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Study Material and Notes of Ch 3 Water Resources Class
10th Geography
Topics in the Chapter
• Water → Some facts and Figures • Dams • Multi-purpose river projects → Objectives of multi-purpose river projects → Disadvantages of Multi-purpose river projects → Movements against Multi-purpose river projects • Rainwater Harvesting → How Tankas works
Water
• Water is a renewable resource
• Three-fourth of the earth’s surface is covered with water but only
a small proportion of it accounts for freshwater fit for use.
Some facts and Figures
• 96.5 percent of the total volume of world’s water is estimated to
exist as oceans and only 2.5 per cent as freshwater.
• India receives nearly 4 percent of the global precipitation and
ranks 133 in the world in terms of water availability per person per annum.
• By 2025, it is predicted that large parts of India will join countries
or regions having absolute water scarcity. Water Scarcity and need for water conservation and management
• The lack sufficient water as compared to its demand in a region is
known as Water Scarcity.
• Causes of Water Scarcity are:
→ over-exploitation → excessive use and unequal access to water among different social groups. → Large population
Dams
• A dam is a barrier across flowing water that obstructs, directs or
retards the flow, often creating a reservoir, lake or impoundment.
Multi-purpose river projects
• Multi-purpose river projects large dams that serve several
purposes in addition to impounding the water of a river and used later to irrigate agricultural fields. For example, the Sutluj-Beas river basin, the Bhakra–Nangal project etc. Advantages of multi-purpose river projects are: → Electricity generation → Irrigation → Water supply for domestic and industrial uses → Flood control → Recreation → Inland navigation → Fish breeding
Disadvantages of Multi-purpose river projects are:
→ It affects the natural flow of river causing poor sediment flow and excessive sedimentation at the bottom of the reservoir. → It destroys the habitats for the rivers’ aquatic life. → It submerges the existing vegetation and soil if created on the floodplains. → It displaces the local people of the place where it is created. → These are unsuccessful in controlling floods at the time of excessive rainfall. → These projects induced earthquakes, caused water- borne diseases and pests and pollution resulting from excessive use of water.
Movements against Mult-purpose river projects
• These projects cause of many new social movements like the
‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ and the ‘Tehri Dam Andolan’ etc. → This is due to the large-scale displacement of local communities.
• Inter-state water disputes are also becoming common with regard
to sharing the costs and benefits of the multi-purpose project.
Rainwater Harvesting
• Rainwater Harvesting refers to the practice of storing and using of
rainwater from the surface on which it falls.
• In hill and mountainous regions, people built diversion channels
like the ‘guls’ or ‘kuls’ of the Western Himalayas for agriculture.
• In Rajasthan, ‘Rooftop rain water harvesting’ was commonly
practised to store drinking water. • In the flood plains of Bengal, people developed inundation channels to irrigate their fields.
• In arid and semi-arid regions, agricultural fields were converted
into rain fed storage structures that allowed the water to stand and moisten the soil.
• In the semi-arid and arid regions of Rajasthan, almost all the
houses traditionally had underground tanks or tankas for storing drinking water.
• How Tankas works:
→ Tankas were connected to the sloping roofs of the houses through
a pipe. → Rain falling on the rooftops would travel down the pipe and was stored in these underground ‘tankas’.
