Suraj, S.
(2013)
Land degradation and integrated watershed
management in India.
International Soil and Water Conservation Research, 1 (1).
pp. 49-57.
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Abstract
In view of the stagnating productivity levels of irrigated agriculture, the contribution from rainfed agriculture
should be increased to meet the requirements from the ever growing human and animal population of India.
Land degradation is a major threat to our food and environment security and the extent of degradation problems
are more pronounced in rainfed regions. Large potential of rainfed agriculture is untapped largely due to
lack of enabling policy support and investments. In drought-prone rainfed areas, watershed management has
shown the potential of doubling the agricultural productivity, increase in water availability, restoration of ecological
balance in the degraded rainfed ecosystems by greening these areas and diversification of cropping farming
systems. Impact of various watershed programmes can be substantially enhanced by developing new approaches
and enabling policies new paradigm based on learnings over last 30 years for people-centric holistic
watershed management involving convergence, collective action, consortium approach, capacity development to
address equity, efficiency, environment and economic concerns is urgently needed. However, this can be used
as entry point activity for improving livelihood for rural community.
It has been realized that for sustainable developments of degraded lands, involvement of people (land less
and beneficiaries) is very much essential. For the last decade efforts have been made institutionalize the organizations
of the community & beneficiaries and ensuring their involvement in planning project formulation,
implementation and maintenance.
Government of India has launched various centre-sector, state-sector and foreign aided schemes for prevention
of land degradation, reclamation of special problem areas for ensuring productivity of the land, preservation
of land resources and improvement of ecology and environment. These schemes are being implemented
on watershed basis in rainfed areas. Soil conservation measures and reclamation of degraded lands are decided
considering the land capability and land uses. The efforts made so far resulted in enhancement of agricultural
production and productivity of lands, increase in employment generation, improving the environment of the areas
and socio-economic upgradation of the people. Integrated watershed management approach has been adopted
as a key national strategy for sustainable development of rural areas. This has been proved by conducting monitoring
and impact evaluation studies of the integrated watershed projects by external agencies.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Land degradation, Soil and water conservation, Rainfed agriculture, Land productivity, Watershed,
People's involvement, Reclamation, Monitoring & evaluation |
| Author Affiliation: |
Prof., President, Soil Conservation Society of India, National Societies Block A/G – 4, National Agricultural Science Centre Complex (NASC), DPS Marg (Pusa), New Delhi – 110012 |
| Subjects: |
Environmental Science |
| Divisions: |
General |
| Depositing User: |
Mr T L Gautham
|
| Date Deposited: |
10 Jan 2019 08:09 |
| Last Modified: |
10 Jan 2019 08:09 |
| URI: |
http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/id/eprint/15769 |
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