Environment › Pollution
Groundwater and water conservation
Groundwater and water conservation: how the water drawn is measured against what is recharged, the regulation of extraction, recharge and rainwater harvesting, and water policy. Prelims has asked about the Central Ground Water Authority and which body was constituted under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2022: the body constituted under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
- Prelims 2020: the Central Ground Water Authority and groundwater irrigation
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Dynamic Ground Water Resources Assessment
Copy link to Dynamic Ground Water Resources AssessmentPrelims and Mains
India does not measure its groundwater as one national pool, because an aquifer is emptied locally and refilled locally. The Central Ground Water Board counts it with the States unit by unit, so that a comfortable average cannot hide a district drawing more than it recharges.
- The Dynamic Ground Water Resources Assessment is the Central Ground Water Board's yearly stocktaking with the States, made unit by unit rather than for the country as a whole.
- Each unit is graded safe, semi critical, critical or over exploited by its stage of groundwater extraction, which the 2025 Assessment put at 60.63 per cent for India as a whole.
- Annual recharge is 449 billion cubic metres, of which 408 billion is extractable and 247 billion is extracted.
- Irrigation takes 87 per cent of what is extracted, domestic use 11 per cent and industry 2 per cent.
- Extraction runs above the national average in 281 districts and in nine States and Union Territories, among them Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi.