Data Usage for Development, Management of Water Resources

Abstract

Challenges in water development and management are many and well known. With population growth, urbanization and industrialization, the challenges in water management are getting more complex. Likely impacts of climate change would, undoubtedly, add to these complexities. Unlike other resources, water management poses additional challenge of randomness of occurrence and distribution in space and time. For a geographical and meteorologically diverse country like India, many issues and concerns cannot be handled properly unless efforts are backed by sound data and conclusions drawn there from. Generally, at the planning level, the resource availability of data is of prime concern. However, for efficient management in real time, it is necessary to harness the usage data at the same level of frequency and accuracy as the resource data. Collection and processing of data also assumes prime importance for resource allocation amongst competing political and administrative entities and is the key parameter upon which the entire adjudication process relies. However, this underlying importance is not appreciated by the planning and economic communities in general, and accordingly, the field is rather neglected. The neglect leads to gaps in the data and knowledge base. Multiple jurisdictions and domains delineated by the federal structure of the constitution and governance of the country affect a unified data strategy. Lack of such strategy will lead to wrong priorities in planning and deployment. The chapter describes data requirements, provisions enabling collection and processing and status of availability. New technologies and approaches available for handling constraints generated out of multiple jurisdictions and conflict of interests are also highlighted.