An approach first piloted in India’s Rampur District is turning flood water into irrigation for hundreds of communities.
The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) began piloting underground transfer of floods for irrigation (UTFI) in a village in the Ganges Basin in 2015. Since then, UTFI has been recognized as an important part of the solution to two crises facing India: destructive floods and recurring water shortages. The CGIAR Initiative on NEXUS Gains is now supporting the government to better implement a national water conservation program. As a result, UTFI ponds and recharge wells have been constructed in hundreds more villages, increasing water availability by up to 8 percent to date and strengthening climate resilience.
India’s status as one of the most water-stressed countries in the world reflects a challenging reality: it must support 18 percent of the global population with 4 percent of global water resources. Making matters worse, monsoon rains regularly cause destructive flooding. Thus, water resources management contends with immense variability that undermines progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. The use of groundwater, which buffers both seasonal and longer-term variability, has surged in response. Nationwide, 70 percent of irrigation is now derived from groundwater. Managing groundwater sustainably is vital, since it can play a key role in adaptation to climate change, if it is not overexploited.
UTFI is essentially an approach to better manage groundwater recharge. It involves transferring excess runoff from fields, rivers, or canals, at times of high flood risk, directly underground via village ponds, small dams, or open “recharge” wells that are modified for this purpose. Recharged groundwater can then be recovered, through existing local wells, for irrigation and/or domestic use in the future. Similar concepts are widely applied in the most water-scarce parts of India, but in more humid areas where groundwater depletion has recently become a serious problem, experience is limited.
The process of rolling out UTFI in Rampur District started small in 2015, when IWMI and national partners began piloting the approach in the village of Jiwai Jadid. Wider hydroeconomic analyses showed scope for replication across the Ramganga Basin – a sub-basin of the Ganges – with potential for major reductions in flooded area and restoration of groundwater levels [1]. By 2022, the Government of India had begun responding to water insecurity with the “Amrit Sarovar” program [2], which aims to develop or rejuvenate at least 75 ponds in each district of India.
Through NEXUS Gains, CGIAR researchers are providing technical expertise on UTFI to optimize Amrit Sarovar’s benefits for groundwater. In fact, the first Amrit Sarovar pond was in Rampur District, and due to advice and information provided by IWMI, it included recharge wells to maximize the volumes of water recharged [3]. The Rampur District Administration has directed that every subsequent Amrit Sarovar pond should have a minimum of two recharge wells. So far, more than 300 village ponds have been constructed in Rampur alone [2] based on a UTFI structure design tested by NEXUS Gains, building on earlier IWMI-led initiatives [4].
“After 20 years Chamraua block has come out of the dark zone… There was a ban on boring in Chamraua block, due to which farmers were facing a lot of difficulties in irrigating the crops… There has been a change due to the digging of ponds and Amrit Sarovar”
Ravindra Kumar Mandar, District Magistrate, Rampur, in the newspaper Amrit Vichar, 5 July 2023
Through NEXUS Gains, IWMI is monitoring a range of UTFI structures to inform future investments. This is participatory research, carried out with district- and village-level officials and citizens in Rampur as well as neighboring Moradabad District. IWMI is also working with different levels of district government to monitor the performance of ponds, check dams, and recharge wells and their impacts on groundwater. In early 2024, the Moradabad District administration agreed to UTFI upscaling in two of the district’s blocks, with special consideration to restoring the depleted Aril River. IWMI researchers have carried out a scoping study to identify suitable ponds for recharge wells and are assessing groundwater recharge from these sites.
The impact of government-led groundwater recharge initiatives in the Ramganga basin has been assessed. By analyzing district-level data on recharge interventions under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (which includes Amrit Sarovar and other programs), and combining it with recharge performance data collected through NEXUS Gains, it is estimated that groundwater recharge rates in various districts across the Ramganga basin have increased from 3 to 8%. Given the significant potential for further recharge through the conversion of numerous unutilized ponds, there is an emerging opportunity to stabilize groundwater depletion in the region.
UTFI has achieved considerable scientific credibility since it was conceptualized in Thailand more than a decade ago [5]. In India, it has received extensive media coverage and commanded attention at forums such as the International Sustainable Natural Resource Management Conference in New Delhi in 2023. Global assessments of UTFI’s potential, indicate vast scope for implementation – not only across India but across all inhabited continents [6]. UTFI can contribute positively to resilience by reducing vulnerability to droughts and floods with potentially far-reaching co-benefits for rural and urban communities.
References
- Chinnasamy, P., Muthuwatta, L., Eriyagama, N., Pavelic, P., and Lagudu, S. 2018. Modeling the potential for floodwater recharge to offset groundwater depletion: A case study from the Ramganga basin, India. Sustainable Water Resources Management 4 (2): 331–344.
- Government of India. 2024. Mission Amrit Sarovar: Master Report.
- Government of India. 2022. Country’s first “Amrit Sarovar” to be inaugurated by Union Minister for Minority Affairs Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Uttar Pradesh Jal Shakti Minister Shri Swatantra Dev Singh at Patwai, Rampur(UP), tomorrow. May 12, 2022, New Delhi, India. Ministry of Minority Affairs.
- Pavelic, P., Sikka, A., Alam, M.F., et al. 2021. Utilizing floodwaters for recharging depleted aquifers and sustaining irrigation: Lessons from multi-scale assessments in the Ganges River Basin, India. Colombo, Sri Lanka. IWMI.
- Pavelic, P., Srisuk, K., Saraphirom, P., et al. 2012. Balancing-out floods and droughts: Opportunities to utilize floodwater harvesting and groundwater storage for agricultural development in Thailand. Journal of Hydrology 470–471: 55–64.
- Alam, M.F., and Pavelic, P. 2020. Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI): exploring potential at the global scale. Colombo, Sri Lanka. IWMI.