paddy field. It has been recommended that for maximum rainfall conservation point of view, the optimum effective dike height in paddy fields should be 15, 17.5 and 22.5 cm for light, medium and heavy soils, respectively. Apart from reducing flood hazard, these techniques will also improve groundwater quality substantially.



In view of about 18,000 village ponds in Punjab, these ponds can be deepened and renovated for direct irrigation and recharge purpose; added Dr Aggarwal while suggesting the farmers that the inflow of pollutants towards these ponds should be checked immediately.
News From: http://www.7StarNews.com

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