India's water storage tops last years' level and 10-yr avg as heat rises

Govt data on 140 reservoirs shows 7.3 per cent higher levels than previous year

Major reservoirs across the country collectively held more water than the previous year, as well as the 10-year average.

The 140 reservoirs for which the government collates data collectively held 92.498 billion cubic metres of water, according to 10th March Central Water Commission data. This is 7.3 per cent higher than the 86.227 billion cubic metres (BCM) from the same period last year. It is also 30.3 per cent higher than the 70.964 (BCM) average over the previous ten years.

“…the overall storage position is better than the corresponding period of last year in the country as a whole and it is also better than the average storage of last ten years during the corresponding period,” according to the bulletin.

 There is some regional variation. The numbers are 2.2 per cent higher for the Southern region (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu). It is 12.4 per cent higher for the Central region consisting of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The Eastern region comprising Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Tripura, Nagaland and Bihar has 21 per cent higher storage. It is 46.2 per cent higher for the Northern region comprising Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan.

The Western region is the only laggard. It comprises of the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. The current storage is 5.4 per cent lower than it has been over the last ten years for the region (see chart 1).

The monitoring of water storage levels assumes significance in light of the nature of Indian agriculture.

There has been a link between drought and food shortage in India found a January 2019 study entitled ‘Drought and Famine in India, 1870–2016’ from authors Vimal Mishra, Amar Deep Tiwari, Saran Aadhar, Reepal Shah, Mu Xiao, D. S. Pai, Dennis Lettenmaier.

“We find that a majority of famines were caused by large-scale and severe soil moisture droughts that hampered the food production…Expansion of irrigation, better public distribution system, rural employment, and transportation reduced the impact of drought on the lives of people after the independence.” it said.

Latest data shows over 47 per cent of India’s food grain production area is still not irrigated.

There are many individual projects which have more than a 50 per cent deficiency in storage compared the previous ten year’s average. They include Jawai Dam in Rajasthan, Odisha’s Machkund (Jalaput), Karnataka’s Tattihalla; and Gujarat’s Brahmani, Hathmati, Watrak and Sabarmati (Dharoi) as seen in chart 2.

“The state of Gujarat in India possesses an arid to semi-arid climate and suffers from recurrent droughts and perennial water scarcity problem. Droughts in Gujarat not only impart stress on the water resources but also on agriculture, economy and socio-cultural spheres. Although several policies have been prescribed and numerous measures have been prescribed to counter droughts and to reduce drought impacts, drought still revisits Gujarat in every three years and creates havoc to peoples' life,” according to a January 2020 study entitled ‘Drought mitigation: Critical analysis and proposal for a new drought policy with special reference to Gujarat (India)’ from authors N. Bandyopadhyay of the University of Kalyani, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology’s C. Bhuiyan, and A. K. Saha from the University of Delhi.