Watershed Management

Introduction 

A watershed is a body of water that includes rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, and estuaries. A watershed is a land area that drains or sheds water at a specific waterbody, like a lake or river. Rainwater or melted snow accumulates and moves silt and other elements downstream in the watershed, depositing them in the receiving waterbody. 

A small stream’s watershed may be a few hectares, whereas a big river’s watershed may be many square kilometres. A watershed should ideally be 1,000 to 2,500 hectares in size for proper planning and execution. 

Watershed Management Planning:

Watershed management planning is a method of generating a plan or blueprint for protecting and improving the water quality and other natural resources in a watershed. Watershed boundaries frequently extend beyond political boundaries, extending into neighbouring municipalities and/or states. That is why, to manage a watershed effectively, a comprehensive planning procedure involving all impacted communities in the watershed is required.

Objectives of watershed development programs:  

1. Development of wastelands, areas which are drought-prone, degraded lands and also desert areas while keeping the local needs and site conditions apt.
2. It also helps in promoting the on-ground economic development and also in improving the life standard, socially and economically, of the poor and disadvantaged people living near the program areas.
3. This also reduces the effect of natural climatic problems such as drought and geologic processes on humans and plantations.
4. Restoring ecological equilibrium by utilising, conserving, and developing natural resources (e.g., land, water, and vegetative cover).
5. Using a watershed approach, water resource development, conversion, and pasture development.

What are the types of watersheds?

Watershed are classified as per their size and land usage :

• Macro watershed (> 50,000 Ha)
• Sub-watershed (10,000 to 50,000 Ha)
• Milli-watershed (1000 to 10,000 Ha)
• Micro watershed (100 to 1000 Ha)
• Mini watershed (1-100 Ha)

How to develop a watershed?

The watershed development programme is built around soil and water conservation methods. There are two primary sorts of conservation practises:

In-situ development:

Land and conservation practise like the construction of contour bunds, hierarchical bunds, field bunds, terrace building, broad bed and furrow practise, and alternative soil-moisture conservation practises are referred to as unchanged management. These practises help reduce land degradation, improve soil health, and increase soil-moisture handiness and groundwater recharge.

Ex-situ development

Construction of check dams, farm ponds, vale management structures, and pit excavation across the stream channel is referred to as ex-situ management. These practises reduce the discharge in order to reclaim the formation of valleys and also produce significant runoff which can increase the groundwater level and irrigation potential in watersheds.

What is the Need to Develop Watersheds: 

In India, rain usually rains heavily in hours, days, or months. In most sections of the country, the number of rainy days does not exceed 40-50 per year. The task at hand is to figure out how to use the water that falls on the ground. Watershed planners in India have let rain from every village flow into rivers as runoff for more than 50 years and then attempted to bring this water back to the villages by building enormous, expensive dams and canal networks. Watershed development aims to halt and conserve water where it falls, inside each village, under the leadership of the village watershed committee, so that it can be used for longer periods.

Advantage of Watershed Management

• Watershed management helps regulate pollution of the water and alternative natural resources within the watershed. 
• Identifies and Regulates Ecologically Venturous Activities: The activities which happen at a watershed in regular intervals affect the natural resources and water quality. 
• Watershed management comprehensively identifies such activities. It makes recommendations to properly address them so that their adverse impacts are often reduced. 
• Enhanced Partnership among the stakeholders is rising, which is crucial for the effective management of the land and water resources. 
• It is also an economical solution, due to the implementation of watershed management plans when resources are restricted.

For example, in places where rainfed is severe, watershed management has proved to double agricultural productivity while aiding the agricultural families through inflated water handiness and diversifying the cropping and farming systems, leading to heterogeneous sources of financial gain. 

Conclusion

The process through which land use and water management strategies are practised to maintain and improve water’s quality and other natural resources within a watershed through holistically controlling their use is termed as the watershed management.

Watershed development aims to halt and conserve water where it falls, inside each village, under the leadership of the village watershed committee, so that it can be used for longer periods.