WATER AVAILABILITY ASPECT OF INTERBASIN WATER TRANSFER

Abstract

Water is one of the basic needs of life. With the rise in the population and socio economic status, the demand of water has gone up manifolds. For a country like India where most of the rainfall occurs during monsoon; the variability in the availability of water is very high. Therefore, National water policy 2002 stipulates, among other aspects, transfer of water from water surplus area to water deficit area. This has also been accelerated due to direction to the Government of India by the Honourable Supreme• Court of India for exploring the possibilities of interlinking of river systems of India. In this study, an attempt has been made to ascertain water availability in the river Baitarani basin of Orissa in the year 2051. For the future projections of water availability, it becomes imperative to assess the level of population of not only human but also of the livestock. This aspect has been dealt with in depth in chapter V. It is interesting to note that, the analysis suggests that the human population of India will stabilise by the year 2045. Accordingly, in the year 2051 the human population is expected to be 1.545 billion. For the Baitarani river basin, the human population is expected to be 0.00594 billion by the year 2051. In this study, the following two models have been developed and discussed for estimating the requirements of water in the year 2051. (i) Macroeconomic model using gross domestic product (GDP) as an economic indicator. (ii) Comprehensive nutrition requirement model.