Water harvesting.

Did you know?

An ancient Indian traditional system of collecting water called Johad, which includes making an artificial pond to collect rain water
has helped Dr.Rajendera Singh an Indian environmentalist to win the Stockholm water prize in 2015 which is one of the most
honorable award presented for someone who has contributed for the conservation of water. he was awarded this for constructing
over 8600 Johads and providing water for over a 1000 villages.

water harvesting is the process of accumulation of rainwater or other sources of water for our daily purposes. Water harvesting also
helps various other situations like droughts and drying out dams and reservoirs.

Since the time of ancient India, people have been using various methods of storing water like
• Digging small pits and lakes
• Building small earthen dams
• Construction of canals
• Sand and limestone reservoirs et cetera

As we know water saving is an age old concept in India, like

1. Khadins, tanks and nadis in Rajasthan
2. Bandharas and tals in Maharashtra
3. bundhis in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh
4. ahars and pynes in Bihar
5. kulhs in Himachal Pradesh
6. ponds in Jammu region
7. eris or tanks in Tamilnadu
8. surangams in Kerala
9. kattas in Karnataka and so on.
Some of these methods are still used today.

In large level terrain, artificial ponds are made which collect rain water. These structures can hold water upto six months, but if it is
large enough, it can hold water upto a year. Their main purpose however is not to hold the surface water, but to recharge the
ground beneath.

There are a lot of advantages of ground water like,

• It does not evaporate easily.
• It spreads out to recharge wells
• It provides moisture for vegetation over a wide area
• It does not provide breeding ground for mosquitoes like stagnant water collected in ponds or artificial lakes
• The ground water is also protected from contamination by human and animal wastes.

These are some information about WATER HARVESTING.