Land & Water Resources

GS Paper: GS Paper I | Subject: Geography | Last updated: 2026-07-20

Prelims

(Key facts, data, schemes, laws, organizations — MCQ-ready points)

Urban Water Emergency — The Summer Norm (The Hindu, 17-06-2026)

City after city (Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad) faces recurring summer water shortages; this summer parts of New Delhi went days without piped supply (families managing on a single 20-litre can/day); the Delhi Jal Board planned 1,000+ tankers
Root cause is structural, not seasonal: cities have grown faster than their systems, built over lakes/tanks, over-extract groundwater, and shifted from local rivers/lakes to distant sources + deeper borewells; non-revenue water (leaks) ≈ 30% is lost before reaching taps
17 June is the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought

Rayadurgam — Community-Led Revival of a Water-Stressed Region (The Hindu, 21-06-2026)

Rayadurgam in drought-prone Anantapur district (Andhra Pradesh), on the Karnataka border — red, sandy terrain often likened to Rajasthan's desert, just 450–550 mm annual rainfall — is reviving under the Ananta Neeru Sanrakshanam Project
400+ villagers + the Forest Department restored traditional water bodies by desilting (more storage + groundwater recharge) and planted thousands of native saplings; small forest water bodies created for wildlife (sloth bears, leopards, wild boars) → reduces human–animal conflict and supports pollinators/birds
Nagara Vanam = an emerging urban forest project; fencing curbs encroachment on land once used for garbage-dumping; the model blends science + community participation + ecological restoration (praised by the PM), though water scarcity persists in pockets

River Interlinking — Two Live Projects in the News (The Hindu, 20-07-2026)

(a) Bihar — Belwa-Minapur link channel, Bagmati–Budhi Gandak interlinking

Bihar CM Samrat Choudhary inaugurated the 68-km (68.80 km) Belwa-Minapur link channel at Sheohar, part of the Bagmati–Budhi Gandak River Interlinking Project, built at a cost of ₹130.88 crore
Function: diverts surplus water from the Bagmati river to the Budhi Gandak river to reduce flood intensity in north Bihar districts — flood moderation by transfer, rather than embankment alone
Claimed co-benefits: enhanced irrigation capacity, higher agricultural production and farmer incomes, fisheries and allied activity, groundwater recharge, expanded green cover
Geography to carry: the Bagmati rises in Nepal (Kathmandu valley), enters Bihar in Sitamarhi, and is among the most flood-prone of the north Bihar rivers; the Budhi Gandak rises in the West Champaran (Someshwar hills) and joins the Ganga near Khagaria. Both are left-bank Himalayan tributaries of the Ganga, carrying heavy silt loads and prone to channel migration — the physical reason north Bihar floods annually
Framed politically as realising the river-interlinking vision of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee

(b) Madhya Pradesh — Police clear the anti-Ken-Betwa protest

Madhya Pradesh Police on 19 July cleared a two-week tribal-led protest against the Ken-Betwa river link and other irrigation projects in Chhatarpur district, dispersing protesters and hospitalising protest leader Amit Bhatnagar, on a hunger strike for 14 days
The protest: residents of tribal villages from Panna and Chhatarpur districts had demonstrated on the banks of the Barana river near Kupi village against the ₹44,000-crore Union project, with demonstrators tying nooses around their necks and lying on makeshift funeral pyres in the river — symbolic protest
The official justification: Chhatarpur Collector Parth Jaiswal said heavy rain over two days had caused the river to overflow and the protesters were moved from the riverbed to prevent an untoward incident, with a weather-department warning of more rain; protesters were bussed to their villages. Several protesters refused to move, accusing police of forcible eviction and assaulting women
Bhatnagar's claim: the police action came on the day he planned to reveal details of alleged "₹44,000-crore corruption" in the compensation process; he said his indefinite hunger strike continues
Ken-Betwa Link Project — facts to carry: the first project under the National Perspective Plan (1980) of river interlinking to reach implementation; transfers surplus water from the Ken to the Betwa (both Yamuna tributaries) via the Daudhan dam in Panna district and a 221-km link canal; intended to irrigate the Bundelkhand region across MP and UP. The central ecological objection: the Daudhan dam submerges roughly 10% of the Panna Tiger Reserve (~58 sq km of core critical tiger habitat), alongside submergence of tribal villages and large-scale tree felling

Mains

(Analysis, dimensions, significance, critique, policy angles — for 10/15 mark answers)

The two projects together make the argument better than either alone: Bihar shows interlinking at its most defensible — a 68-km intra-basin channel at ₹130.88 crore, moving surplus flood water between two adjacent Himalayan tributaries of the same river system, delivering flood moderation and irrigation with limited submergence. Ken-Betwa shows it at its most contested — ₹44,000 crore, a large dam, submergence of critical tiger habitat and tribal villages, and a two-week hunger strike ended by police. The lesson: "river interlinking" is not one policy but a spectrum, and its merits must be judged project by project — small intra-basin transfers are a very different proposition from mega inter-basin ones
The case for interlinking: India's water is spatially and temporally skewed — the Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna basin holds ~60% of the country's water resources but a smaller share of arable land, while peninsular basins face chronic deficit; 80% of rainfall arrives in four monsoon months. The National Perspective Plan (1980) proposed 30 links (14 Himalayan, 16 peninsular) to move surplus to deficit. In 2012 the Supreme Court directed time-bound implementation and constituted a Special Committee. Flood-moderation value is real, as the Bihar channel illustrates
The case against — five standard objections: (1) the "surplus" premise is contested — basins classified surplus may not be, once environmental flows and climate variability are counted; (2) ecological cost — altered flow regimes, sediment starvation downstream, delta shrinkage, and habitat submergence (Panna); (3) displacement — overwhelmingly of tribal and forest-dependent populations, engaging FRA 2006 Gram Sabha consent and PESA; (4) cost and viability — enormous capital cost against cheaper decentralised alternatives (watershed development, tank restoration, groundwater recharge — cf. the Rayadurgam model above); (5) federal friction — water is a State subject (List II Entry 17), subject to Union power over inter-State rivers (List I Entry 56, Article 262), so links require inter-State agreement that is politically hard to obtain
The procedural point the Ken-Betwa protest raises — and the one most answers miss: the protest was about compensation and consent, not hydrology. The Forest Rights Act, 2006 (§4(5) and §3(1)) and PESA, 1996 require Gram Sabha consent for diversion of forest land and for land acquisition in Fifth Schedule areas — and the LARR Act, 2013 requires consent, Social Impact Assessment and rehabilitation. When a 14-day hunger strike is cleared by police citing rising water levels, the substantive grievance about compensation is displaced rather than resolved. The pattern of dispersal-by-necessity — the same instrument used against Sonam Wangchuk in Delhi the previous day — is itself worth noting (see judiciary)
A balanced conclusion: the defensible position is neither blanket endorsement nor rejection but sequencing and scale — prioritise intra-basin, low-submergence links with demonstrable flood-moderation benefit; make independent hydrological assessment of "surplus" a precondition; treat FRA/PESA consent and full R&R as non-negotiable rather than procedural; and fund decentralised watershed and recharge measures in parallel, since they deliver water security faster and cheaper in most deficit regions
UPSC angle: National Perspective Plan & the National Water Development Agency, Ken-Betwa Link & Panna Tiger Reserve, inter-basin vs intra-basin transfer, Article 262 & inter-State river water disputes, List II Entry 17 vs List I Entry 56, FRA 2006 & PESA Gram Sabha consent, LARR Act 2013, north Bihar flood geography (Kosi, Bagmati, Budhi Gandak, Gandak), environmental flows, decentralised water management (see also environmental-policy-eia and disaster-management)

Five Fixes for India's Urban Water Crisis (The Hindu, 17-06-2026)

Beyond week-to-week coping, an IIHS-authored plan proposes: (1) an honest, public emergency water plan (map vulnerable wards, prioritisation rules, regular updates — treat information as part of the service); (2) a time-bound "leak hunt" to recover non-revenue water (~30% lost) — "a new source without a new pipeline"; (3) audits of large consumers (govt buildings, campuses) + neighbourhood demand norms; (4) water-quality testing of tanker/supply in high-risk areas; (5) better wastewater management & reuse (fix sewer exfiltration, upgrade treatment) to augment surface/ground water
The crisis is also one of equity & quality — intermittent supply, leaky pipes and unsafe storage mean even delivered water may be unsafe, hitting poorer settlements hardest (illness, lost workdays)
UPSC angle: urban water security, non-revenue water, groundwater over-extraction, lake/tank encroachment, wastewater reuse & circular water economy, demand-side management

Two Faces of India's Water Story — Coping vs Restoring (The Hindu, 21-06-2026)

Set against the urban tanker-dependence above, Rayadurgam is the supply-side, regenerative counter-model: instead of importing water from afar, it revives local catchments (desilted tanks, recharge, afforestation) using community labour + forest-department partnership — a low-cost, replicable template for drought-prone hard-rock regions (cf. watershed development, MGNREGA water works, "catch the rain")
Co-benefits: restored forest water-bodies cut human–wildlife conflict and rebuild biodiversity — i.e. water security, livelihoods and conservation reinforce each other; sustainability still needs sustained intervention (scarcity persists in pockets)
UPSC angle: watershed management, community-based natural-resource management, groundwater recharge in hard-rock terrain, afforestation/urban forests (Nagara Vanam), human–wildlife conflict mitigation