Water Resources

The Beginnings

Kilcoupe, an Irula hamlet in the Nilgiris was where it all began. Kilcoupe is a small village of nine families who had been settled in the area to work on the forest coupes. As such the boundaries of the village were a river on one side and thick forests on the other. Wild animals like elephants and gaur often crossed paths with the village community. Our first project was on appropriate technology in beekeeping. Taking off from this, we started talking about their agriculture and other related issues of living in/close to the forests. During this we started talking to the women and found that in Kilcoupe, the women went out with their pots into the forest to spring holes in search of water. There was quite a large chance that they would encounter either a gaur or an elephant, sometimes even a leopard. There was quite a bit of risk involved in this activity.

Sometimes women with children or an elderly woman would be out in the forests for half an hour or 45 minutes. They did not have electricity in the village and there was no piped water supply. So while we realized that bees and beekeeping were a source of interesting conversation for them, if we did something with water that would be quite valuable for them immediately. We thought we would look at their traditional sources of water. Being a forest settlement, the revenue department had no control or power over this village. Sometime in the past a government scheme had established a water supply system to Kilcoupe. We came to understand that springs had been tapped for water that would flow into constructed tanks through gravity and then be supplied to both the upstream settlement of Melcoupe and the downstream settlement of Kilcoupe. It was only a matter of time before inter village tensions over water sharing broke out and the flows to the Kilcoupe were stopped by Melcoupe. An incident of elephant rampage also destroyed the pipes going down. Since then Kilcoupe had been dependant on collection of water from the forests.

There was a river that flows down from Kotagiri to Kilcoupe and Melcoupe. They used to go for bathing to the stream but their drinking water supply was always from protected springs. We made a small filtration system next to the river, tapped the water from the stream and installed a pipeline of more than 3 km that carried water all the way to the village.

“I still remember that day when we worked till late to complete the work and when we walked down to the settlement there was this joy at seeing water right inside the village”, recounts Pratim.

But this excited the Forest Department and inspired them to build a large checkdam to supply water for irrigation to the settlement. At that time, the village had only 9 families – in 1995 – and each family owned two acres of land and the water helped them do agriculture. So the water brought agriculture and agriculture led to the first demonstration of electric fencing in the region.

Another realization during this time was that health issues like diarrhea peaked during monsoon and this we connected to the water. So we had a small water testing lab to spot coliform. So basic messages ofboiling drinking water were shared. We also realized that there were no toilets in these villages – so a lot of human solid waste and night soil found its way into the water. Also the water was carrying quite a bit of pesticides from the tea and vegetable cultivation upstream. So this small implementation project in Kilcoupe led us to understand what happens in the Nilgiris landscape with respect to water.

Further efforts

In 2001, we worked on defining a new approach to understand hill watersheds, both in the implementation and action-research process. The project was small compared to traditional watershed projects in other parts of the country. It dealt with three watersheds in three tribal villages. Though apparently small - the results are significant and cannot be ignored. Forest communities and watersheds - are not strong linkages - generally land owners and large farmers decide on watershed programmes so as to benefit their areas directly or indirectly. This experiment of involving tribal families through other ways, in watersheds and learning to see how things work at a micro level has been worth the effort. It also brought home the importance of water quality in health and disseminated the message of boiling drinking water as a method of purification especially during the monsoon season.

Bigger Picture

Water forms a connecting link between the ecology and economics in the Nilgiris. The district is located at an elevation range of 1000-2636 metres above sea level, and the topography includes high peaks, undulating grasslands and a plateau region. The drainage of the district can be divided into four distinct basins – the Moyar, the Bhavani (both of which feed the Cauvery), the Chaliyar and the Kabini. Both the colonial State and the democratic government have manipulated the water flows in the district. Most of the large rivers have been tapped for power generation, and the district contributes about a third of the hydroelectric power available in the State.

In order to better understand the situation of water resources in the district including the kinds of water sources, the kinds of community based water management systems – if there were and how they had changed, how these have eroded or been ruptured, what the issues were at various elevations and the importance of springs in this area, a primary survey was conducted in 2001.

To understand the local contexts of water, the Hill Water study surveyed 61 habitations across the four basins. This district is home to various indigenous people including the Kurumbas – Alu, Jenu, Mullu and Betta, Kasava, Irula, Toda, Kota, Kattunaika, Paniya, Badaga, Thoraiyya Badaga and the Mountadden Chettis. Each of these communities has favoured different elevation for their habitations. The land use at these elevations has evolved to suit the livelihood requirements of these communities. Water use then, follows these land claims. The table below summarizes the natural environment, social demography and water flows.

sources, the kinds of community based water management systems – if there were and how they had changed, how these have eroded or been ruptured, what the issues were at various elevations and the importance of springs in this area, a primary survey was conducted in 2001.

Elevation (meters above sea level)

	Lower than 1000	1000-1800	Higher than 1800
Natural forests	Dry deciduous and scrub	Moist and dry deciduous	Shola, grasslands
Commercial forests			Cinchona, eucalyptus, pine, wattle plantations
Indigenous communities	Betta Kurumbas, Irulas, Kattunaikans, Paniyas, Kasava, Mullu Kurumbas	Alu Kurumbas, Irulas, Betta Kurumbas	Todas, Kotas
Other communities	Malayali, Tamil, Sri Lankan Tamil repatriates	Badaga, Tamils, Sri Lankan Tamil repatriates	Badaga, Tamils, Malayalis, Kannadigas, Sri Lankan Tamil repatriates
Water Resources	Mostly polluted water enters the Reserve Forests zone, passing through scattered tribal hamlets and large wildlife reserves. All hallas (streams) merge into the four basins through the few major rivers. The water carries massive top soil and wastes. In the monsoon, water sources are visible, but during the summer most of them are dry. The plantation sector suffers, and the reservoirs are half empty.	Streams become rivers and pass through urban and rural settlements. It is mostly a plantation and agriculture sector. The sources of pollution in this zone are domestic waste as well as industrial and chemical waste. There are large concentrations of populations, including immigrants, natives, tribals, service sector professionals, and the business community, all of whom use waters in diverse ways.	Water is trapped in the grasslands and sholas, releasing itself gradually through marshes and swamps. There is a network of hydroelectric projects for electrical power generation. The landscape has large reservoirs. The source of pollution in this zone is agro chemicals.
Cultivated crops	Coffee, pepper, jackfruit, silk cotton, tea, ginger, paddy (Gudalur), millets	Tea, coffee, pepper, jackfruit, silk Cotton	Tea and vegetables
Trade and business	Homestead produce, wage labour, tea (Gudalur), farm income	Timber, tea, small business, wage labour, homestead produce	Timber, tea, tourism, township

The study noted how widespread land use changes in the catchment of streams, and the harnessing of the water itself for hydroelectricity and large scale irrigation, has resulted in the loss of control over these water resources by the local communities – while, at the same time, establishing a centralized administrative system. Many of these grasslands once formed the grazing grounds of the pastoral Toda community. The submergence of these grasslands has forced these communities to abandon their older habitations and reduce their cattle holdings.

These land use and water harnessing changes have also significantly affected the water yield. This is borne out by a landmark study by the Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute in Udhagamandalam [ii]. The study conducted over a period of 24 years found an average annual reduction of 16% in water yield from the eucalyptus planted area over the natural grassland, in the first decade of eucalyptus planting. By the second decade, the water yield reduction went up to 25.4% in comparison to the water yield from grassland.

Wetlands in Tamil Nadu had no protection at that time. They are often part of revenue public land without any cognizance of their special function. reiterates the need for further focused attempts to study water flows in the region and support community institutions for protection of local springs.

Badagas and water

The Badagas are the largest indigenous community of the Nilgiris. Their settlements, mainly on hill tops, depended entirely on upper spring sources close to Shola forests and grasslands. This water is considered to be pure and the water sources are protected and worshiped once a year in a ritual called the Halla Paruva (Water Worship). In the Halla Paruva, an offering of milk is poured into the water source and the first crop of millet is cooked with water from the source and served as paruva (ritual meal). This ritual is done prior to the North Eastern monsoon to receive abundant rainfall during the season.

In most Badaga villages, one finds that an underground source or Huttu (emerging) neeru (water) has been protected for drinking water. This is a sacred place - out of bounds for outsiders, thereby reducing the risk for external contamination. Bothayya, an elder and headman from Ajjur village is also the Poojari (priest) of a temple. According to him, the location of the settlement was determined subsequent to locating a spring source emerging out from sembare kal - a type of red soil. The sighting of this stone in the ground is the signature of Huttu neeru or emerging spring. He says that to invoke the rains, a special pooja is conducted in the month of May, which is done by looking at all the four directions and the clouds. During this period, there is also another interesting water ritual - connecting the cows (buffaloes in the olden days) and water. This is called uppuattu habba, in which the cattle are given salt water in uppukal or salt stones. According to him the ritual of Halla paruva and the salt ceremony are part of the whole rhythm of life cycle.

The Badagas are a predominantly agricultural community and the location of agricultural fields reflect the social stratification. The Badagas have mostly better access and facilities to water than the Thoraiya Badagas (a sub group). For agricultural purposes, water is first utilized by the Badagas and then made available to the Thoraiya Badagas. Communities of Thoraiya Badagas and Sri Lankan repatriates are located in relatively lower elevations. Their water source is from the valley, which is also the water source used by Badagas for their agriculture. With changes in and non-availability of sufficient water from upper spring sources, Badagas have also had to depend on lower valley sources for their drinking water.

In the Badaga village of Alakare, where the water is still known for its delicious taste, some of the earlier customs are in evidence. Water at Alakare emerges from an underground spring or Baavi, close to a Shola. A beautiful temple marks the water source. In the past, families used to maintain water channels from the origin to the settlement by removing blockages and desilting. This community effort led to everyone taking responsibility for the water system.

Today, this practice has been discontinued with the Government bringing in piped water and the water channels having become State-owned property. The management is different, with few salaried people doing all the work. The government water supply is often insufficient in summer; and the old Baavi is used then. Among the community sanctions imposed on the use of the Baavi water is that no water is to be tapped at night. All those wanting water are to store it by the day. Throughout the night, the springs recharge so that there is sufficient water for the whole village the next day.

Bikkepathimand is a Toda settlement located in a thick Shola forest in the upper plateau. Ooneri Kuttan, an elderly Toda from the village, talks about the relationship between the Toda and buffaloes. Revered by the once pastoral community, the buffalo is a leitmotif (guiding motif) in the secular and sacred lives of the Todas. Ooneri looks back at the change in the landscape and the shrinking habitat for the buffalo for water and grass. Earlier even Badagas used to keep them, but tea, other occupations and land-use change made them opt out”. According to him, the Nanjanad area was a zone of large swamps - almost 20-30 kms wide and so long that the crossing would take time. “These areas had good clean water sources from springs and grass that our buffaloes fed on”. Government policy according to him, introduced pine, wattle and blue gum and dried up the swamps. “With dryness - the land developed cracks - and our buffaloes were unable to walk on these pasture lands with the risk of slipping inside the swamp mud”

Alukurumbas and Bettakurumbas - bamboo pipelines & banana leaf rain water harvesting

The Alu Kurumba are a forest dwelling tribal group who have moved as tea estate labourers towards road fringes over the last two decades. Many of them still frequent their homes within thick forests, where they cultivate annual crops such as coffee and jackfruit.

The Alu Kurumba in Pudur Kombei village recall how their drinking water used to come in bamboo poles, used as pipes to bring in water from uphill mountain springs. Today, they find it more convenient to use PVC-pipes and plastic buckets for water supply.

A similar practice by the Betta Kurumba from Vaacikolli village of Devarshola town panchayat is the use of banana leaves for collecting rain water from the rooftops. Their regular water supply is from a water hole nearby.

Wild willow or Baige tree - is a good indicator of water according to several villages. They believe that their roots attract water and form springs in the vicinity. In Bellathi kombei village beyond Manjoor, the Alu Kurumbas dig holes for water near these trees.

Bettakurumbas - dead & live water

In the village of Kurumba Medu near Yellamalai, the Bettakurumbas still practice the tradition of drawing water from a spring or a swamp. They do not fetch water from the wells as they consider it “dead” water. Though there is a well close to the village, nobody uses it. They go far down the valley for fetching water in vessels from the springs.

Paniyas - women and water

In most parts of the district, the source of springs is a sacred place out of bounds for women due to menstrual taboos. However, in a Paniya village in Melambalam, it is a Moopathi – a lady priestess who does the ritual pooja to raise the water table of the well. The community remembers that in earlier times, her husband used to perform this pooja. While the community is unclear about how the practice of the woman as moopathi evolved, elders surmise that it is probably more to do with younger men not knowing how to conduct the ritual.

Improving access to water in Sigur

Following up our work on the status of water resources in the Nilgiris, we realised the need to develop models in the field to demonstrate alternate approaches to tackle the water situation. We decided to focus on the Sigur plateau area which is a complex landscape of indigenous people, protected area and high tourist presence. Indigenous habitations being part of large non-tribal dominated panchayats were

traditionally neglected in the development interventions. The project had the following components,

To trace the history and use of water and analyze reasons for the breakdown of community based water management systems.
To arrive at a Water Resources Audit.
To work at the grassroots level with community institutions and design interventions along with them for sustainable water management, and
To build a peoples’ regional water management plan.

Primary data on a variety of aspects such as socio-economic, water quality, weather, land use etc. was collected both from secondary sources as well as through primary surveys based on pre-defined formats. This data was analysed in spreadsheets and an analystical report prepared.

For understanding the land use pattern, cadastral maps were digitised and individual land holdings marked on them. Drainage maps were also derived for watersheds prioritized by the HADP. GPS surveys were conducted to mark the village boundaries. These were used to derive land use maps. Perennial and seasonal streams were digitised and bore wells, open wells and other structures were geotagged. This enabled us to map the spatial distribution of water resources in the plateau.

At the village level, water user groups were formed to maintain the water infrastructure through their collective savings over time. These groups were also provided with water quality data on a monthly basis so that they could take appropriate measures.

For looking at water issues in an urban setting, Coonoor town was chosen and the streams contributing to the river flowing through the town were surveyed. Water quality data was collected during these river walks and the findings shared with a cross section of stakeholders in a series of public meetings. This helped raise awareness about the status of the Coonoor river and its catchment area.

Wetlands – the neglected ecosystems

When we implemented the Hill waters and Livelihoods project in 2001-02, we realized that we definitely need to look closely at the wetlands in the Nilgiris. Administratively, wetlands fall under the category of wastelands and do not have any separate category that recognises their significance.

We formulated a project to look at different community management systems for wetlands and different user groups for wetlands. We surveyed 38 wetlands in the Nilgiris and prepared a status report to highlight the plight of these important ecosystems. The data was collected by interdisciplinary teams of Keystone staff who visited each wetland and collected data based on a predefined format. The data was managed in spreadsheets and maps were also prepared based on this data.

Traditionally, the indigenous communities in the Nilgiris were intrinsically linked to the wetlands. For instance, proximity to wetlands was one criterion for establishing of Toda settlements (munds), and the Kotas depended on clayey soil from wetlands for pottery, while Irulas and Kurumbas used to hunt around the wetlands.

However most of the wetlands were facing threats from encroachment, diversion of wetlands for construction, invasive species, drying up due to plantation of exotic trees in upstream areas etc. The lack of legal recognition coupled with pressure for land from various stakeholders has led to a decline in the quality of wetlands.

In order to initiate some remedial action with regard to the status of the wetlands, we prepared management plans for five selected wetlands. We shared these

plans with the Hill Area Development Plan (HADP), which led them to allocate funds for protection of wetlands. One wetland, that is actually the head of one of the major tributaries of the Coonoor River, and where they were going to a landfill was protected as a result. We also implemented a management plan in partnership with the Town Panchayat in Happy Valley wetland in Kotagiri as a demonstration .

These were shared with the various stakeholders in a workshop and a strategy to conserve hill wetlands was evolved.

In 2013, a focused study of three wetlands was conducted which reiterated the findings of the earlier project with respect to lack of tenurial security for wetlands. The project involved detailed floral and faunal surveys to assess the biodiversity status and also mapping of the land use of the catchment areas of these wetlands. Water and fish samples were also tested for presence of chemicals that were possible sources of pollution in the water. In 2016-17, as part of the springs initiative project, four wetlands have been chosen for detailed study including their catchments and these will be monitored on an annual basis. The 38 wetlands originally surveyed are also being gradually revisited to record the changes in their status.

Computer simulations to aid policy

Coonoor, an area well endowed with natural resources, is the second largest tourist destination in the Nilgiris. However, during 2012-13, the town was reeling under a water crisis. The drying up of local water sources has meant that water supply has been erratic and people have had to depend on purchasing water through tankers and tapping springs and open wells.

In this context, we were interested to better understand the various factors affecting the availability and quality of water so it could later advocate for mainstreaming conservation action in district public policy. While the focus was on Coonoor, a larger area was taken up for the study.

It was important to be able to show various examples of what could occur if a change in approach was not undergone. In order to present these alternative “futures”, a computer simulation exercise was undertaken, which is basically is a computer program that is designed to simulate what might or what did happen in a situation.

We wanted to look at two specific questions:

Level of water deficit in the region: To understand whether or not there is sufficient water available in the region to meet the needs of various sectors.
Level of nitrates (an indicator of chemical pollution) in the stream: To look at the level of chemical and biological pollution in the streams.

Secondary data was collected from:

Sources such as scientific literature, research institutions in the area, government departments etc.
Institutions such as Coonoor Municipality, Center for Soil Water Conservation Research and Training Institute (CSWCRTI), Ooty, private tea estates
Keystone over the years for different projects
Datasets were cleaned up as part of the Data Capacity Initiative with India Water Portal.

Primary data:

Water quality through basic lab kits that could measure nitrate levels up to 50 ppm
Household water use patterns through survey
Biological pollution through a test to check if sample was polluted or not

Land use:

Satellite imagery used to derive a land use layer
Ground observations carried out to verify samples of the layer
Region was subdivided into smaller sub-regions, based on catchment area of smaller streams

Technical details

Code was written in Matlab and ported to Freemat
Simulation was run for a 20 year period with calculations at daily intervals
Document with detailed description of assumptions is attached in the annexure

In the baseline scenario, the population was assumed to grow at 1.5% per year and tourist population at 5% per year. In this case, there is water deficit in seven out of the 20 years, starting nine years from year 1. Among the sub-regions there was water deficit in two sub-regions due to more area under farming. Nitrates are always more than four times the safe limit for drinking, which is 40 ppm. It is also more than 300 ppm in sub-region 1 which has Coonoor town and crosses 300 ppm mark in a few years in sub-regions with more farming. This shows that if the current trends continue then, there will be a major water crisis in the coming years both in terms of quantity and quality. If we add uncertainty due to climate change as well as the issues related to distribution of water into the mix, then the crisis is much more immediate.

Additional scenarios were also simulated which included increasing urbanisation which resulted in increased water deficit, increased organic farming which resulted in significant reduction in nitrate levels in streams, reduction in solid waste which again resulted in reduced nitrate levels and conversion of exotic tree species with grasslands which resulted in decreased water deficit.

These simulations show the importance of land use pattern in the quantity and quality of water available in the region. It also predicted a high level of nitrates in the stream water, which indicates that the problem of waste management in the region is being pushed downstream to people who depend on the stream water for agriculture, drinking etc.

Locally, the villages mainly depend on springs for water supply and these are not majorly contaminated as yet. The pollution is being sent downstream out of the Nilgiris where the communities living next to the river have to deal with the consequences.

Thus, it was possible to demonstrate the cumulative impact of various sectors on the water resource situation in the region and generate a consensus on the need to act on the same. It was able to show what happens to the water due to the combined effects of different ‘sectors’ – domestic, tourism, plantation, sanitation, agriculture etc. which normally operate independent of each other.

These were presented to a group of stakeholders in the region. Laypersons too were able to quickly grasp the significant messages regarding land use and waste management. This novel information, cannot be easily communicated otherwise.

In order to intervene in this situation, a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) approach was tried out to come up with a possible solution to the water crisis.

Payment for Ecosystem Services - An exploration

Coonoor is an urban center that is a popular tourist destination in the Nilgiris. It has upto 2.5 Million tourists passing through in a year, compared to a local population of approximately 45,000 people. Tea and tourism are the big economic drivers in this area. The Coonoor Municipality is responsible for providing safe and sufficient water for drinking and other domestic and commercial use to all the inhabitants as well as institutions in the town. The total storage capacity is estimated to be 18.44 Lakh Litres Per Day. According to the Municipality, it is providing 90 Litres Per Day (LPD) per capita to the local population when water is available in plenty, and around 43 LPD once in five days during the summer. This in turn is directly dependent on the state of the water resources that the Coonoor town is tapping.

The sources include two dams, Ralliah which has a height of 43' 6” and Bandhumi which has a height of 15'. The others tap streams that carry runoff water during the rains and base flows during the non-rainy period. These are either by building retaining structures and pumping the water or by digging open wells that are used to pump water to storage structures. The origins of these flows are in springs within the catchment areas of these sources. There are four main water sources that provide nearly 75% of the water supply to the town. The Ralliah dam’s catchment is mostly under the control of the forest department and is covered with plantation of exotic tree species. Given that the Municipality is planning to divert water to the dam from upstream reservoirs, soon there will be little relationship between the catchment characteristics and the amount of water impounded in the dam.

We set up an automated rain gauge which records every rainfall event and records it. We have been sharing this data with the Municipality. We decided to focus on the two other main catchments of Coonoor, namely Guerency and Gymkhana. We mapped the catchment of these two areas with the help of satellite imagery from Google Earth. Unlike the Palampur scenario, the catchment area of Coonoor’s main water sources has a complex geohydrology, multiple aquifers, highly privatised land use and villages that are not actively involved in natural resource management. The opportunity cost of land is very high given that it is a tourist destination and a very popular haven for those looking for second homes. Thus the catchment areas, being mostly under private ownership are always threatened by the possibility of being sold off piecemeal for construction of houses or guest houses. Mining of groundwater is also increasing with potential conflicts between village panchayats and Municipality likely to arise. E.g. Near the Nariyani spring in the Guerency catchment area is the source of water for the village of Bellattimattam. There is an old spring box that taps the spring water and supplies water to the village through gravity. A new well was dug by the Coonoor Municipality in 2015-16 to supply water to the town. We have initiated monitoring of the spring flow to assess what, if any, is the impact of the pumping by the Municipality on the spring discharge on which Bellattimattam is dependant.

A PES arrangement in such a complex situation cannot just involve the Municipality as a buyer and the village panchayat or private land owners as sellers. It is a collective resource on which the villages, private estates and the town are dependent. There is thus a need for the state to invest in improving the water recharge and quality for all the parties concerned by incentivising favourable land use.

This project has laid the ground for an exploration of the landscape of water resource management in the Coonoor region. There are possible alternatives that have been developed. We have worked together with scholars from Cornell University in exploring the range of PES arrangements tried out worldwide and providing recommendations for the Coonoor region. A multi stakeholder dialogue process is needed to come up with alternatives that are viable. Borrowing from the SES perspective, we realise that many influencing factors lie outside the focal system itself. These include state level policy makers, heads of line departments as well as the district administration, who can leverage various ongoing programmes that influence land use and steer them in a way that incentivises land use favourable to improved water quantity and quality for all the stakeholders in the system.

We have made available the data and knowledge gathered over the years of Keystone’s work on a website (http://nilgiriswaterportal.in) in the public domain to spur action by the civil society and other actors. Looking at this body of work, citizens groups in Coonoor and Ooty have reached out to us to undertake interventions to conserve these water resources. We are partnering with these groups to influence local government policy and to promote volunteer efforts.

SPRINGS INITIATIVE

The importance of springs in the Nilgiris context was highlighted by the Hill Waters Study as well as the hydrogeological profiling of catchments of water sources of Coonoor town. However over the years, the increasing demand for water meant that new water sources being developed in the villages were mostly open wells with springs being largely neglected. Even the traditional connect of the indigenous communities with springs seemed to be reducing with time as other sources gained in importance.

In this context, we became a part of the Springs Initiative network in the country and started working on a baseline survey of five village panchayats in the catchment of the Coonoor river. The survey revealed that while a majority of habitations surveyed in 2001-02 were dependent on springs for water supply, the proportion had reduced to one-fourth in these panchayats in 2015. Open wells had proliferated and were the main sources of water supply. Most of these open wells were located in valleys where small wetlands exist. Except for a few habitations in the downstream that were dependent on streams for water supply, all the others were dependent on groundwater.

During the second year of the project, we expanded the scope of work to include all our work areas focused on tribal communities and to look at wetlands also. This provided us an opportunity to build on the work already done over the last two decades and look at water issues holistically. The idea behind spreading this work out to all areas is to develop models of interventions in different conditions or typologies that could be used as advocacy tools for replication. All the springs in these

A detailed baseline survey of water and sanitation situation has been conducted along with an inventory of all perennial springs in the region. This yielded a spring density of more than two springs per square kilometer for the Nilgiris region. Subsequently inventory of springs and wetlands have also been carried out in Kotagiri Town Panchayat to expand our springshed conservation work in Happy Valley. A subset of springs and open wells are now being monitored periodically both in terms of discharge/level of water and in terms of water quality.

As per the CGWB, the Nilgiris district is in a safe zone as far as groundwater development is concerned. This means that the average annual recharge of aquifers due to rainfall far exceeds the annual abstraction of groundwater. However the rapid acceleration of motorised groundwater pumping coupled with lack of regulations meant that the situation on the ground was changing rapidly. The monsoon failure in 2012 brought home the water crisis in urban areas in the Nilgiris. In 2016, the region faced its worst monsoon in a long time and there was widespread water crisis across the district. In response to this, we are working with priority habitations in Aracode, Coonoor, Kotagiri, Pillur and Sigur to develop village water security plans that cover aspects such as household water security, water quality, spring protection, springshed and catchment restoration and conservation, provisioning water resources for wildlife, controlling invasives, sanitation etc. With a view to sustain these efforts in the long run we are reinforcing traditional practices pertaining to water conservation on the one hand and liasoning with Panchayat and line departments on the other.

We also worked with the faculty and students of the first three batches of the Nilgiris Field Learning Centre to undertake focused studies on the water and waste linkages in Hubbathalai and Burliar panchayats and the Coonoor town and downstream areas. These studies have helped us explore interrelated aspects such as water, waste management, sanitation and health and develop a case study.

Hydrogeology - mapping of watersheds

Hydrogeology was looked into when we felt the need to understand water as a whole system, than just looking at it from the surface level. With the help of ACWADAM we were able to do a rapid hydrogeology study in 3 important catchments in Coonoor. The major water sources which supplied water to Coonoor town were focused. As a first step the catchments of these sources were delineated. Field observations on the type of soil, rocks and their properties were recorded across these catchments. The seasonal and perennial springs and the quality of water in different parts of the watersheds were recorded. This exercise helped us identify the important recharge zones in the catchment areas which needs to be protected.

Geohydrological maps were produced to understand the aquifer type and characteristics. As part of this study, one catchment where the network of springs were tapped and in the following valley there were a number of wells which supplied drinking water to communities around them was monitored regularly. The water levels in the wells and their quality were monitored on a monthly basis. Apart from this, the water samples were collected twice a year I.e. pre- and post-monsoon, and tested in TWAD laboratory in Ooty. The samples showed us the higher levels of ammonia in water, which directly related to the closer proximity of the toilets to these wells. The faecal coliform in all tested samples came out positive. The colour of water in the wetlands turning red, yellow or having oily films on the top layer was related to the geogenic contamination where the Iron was dissolved in the water. Even though it wasn’t a major contaminant, the community was resistant to using the water from the iron affected wells.

The study helped by throwing light into the areas which we were finding difficult to understand for a long period of time. The cross section mapping helped us in explaining how their unsafe containments and soak pits leached out faecal water to enter into the ground water table. This also helped us in generating awareness within communities, where earlier they related to faecal contamination through open defecation affecting their water source only during rains and run off. The geology in Nilgiris is complicated, where the springs had local and small aquifers and were connected to the regional wetlands aquifers when seen in a large watershed area. This set up was common among Nilgiris where springs, wetlands could be understood and groundwater can be effectively managed by a small effort on mapping the Geology.

Sanitation

During the more than two decades of work on water resources in the NBR, sanitation has been a factor that has been closely linked to water quality. Most of the tribal areas have had widespread prevalence of open defecation in recent decades. However, this has not always been the case according to the tribal elders. In the olden days, families had pits in their fields that they would cover with wooden planks to facilitate squatting that were regularly used as toilets. The faeces would be covered with soil and leaves and over time would decompose. When the pit was full it would be covered up and a new pit dug up. However as many tribal villages moved out of forests for a variety of reasons they lost access to their farms and with increasing wildlife movement close to habitations, they could no longer create and maintain these pits. This resulted in the practice of open defecation which is now being slowly replaced by conventional toilets under various government programmes.

In partnership with the IIHS, we started a sanitation project focused on an urban area, namely two town panchayats in Coimbatore district. The Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme set up of a Technical Support Unit (TSU) in the Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, to be the comprehensive technical arm for the MAWS-GoTN, and assist in implementation of state-level and city-level initiatives, based on agreed parameters. A consortium of organisations led by Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), and comprising Gramalaya, Keystone Foundation and CDD Society, have been commissioned to implement the program via Technical Support Units (TSU) at the State and city levels.

The State and Sub-TSUs in the two urban locations provide support for planning and implementing measures for improved sanitation. The Program components include:

Improved enabling environment and governance
Engineering and Planning
Implementation Support
Behavior Change and Communications
Enterprise Development
Capacity Building and Training
Knowledge Management
Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation

Water Portal

The data being gathered from all our work on water resources over the last two decades is being shared via the Nilgiriswaterportal.in website. It is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution License to facilitate widespread use of this information. The website is being redesigned to act as a crowdsourcing platform for location specific data on water resources in the NBR.

Water Resources

The Beginnings

- A note by Balachander T.