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, Examining farm-level perceptions, costs, and benets of small water harvesting structures
in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh. Agric. Water Manage. (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2013.07.002
ARTICLE IN PRESS
GModel
AGWAT-3705; No. of Pages 8
Agricultural Water Management xxx (2013) xxxxxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Agricultural Water Management
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ agwat
Examining farm-level perceptions, costs, and benets of small water
harvesting structures in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh
R.P.S. Malik
a,
, Meredith Giordano
b
, Vivek Sharma
c
a
International Water Management Institute, 2nd Floor, CG Block C, NASC Complex, DPS Marg, Pusa, New Delhi 110012, India
b
International Water Management Institute, P.O. Box 2075, Colombo, Sri Lanka
c
Centre for Advanced Research and Development, H II/195, Arvind Vihar, Baghmugallia, Madhya Pradesh, India
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Decentralized
India
Investment
Irrigation
Smallholders
a b s t r a c t
A recent initiative inMadhya Pradesh, India to promote privately funded, rainwater harvesting structures
on farmers own land has shown substantial economic and livelihood benets. In contrast to the many
poorly functioning, community managed rainwater harvesting programs, the individual or decentralized
rainwater harvesting structures have led to signicant improvements in availability of irrigation water, a
revival of the agricultural economy of the region, and substantial increases in farmer incomes and liveli-
hoods. Since 2006, more than 6000 farmers in the state have invested in on-farm ponds. The investments
are highly cost effective and farmers are able to recover their initial investment in approximately 3 years.
While longer-terms impact studies are needed, this initial assessment suggests that on-farm rainwater
harvesting ponds are a promising private small irrigation option in Madhya Pradesh and similar regions
in India and elsewhere.
2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
India has a long tradition of harvesting rainwater, dating back
more than two millennia. Evidence of this tradition has been
found in ancient texts, inscriptions and archeological remains
(http://www.gits4u.com/water/water6.htm). While the tradition
diminishedconsiderablyintheearlypart of the20thcenturydue, in
part, to an emphasis on large scale irrigation projects, the practice
has experienced a revival recently for a variety of reasons (Agarwal
and Narian, 1997).
In a country with more than 86millionha of rainfed agriculture
(Sharma et al., 2008), rainwater harvesting offers supplemen-
tary irrigation as well as protection against climate variability. It
also offers additional options for farmers, who were previously
dependent on groundwater resources and now are experiencing
fast declining water tables due to overexploitation. Rainwater har-
vesting is gaining favor as a positive alternative to costly large-scale
irrigation infrastructure projects, particularly in light of grow-
ing opposition to the impacts of these large structures on Indias
environmental, ecological and social landscapes (Rangachari et al.,
2000; Briscoe and Malik, 2006; Shah, 2013). As a result, the last
2 decades have witnessed a signicant increase in rainwater har-
vesting efforts, albeit inways that are markedly different fromtheir