Water Resources Of India

India is rich in water resources, being endowed with a network of great rivers & vast alluvial basins to hold groundwater. Conditions, however, vary widely from region to region. Whereas there are some chronically drought affected areas, there are others which are frequently subject to damage by floods.On the whole, under the pressure of rapid population growth, the available resources of water are being developed & depleted at a fast rate & the situation seriously underlines the need for taking up integrated plans for water conservation & utilization for every agro-ecological area to meet the increasing demands of irrigation, water harvesting, human & livestock consumption,expanding industry, hydro-electric power generation, recreation,navigation & other uses. WATER RESOURCE CATEGORIES water resources are divisible into two distinct categories : the surface-water resources & the ground-water resources. Each of these categories is a part of the earth's water circulatory system,called the hydrologic cycle, & is ultimately derived from precipitation,which is rainfall plus snow. They are interdependent & frequently the loss of one is the gain of the other. The brief description of the run-off cycle,which is a part of the hydrologic cycle,will help us to understand the origin & the interdependence of these two categories of water resources. The precipitation that falls upon land & is the ultimate source for both the categories of water resources is dispersed in several ways. A sizeable portion is intercepted by the vegetal cover or temporarily detained in surface depressions.Most of it is later lost through evaporation. When the available interception or the depression storage are completely exhausted & when the rainfall intensity at the soil surface exceeds the infiltration capacity of the soils, the overland flow begins.Once the overland flow reaches a stream channel, it is called surface run-off, which together with other components of flow, forms the total