Download full report in pdf format - Natural Resources Institute

Table 18. Management of water resources in urban and peri-urban areas
Options Specific details Potential trade-offs
Use waste-water · Drain runoff of acceptable Reduced groundwater
for productive quality to areas where it can be recharge
purposes
used for fodder or horticulture
· Minimise health risks
· Establish user groups
Increased · Direct good quality runoff from There is a risk that polluted
groundwater roads, open areas, rock water will also enter the soak
recharge outcrops, roofs etc. into soak pits resulting in pollution of
pits
aquifers
Harvesting of · Good quality runoff from Reduced groundwater recharge
water into cisterns
roads, open areas, rock
outcrops, roofs etc. can be piped
into private or community-owned
cisterns. This is a good option in
areas with polluted groundwater
or rapid groundwater recession
· Water can be used for domestic or
productive purposes
Minimising risk of · This includes safe handling of Additional costs may be
ground and surface agro-chemicals and industrial incurred by small and large
water pollution effluents industries
· Treatment and disposal of sewage
Establishment of · Using harvested or piped-water
community or nutrition
supplies, allotment-type
gardens
gardens can provide landless
families with a source of vegetables
for home consumption or sale
O&M of environmental · Action by community groups Less silt available to
sanitation systems or the panchayats farmers that traditionally use
· Improves the urban and silt as a means of improving
peri-urban environment
soil fertility of their fields
and reduces health risks
Flood control · Maintenance of drains and
routine clearance of rubbish from
streams flowing through urban
areas
· Construction of bunds to protect
housing at high risk of flooding
89