Groundwater resources assessment of the Koyna River basin, India

The Western Ghats (hills) region of the Indian peninsula in western India receives heavy precipitation (4,000–6,000 mm/year), but the headwater basins that coalesce runoff from these hills retain very small quantities of water due to the steep topography. However, the narrow valleys in these hills support agriculture based on surface water irrigation, and several medium to large irrigation projects have already been constructed with well-defined canal networks. These developments have boosted agricultural productivity in the region, but at the same time they are causing an economic disparity between the command areas (irrigated by these canals) and non-command areas. Water-logging problems are also occurring in low-lying areas. While these problems are mainly due to poor groundwater management strategies in the region, the groundwater resources in these headwater basins should be properly assessed and suitable measures taken for uniform groundwater development. As a first step in this direction, groundwater resources have been assessed as a case study for the lower Koyna River basin, a head water basin on the east of the main ridge of the Western Ghats.