Abstract

Poly lined Water Harvesting Tank Technique to Mitigate the Impact of Climate Change on Agro-economy in Rain Fed Conditions: A Case Study

Author(s): Gulshan Kumar and Hem Chander

Polylined water harvesting tank technique is very useful for meeting the scarcity of water in rain fed areas vis-à-vis to mitigate the impact of climate change. An analysis of capacity and usefulness of polylined water harvesting tank in village Mann of rain fed district Hamirpur (H.P.) was carried out. Very severe water scarcity persists in this village especially during summer period. Farmers have to carry water from far off places for domes-tic as well as for meeting the minimum critical water needs of agricultural cash crops like tomato, cucurbits, capsi-cum etc. The top most priority of the present study was to way out the source of water for meeting minimum critical water needs of vegetable crops and maintenance of nutritional gardens. Sixpolylined tanks were constructed. These tanks were constructed on farmer’s field to harvest runoff water for meeting the critical need of irrigation. Trape-zoidal shaped silpauline lined tanks having depth of 1.5 m, length of10 m and width of 6 m, at bottom each and side slope of 1:1 were constructed for lining the tanks, a blue colored UV stabilized, multilayered cross-laminated sheets were used. Class one bricks 4800 nos. of each tank were used for lining the polyline sheets. The storage capacity of this tank was approximately between 60000-70000 liters in each. After construction of rain water harvesting struc-tures, the farmers are using harvested rain water for irrigation by ridges and furrows method. This technique has resulted in an increase in irrigated area. The increase in irrigated area after using this technique has enhanced pro-duction of crops/vegetables and also boosted their income. This observation has clearly shown that rain water har-vesting offers a viable solution to the irrigation problems of the farmers in rain fed areas.<

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