Planning strategies for a particular project

Water resource development projects should be planned and developed (as far as possible) as multi-purpose projects . The study of likely impact of a project during construction and later on human lives, settlements, socio-economic, environment, etc., has to be carried out before hand. Planning of projects in the hilly areas should take into account the need to provide assured drinking water, possibilities of hydropower development and irrigation in such areas considering the physical features and constraints of the basin such as steep slopes, rapid runoff and possibility of soil erosion.

As for ground water development there should be a periodical reassessment of the ground water potential on a scientific basis, taking into consideration the quality of the water available and economic viability of its extraction. Exploitation of ground water resources should be so regulated as not to exceed the recharging possibilities, as also to ensure social equity. This engineering aspect of ground water development has been dealt with in Lesson 8.1.

Planning at river basin level requires considering a complex large set of components and their interrelationship. Mathematical modelling has become a widely used tool to handle such complexities for which simulations and optimization techniques are employed. One of the public domain software programs available for carrying out such tasks is provided by the United States Geological Survey at the following web-site http://water.usgs.gov/software/. The software packages in the web-site are arranged in the following categories:

•         Ground Water

•         Surface Water

•         Geochemical

•         General Use

•         Statistics & Graphics

There are private companies who develop and sell software packages. Amongst these, the DHI of Denmark and Delft Hydraulics of Netherlands provide comprehensive packages for many water resources applications.

Note:

Multi-purpose projects:

Many hydraulic projects can serve more than one of the basic purposes-water supply, irrigation, hydroelectric power, navigation, flood control, recreation, sanitation and wild life conservation. Multiple use of project of facilities may increase benefits without a proportional increase in costs and thus enhance the economic justification for the project. A project which is which is designed for single purpose but which produces incidental benefits for other purposes should not, however, be considered a multi-purpose project. Only those projects which are designed and operated to serve two or more purposes should be described as multi-purpose.