Assessment of Traditional Water Harvesting Systems and Measures for Rejuvenation in Karnataka

Background:

Traditional Water Harvesting Systems(TWHS) were constructed to store water for various uses of communities such as domestic use, irrigation and cattle drinking along with recharging of ground water. Kalyanis / Pushkaranis which are constructed near temples played very important role in socio-religious and cultural activities of Indian tradition and also as a storage reservoir to supply water for religious purposes in temples. Kalyanis, Kunte, Gokatte,  Katte and Ponds etc, are some of the Traditional Water Harvesting Structures exist in Karnataka state.

Motivation

• In recent past, most of these TWHS are in depleted condition and became dry resulting into the decline in their potentials.

• The temple tanks too which enjoyed protections because of its religious sanctity are also under threat.

• Most of these TWHS are dried up, structures have been damaged and buried due to lack of maintenance and security

• Some of these ancient water bodies are also polluted resulting water becoming dirty and unsuitable for human consumption

• Some of these are also being used for sewage disposal, dumping yards and became home for mosquito breeding

• There is also a gap in the database  on  status of quantity, quality and the present physical & hydrological  status of these  water bodies

Keeping this importance in view, KSCST carried out the project on assessing the hydrological and physical status of these Traditional water harvesting systems of the state to suggest the scientific measures for restoration and rejuvenation using Geo-spatial technologies with the funding support from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.

Objectives:

The project has been taken up with the following main objectives

• To carryout field survey and map the Geographic location of Traditional Water Harvesting Systems using GPS for Geo-tagging in GIS environment

• To assess the status of Usage, Physical status, structure details, storage capacity, status of silt, status of main bund and side bunds, status of inlet and outlet etc

• To study the hydrological status of these water bodies by integrating various themes such as Soil, Land use/Land cover, Geology, Rainfall, Ground water level of the area in GIS Environment

• To create digital database on both spatial & non-spatial data on various parameters and hyperlink the photographs in GIS

• To ascertain the status of water quality on various parameters

• To prepare the district wise technical reports on the status these water bodies

• To provide suggestions and scientific measures for restoration and rejuvenation based on its location, Physical and hydrological status and usage.

Aspects covered:

The following aspects have been covered during the field survey:

• Geographical  location of  TWHS

• Administrative jurisdiction and custodians

• Usage and Reasons for Disuse

• Physical status

• Structural details: Length, width and depth etc

• Source of water and catchment area

• Water Storage area and capacity

• Materials used for construction

• Hydrology – Drainage network, catchment area, storage area

• Status of Silt, Inlet, Outlet/Waste weir

• Geology and Geo-morphology of the area.

• Land use and land cover of the area

• Topography of the Area (Slope, aspect and altitude)

• Details of Soil

• Rainfall and Climate of the area

• Groundwater level

• Status of water quality

For further details contact:

 Dr. U.T. Vijay

 Chief  Scientific Officer & Principal Investigator- KDH

Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology

Indian Institute of Science Campus, Bangalore - 560012

Email: utv@kscst.iisc.ernet.in, vijayut@yahoo.in

 Project Team :

  Rajashekhara G
Sachin D A
Sanjeev kumar P

This page was updated on : Friday, August 28, 2020 12:41 PM