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Watershed management is often seen as a potential engine for agricultural growth and development in fragile and marginal rain-fed areas India. Enhanced livelihood opportunities for watershed community through investment in their assets and improvements in income and productivity are the foremost objective of the programme, as mentioned in the guidelines for watershed management programme (WMP) in India. However in the absence of an integrated monitoring and evaluation framework for the health of watershed and its community, measuring levels of success or failure of such watershed programmes is not feasible. The current research aims at developing an integrated socio-physical monitoring and evaluation tool for watershed management with in an adaptive management framework using geospatial tools. The hydrological analysis was performed for the Kanva watershed (area 352 km2), located in Ramanagara district, southern Karnataka, India. The Kanva watershed is a representative watershed of SAT region of southern India. WMP under NWDPRA scheme of MoA GoI, was implemented during X five year plan (2002-03 to 2007-08) in Lakshmipura milli-watershed (LmW-T), which is a sub-watershed nested within the Kanva watershed. The proposed integrated socio-physical modeling approach was tested on the selected LmW-T to assess physical and socio-economic implications of watershed management. A non-treated sub-watershed, named Ajjanhalli milli-watershed (AmW-C), which neighbors the LmW-T was chosen as a control watershed. This is to assess change in socio-physical components in the absence of WMP.
Hydrological assessments were carried out using a semi-distributed physically-based hydrological model - Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Using this model changes in total water yield, groundwater recharge, evapotranspiration and sediment load were estimated from the simulated data for the period 1995 to 2010. The Livelihood Asset-Status Tracking (LAST) method was used for monitoring the livelihood status of households. The LAST method of evaluating livelihood is based on local perceptions and converts qualitative judgments to quantitative analytical data. A set of indices were developed to measure livelihood development at different level: household, community, and watershed. On the basis of index score, the households/community was categorized in to four groups: high developed households/community (HDH/HDC), medium developed households (MDH/MDC), low developed households/community (LDH/LDC), and very low developed households (VLDH). This categorization was further used to assess category wise development in livelihood assets base, before and after the implementation of WMP.
Comparison of simulated values of hydrological components of ‘treatment’ condition with that of ‘no-treatment’ scenario for assessment period 2004-2010, revealed that under ‘treatment’ condition in LmW-T, there was reduction in average annual values of water yield and sediment load by, 9.18 mm and 2.07 t/ha, respectively and increase in groundwater recharge and percolation by, 2.81 mm and 8.74 mm, respectively. Comparison between LmW-T and AmW-C indicated that during assessment period 2004-2010, under untreated conditions the control watershed yielded more water (22.52 mm) and sediment load sediment load (2.27 t/ha) and had less groundwater recharge (3.47 mm) and percolation (7.88 mm) annually compared to that of the LmW-T. Modeling results indicate that the physical interventions in treated watershed were effective in conserving soil and water resources and augmenting groundwater recharge.
Livelihood analysis of LmW-T suggests that there was significant improvement in W(LAST) (49.0 in 2003 to 61.44 in 2010) and C(LAST) scores of HDC (81.96 in 2003 to 85.68 in 2010) and MDC (59.52 in 2003 to 63.53 in 2010) from ‘pre-treatment’ year-2003, to ‘post-treatment’ year-2010. In comparison, the C(LAST) score of LDC (37.55 in 2003 to 38.77 in 2010) and VLDC (17.26 in 2003 to 17.81 in 2010) are low and show little improvement. The AmW-C community also did not show much improvement in livelihood as compared to the treated watershed. Thus, the livelihood analysis for the LmW-T community shows that watershed management has played a positive role in enhancing the livelihood of watershed community as a whole, but there is lack of distribution equity. Results indicate better soil and water conservation and increased agricultural productivity from the WMP was achieved however, livelihood development of poor still remains a challenge.
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