Environmental Changes and Sustainable Development of Water Resources in the Himalayan Headwaters of India

Prakash Tiwari () and Bhagwati Joshi ()

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2012, vol. 26, issue 4, 883-907

Abstract: The nature of terrain imposes severe limitations on the scale of productive activities as well as on the efficiency of infrastructural facilities in the Indian Himalaya. As a result, biomass based subsistence agriculture constitutes the main source of rural livelihood. During the recent past, rural resource development practices have changed in response to population increase and the resultant increased demand on natural resources as well as increasing socio-economic and political marginalization. This has brought about rapid environmental changes which have reduced the groundwater recharge in the region. About 36% of springs have dried, heads of perennial streams have dried and water discharge in springs and streams has decreased considerably resulting into severe crisis of water for drinking as well as irrigation during the past 20 years. In addition to assessing the impact of recent environmental changes on water resources, this paper attempts to develop a community and user oriented framework for the sustainable development of water resources with a case illustration of Kosi headwater in Kumaon Lesser Himalaya, India. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Keywords: Rural resource use structure; Climate change; Land use changes; Participatory resource management; Spring sanctuaries; Wasteland management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11269-011-9825-y (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:26:y:2012:i:4:p:883-907

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-011-9825-y

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().