This paper assesses a strategy proposed for rehabilitating 1200 of the larger tanks in Rajasthan. It argues that treating tanks only as flow irrigation systems—which lies at the center of the mainstream thinking on rehabilitating surface irrigation systems--is very likely to result in a flawed strategy when applied to tanks.

Sustainable management of the natural resource base supporting agriculture is one of the three major strategic objectives of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The impact of climate change is likely to have considerable implications for water resource planning, as well as adding to the risks to water infrastructure systems and effecting return on investments.

Conventional blue water scarcity indicators suffer from four weaknesses: they measure water withdrawal instead of consumptive water use, they compare water use with actual runoff rather than natural (undepleted) runoff, they ignore environmental flow requirements and they evaluate scarcity on an annual rather than a monthly time scale.

In the face of climate change, there is urgent need for Himalayan nations to build resilience to buffer the impacts of climate change and generate resources for adaptation, capacity building, and technology transfer. Such actions can no longer wait for a global agreement.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has established a network of monitoring stations on rivers across the country. The present network comprises of 2000 stations in 27 States and 6 Union Territories spread over the country.