Researchers give positive confirmation on replenishment of groundwater storage in India

KOLKATA: The dwindling groundwater resource of India has been a cause of concern in recent years with almost 60% of the country being regarded as water stressed. The government over the years has undertaken several projects to replenish ground water through efficient ground water management and utilization policies. However, the effects were not known until now. For the first time, researchers from India and abroad have given positive confirmation on the replenishment of groundwater storage at regional scale. A research team from IIT Kharagpur in collaboration with NASA scientists has reported regional-scale groundwater storage (GWS) replenishment through long-term (1996-2014, using more than 19000 groundwater observation locations) ground-based measurements and decadal-scale (2003-2014) satellite-based groundwater storage measurements in large parts of India. Lead author Soumendra Bhanja noted that in recent times, large parts of the country reels under severe water crisis during each summer. India, which has been the largest consumer of global groundwater is going through a 'groundwater drought', with every possibility that the drought may continue and aggravate in impending future. This pervasive, unregulated abstraction for enhanced irrigation of water-intensive cultivation is resulting to one of the most rapid and drastic groundwater depletion in human history. "Our study shows that recent paradigm shift in the Indian groundwater withdrawal and management policies for sustainable water utilization, probably have started replenishing the aquifers by increasing storage in western and southern parts of India" said research lead Abhijit Mukherjee from IIT Kharagpur.

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