LAND AND WATER MANAGEMENT THROUGH AGRO-FORESTRY ALTERNATIVE – A MODEL EXPERIMENT AT CDS CAMPUS

Funding Agency: Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development, Centre for Development Studies

The CDS campus had felt acute scarcity of water over the years. The grim situation led to the concept of recharging the ground water by insitu water conservation employing a multi disciplinary approach namely mechanical measures and agroforestry measures. The main objectives of the study were to carry out integrated land and water management activities in CDS campus to prevent soil erosion and water run off and there by to enhance water yield of the open wells for drinking purpose, to develop a micro level model for land water management at homestead, community or institutional level which can be replicated to other areas in future, to evaluate the constraints in the implementation of water shed management projects and to analyses the cause of failure of such projects run by the government.

Land management through various activities like construction of pits, trenches etc for arresting surface water and recharging ground water, so that the well yield can be improved has been implemented. Water yield of wells has considerable increased. The programme proved that this method had improved the beauty of the campus by good landscaping of the area and that the landscaping had proved effective for in-situ water conservation.