Impact of India's watershed development programs on biomass productivity

Key Points Watershed guidelines in India fail to increase biomass productivities Guidelines depart from restoration by overemphasising poverty alleviation Guidelines need to adopt a scientific watershed restoration centric approach Watershed development (WSD) is an important and expensive rural deve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water resources research 2013-03, Vol.49 (3), p.1568-1580
Main Authors: Bhalla, R. S., Devi Prasad, K. V., Pelkey, Neil W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomass
Catchment areas
Environmental restoration
Geomorphology
India
NDVI
policy
Poverty
Productivity
Rural development
Rural poverty
Watershed management
watershed restoration
Watersheds
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Summary:Key Points Watershed guidelines in India fail to increase biomass productivities Guidelines depart from restoration by overemphasising poverty alleviation Guidelines need to adopt a scientific watershed restoration centric approach Watershed development (WSD) is an important and expensive rural development initiative in India. Proponents of the approach contend that treating watersheds will increase agricultural and overall biomass productivity, which in turn will reduce rural poverty. We used satellite‐measured normalized differenced vegetation index as a proxy for land productivity to test this crucial contention. We compared microwatersheds that had received funding and completed watershed restoration with adjacent untreated microwatersheds in the same region. As the criteria used can influence results, we analyzed microwatersheds grouped by catchment, state, ecological region, and biogeographical zones for analysis. We also analyzed pre treatment and posttreatment changes for the same watersheds in those schemes. Our findings show that WSD has not resulted in a significant increase in productivity in treated microwatersheds at any grouping, when compared to adjacent untreated microwatershed or the same microwatershed prior to treatment. We conclude that the well‐intentioned people‐centric WSD efforts may be inhibited by failing to adequately address the basic geomorphology and hydraulic condition of the catchment areas at all scales.
ISSN:0043-1397
1944-7973
DOI:10.1002/wrcr.20133