Usability of river water
Topic: Drainage System of India: Rivers, Basins and Patterns · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 3 "Drainage System"
Meaning
Usability of river water means how much of a river's water people can actually use. Indian rivers carry huge volumes of water, but the flow is uneven in both time and place. Most of it comes in the monsoon, and floodwater runs off to the sea. One region floods while another faces drought. Use is limited by too little water in the dry months, pollution, silt, uneven seasonal flow, disputes between states, and channels shrinking as settlements spread towards the thalweg (the deepest line of the channel). Class 11 NCERT asks whether India's water problem is one of availability or of management.
Example
In the monsoon the Brahmaputra floods large parts of Assam and its water flows on to the Bay of Bengal. At the same time, Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh stays short of water. Projects such as the Ken–Betwa link try to close this gap.
Don't confuse with
- Water availability: the total volume a river carries. Usability is the smaller part that can actually be put to use once timing, quality and disputes are taken into account.
Related concepts
- Thalweg
- Ganga-Kaveri link canal
- Interlinking of rivers
- Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal-ERCP link
- Godavari-Cauvery link
- Inter-State River Water Disputes Act 1956
- Krishna water dispute
- Satluj-Yamuna Link canal