watershed development india
TRANSCRIPT
Today we will learn about
• History of watershed development in India
• Assessing success of watershed development projects
2
WATERSHED DEVELOPMENT INDIA
3
Broad goals of watershed development in
India
• Foster economic growth: particularly in the agriculture
sector
• Alleviate rural poverty
• Sub Goals:
– Enhance food, fodder or fuel productivity
– Ensure livelihood security for those below poverty
line
4Wani et al. 2017
Watershed development: Process
• Try small scale projects
– Upon success, these can be upscaled
• Systematic feedback from project areas and beneficiaries
• Evaluation and monitoring studies to gather information needed for upscaling
– What are the methods employed to evaluate the performance of a watershed development program in India?
• What to measure?
• How to measure?
5Wani et al. 2017
The long past:
Society evolved to ensure the smooth functioning of water and
agriculture systems by carving out ‘rules of conduct’
“He should build irrigation systems with natural water sources or with water to be
brought in from elsewhere. To others who are building these, he should render aid
with land, roads, trees, and implements and also give aid to the building of holy
places and parks. If one does not participate in the joint building of an irrigation
work, his labourers and bullocks should be made to do his share of work and he
should share the expenses but will not receive any benefits from it. The ownership of
the fish, ducks , and green vegetables in the irrigation works should go to the king. ”
In, The Activity of Heads of Departments
Arthasastra by Kautilya (Chanakya)
Mentor and Minister to Chandragupta Maurya (321-297 BC)
6Agarwal and Narain, 1997, Traditional Water Harvesting Systems, Dying Wisdom
The recent past:
Irrigation systems were further expanded during
the Mughal periods
7
Eastern Yamuna canal originally known as
Doab canal during Mughal period was
redesigned and put to use during 1890, canal
structures designed for a capacity of 800
cusec have gone through remodelling and
augmentation from time to time and its
carrying capacity is 4000 cusec having CCA
of 2.21 lakh ha.
Out of this, 68109 ha is in Saharanpur, 83513
ha in Muzaffarnagar, 62727 ha in Meerut and
5130 ha in Gautam Budha nagar (Ghaziabad)
districts of Uttar Pradesh.
Information from: http://india-
wris.nrsc.gov.in/wrpinfo/index.php?title=Eastern_Yamuna_Canal_Major_Irrigation_Project_JI01889
Image from: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Lower_Bari_Doab_canal.jpg
The Great Bengal famine of 1770 led to the
death of millions of people
8Image from: http://d152j5tfobgaot.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Bengal-Famine.jpg
The famine was a result of heavy taxation and food policy of the East India trading company. They coerced the locals into growing cash crops (opium poppy, and indigo) instead of food grains to maximize profit.
These famines were one of the triggers for
expanding irrigation projects over the country
9
• Upper Ganga Canal• Upper Bari Doab Canal• Krishna delta systems• Godavari delta systems• Kaveri delta system
Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ganges_canal_roorkee1860.jpg
Watershed development: 1880 the Famine
commission • Noted that India had an annual surplus of
grains
• Laid out the famine code: an early warning
system to detect and respond to food
shortage
• Frequent recurring famines reduced, few large
famines still persisted
• India was exporting rice and other grains even
during famines!
• Loss of wages from lack of employment of
agricultural laborers and artisans primary
cause
• Famine commission adopted a policy of
generating employment for these of the
population – relied on open- ended public
works to do so
• Continued to be the strategy until Bihar
famine of 66-67.
• Now called scarcity manuals 10Image source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India#/media/File:TheGraphicFamineReliefDeoriPanagar1897.jpg
1928: Royal Commission of Agriculture
11
1928: Royal Commission of Agriculture
…. in India, …, from time immemorial, the people have lived in small
villages, the mud houses of which are huddled together in a more or
less compact area situated in the midst of the fields which provide the
means of livelihood to their occupants.
…dependent on the monsoon and all major agricultural operations are
fixed and timed by this phenomenon.
…climatic conditions restrict agricultural operations to a few months
of the year.
Each village tends to be self-contained; …
The more remote from road or town, the more self-sufficing is the
village in all the requirements of its people from birth to death.
12
Broad Recommendations
…Of all the factors making for prosperous agriculture, … the most important is the outlook of the peasant himself.
…success ….. of agriculture must depend upon the creation of conditions favourable to progress … the improvement of village life in all directions… prosperity of the whole population … enhance national income at the source.
Rural standards of living needs improvement, and government has to play a key role in improving rural welfare.
13
Many specific recommendations: • Advance agricultural research in India (recommended establishment of
Imperial Council of Agricultural Research, ICoAR)
• ICoAR should undertake collation and publication of all the available information regarding the composition and characteristics of Indian soils
• Expand forested areas in ravine lands to prevent soil erosion (especially in the United Provinces & Bombay Presidency)
• Formulate policies on profitable use of fertilizers
• Establish demonstration farms, short courses in particular sublects to teach best practises
• The prosperity of Indian agriculture is closely linked with the improvement of livestock
• Grass cutting as an alternative to grazing
• Control or stop shifting cultivation
• Systematic management of forests for timber production
• Improve rural communication (roads)
• Publish ‘agricultural statistics of India’ with separate figures for each district
14
1970s onwards• The drought prone area program (DPAP) in 1972-73
– Aimed at mitigating the impact of drought in vulnerable areas
• Desert Development program (DDP) for the development of desert areas and
drought management in fragile, marginal and rainfed areas
– Schemes implemented in 45 catchments spread over 20 states covering about
96.1 million ha area
• Transition to ‘Integrated Watershed Development Program’ that combine erosion
and runoff process control, land management and groundwater management
– Key for success: participatory planning and implementation
– Measures of success: increased crop productivity, increased employment,
better crops and cropping systems, additional area under sustained irrigation
and cropping, reduced production risks
• By the 9th Five year plan, Rs. 10200 million was expended to treat 2.25 million ha
– Focus on soil and water conservation, increase land productivity for poverty
alleviation
– Limited success due to ‘top-down’ implementation, inflexible or lack of site
specific technology, and lack of attention to institutional arrangements
15Wani et al. 2017
1990s: increasing power to local bodies
• 1990s: European bilateral agencies establish major watershed initiatives to
promote collaboration between government and NGO projects
– Promote benefit sharing but did not succeed entirely as benefits
tended to favour landowners
• 1994: Ministry of Rural Development introduced new guidelines for
watershed development projects – giving unprecedented autonomy to
village-level organizations to choose they own watershed technology and
obtain assistance from NGOs rather than government departments
• 2000: Common Approach/Principles of Watershed Development:
– Decentralization of procedures, flexibility in choice of technology, and
provisions for active involvement of watershed community in planning,
execution, and evaluation of the program
16Wani et al. 2017
Challenges that still exist
• Main drawback: insufficient participation of local communities
• 1st generation programs failed due to a ‘top-down’ approach and technical
focus on soil and water conservation without sufficient emphasis on
livelihood benefits to the rural poor
• 2nd- 3rd generation problems: profitability of interventions, problems of
collective actions and active participation by the community, cost-sharing
between individual farmers and the community/state, distribution of gains
from watershed management (equity), and negative externalities
(upstream-downstream tradeoffs)
• Lack of supportive policies and legislations that encourage cost-sharing and
private and collective actions
• Overcoming conflicting objectives and share benefits and costs evenly in
heterogeneous rural settings
17Wani et al. 2017
Why community participation is the key?
Watershed development programs involve the entire community and
natural resource and influence:
i. Productivity and production of crops, changes in land use and
cropping patterns, adoption of modern technologies, increase in
milk production etc.
ii. Attitude of the community towards project activities and their
participation in different stages of the project
iii. Socioeconomic conditions of the people such as income,
employment, assets, health, education, and energy use
iv. Use of land, water, human, and livestock resources
v. Development of institutions for implementation of watershed
development activities
vi. Sustainability of improvement
18Wani et al. 2017
Success so far
• Improved access to drinking water due to groundwater
recharge in project area
• Increase in crop yield and substantial increase in cropped
area
• Rise in employment and reduction in migration of labor
• Improved availability of fodder, leading to rise in yield of
milk
19Wani et al. 2017
Critical role of mid-program assessment
• Impact evaluation of watershed development informs decisions on
whether to expand, modify, or eliminate a particular policy
• Use in prioritizing public actions
• Answers questions such as:
– Does the program achieve the intended goal?
– Can changes in outcomes be explained by the program, or are they a
result of some other factors occurring simultaneously?
– Do program impacts vary across different groups of intended
beneficiaries, regions, and over time?
– Are there any unintended effects of the program?
– How effective is the program in comparison with alternative
intervention?
– Is the program worth the resources it costs?20Wani et al. 2017
ASSESSING SUCCESS OF
PROJECTS
21
Evaluating watershed development projects:
Based on objectives of the project:
1. Validation evaluation: evaluate the assumptions used in project
formulations
2. Effectiveness evaluation: evaluate the progress towards stated
physical and financial goals
3. Achievement evaluation: to evaluate changes in living standards or
in hydrologic and environmental conditions brought about by the
project
Based on stage of the project:
1. Baseline: pre-project assessment (for viability)
2. Ongoing or intermediate (effectiveness of individual project
activities)
3. Terminal evaluation (effectiveness of the entire project)
4. Post-terminal evaluation (long term accomplishments)22Wani et al. 2017
23Wani et al. 2017
24Wani et al. 2017
Approaches
• Before/after
– Need benchmarks information
• With/without
– Need a non-project control
region for comparison
• Combination of with/without using
double difference method
– Compare pre-post project
period with the treated and
control villages to get a holistic
picture on impact of
watershed development
activities
25Wani et al. 2017
Methods:
A. Conventional benefit-cost analysis
1. Net present value (NPV)
2. Benefit-cost ration (BCR)
3. Internal rate of return (IRR)
• Challenges: how to measure social costs and benefits
associated with watershed development?
– Integration of economic and biophysical factors
– Account for non monetary impacts
26Wani et al. 2017
Methods: B. Economic surplus method
27Wani et al. 2017
Most commonly used method for assessing the impact of agricultural
research investment
Methods: C. Bioeconomic modelling approach
28Wani et al. 2017
• Include biophysical factors such as soil erosion, nutrient depletion and water conservation in analysis
• Assess tradeoffs among economic, sustainability, and environmental objectives
• Integration of biophysical and economic information into a single bioeconomic model
– Link economic behavioural models with biophysical data to evaluate potential effects of new technologies, policies and market incentives on human welfare and the sustainability of the environment or natural resources
Bioeconomic model: example for agriculture
• Model combines socioeconomic factors influencing farmer’s decision-making with biophysical factors affecting crop production and natural resource conditions
• Three components:
i. A mathematical programming model that reflects the farm household decision making process under certain constraints
ii. Estimation of crop yield response to soil depth, soil erosion under different cropping systems
iii. Nutrient balances as a sustainability indicator
29
Typical outcomes
30Simulations of soil loss for alternative scenarios of irrigated areas
Methods: D. Meta analysis
• To develop a general linkage between benefits and project activities across a large range of :
– Hydroclimatic conditions
– Watershed areas
– People’s participation
– Activities performed
– Soil types
– Geographic locations
– Etc.
• Collate findings from pervious studies and distil broad conclusions
31