Sustainable Development of Groundwater Resources: Lessons from Amrapur and Husseinabad Villages, India

Abstract

"In a workshop on groundwater management at the Institute of Rural Management (IRMA) held in March 1989, Rolf Mueller, one of the workshop participants, called groundwater a 'free, but scarce' resource: Because it is free, it is used freely where there are no rules which define who can take how much of this precious resource, and because it is scarce it tends to get exhausted with rising pressures of demand. As a result, in many areas, conditions of over-exploitation of groundwater aquifers have resulted in serious ecological consequences.

"In such areas, groundwater management regimes can go in either of two ways. Firstly, the groundwater balance may be disrupted and (the farming system) may fall to a new equilibrium at lower levels of output and incomes. Alternatively, some system of rules may be accepted by groundwater users that so regulates each user's behaviour as to begin a new, sustainable, community-based management of the resource."