Informed Land and Groundwater Management using Geospatial Technologies

Overview

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is the world's largest public employment programme and disburses about INR 75,000 crores every year for beneficiary support and development. 60% of the interventions undertaken are around Soil and Moisture Conservation (SMC) measures. Understanding and analysis of location-specific geo-hydrological information such as slope, land use, land cover, recharge potential, etc. are essential for sound planning and implementation of these measures. However, access to such data at the village level is either limited or absent.

It is also necessary to understand the impact of SMC interventions in terms of changes/ improvements in land fertility and water availability, the latter being relatively difficult for groundwater assessment. While the consumption and use of groundwater in India - the largest groundwater user in the world - is increasing steadily, there is no coordinated measure to manage its availability. The situation is exacerbated by the lack of good quality, location-specific data on this resource resulting in sharp drops in groundwater levels, reduction in or cessation of spring discharge, saltwater intrusion, and overall deterioration of water quality.

There is, thus, an urgent requirement to identify and map aquifers, quantify the available groundwater potential, and propose plans appropriate to the aquifer characteristics, the scale of demand and the institutional arrangements for resource management. The Composite Land Assessment and Restoration Tool (CLART) and the Groundwater Monitoring Tool (GWMT) were developed in this context to strengthen efforts at the grassroots level and align them dynamically to current resource realities.

Vision: To aid rural communities and village-level government functionaries in appropriately identifying, planning, and designing region-specific SMC measures, and help in the estimation of groundwater resources for improved access to quality, granular data by bridging the information gap.

Objectives

y To equip rural communities and local functionaries with relevant tools that improve their understanding of the local geology, groundwater situation and the functioning of aquifers, thus helping them undertake efforts to conserve, recharge and manage groundwater availability throughout the year for agriculture, livestock, and domestic uses, in line with SDG 6 (Ensure access to water and sanitation for all) y To enable informed decision-making and action at the local level, thereby reducing errors and facilitating the restoration and regeneration of land and water resources across the country and building the resilience of communities and ecosystems in the face of climate change, in line with SDG 13 (Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts), and SDG 15 (Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss) y To enable appropriate and judicious use of a large public works budget such as MGNREGA towards building the resilience of communities and ecosystems in the face of climate change, in line with

SDG 13 (Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts).

Stakeholders Involved

Rural communities, frontline cadre, community resource persons (CRPs), government field functionaries such as Gram Panchayat members (villagers) , Barefoot Technicians, Grama Kayaka Mitras (neighbourhood watch), Assistant Executive Engineers, etc., along with 100+ partner NGOs, agencies like Arghyam and SOCION (CLART), ACWADAM and INREM Foundation (GWMT) academicians, and several State governments. Solution and Implementation

The Foundation for Ecological Security and its NGO partners continually engage with 40,000+ village institutions across the country, where rural communities have been collectively protecting and managing their land, forest and water resources for improved social, ecological and economic outcomes. Tools such as CLART and GWMT developed to strengthen these efforts were planned to be embedded in the planning and management processes of village institutions, Gram Panchayats, Taluk officials and other state-level programmes.

The efforts to implement these tools are categorised into the following aspects:

y Capacity building of communities, rural cadre, and government functionaries on the use and application of the tools in soil and moisture conservation and management. y Supporting Gram Panchayats in preparing plans for natural resource management with an emphasis on

SMC interventions. y Liaising with state governments to promote the adoption and implementation of such tools at scale, for a larger impact.