Dear Editor,
Rains come in the form of a blessing for a farmer when they occur well in time and as per the need. The same rains become a misfortune when they become the cause of floods and disasters. Floods and draughts are also one of the major reasons for the suicide by farmers in India. Every year we have to bear a huge loss in terms of both life and economy due to floods especially during monsoons. The main cause of the floods is the excessive rains. We can control the floods to a certain extent by reducing the direct flow of rain water into plain areas and rivers by creation of reservoirs / tanks on the surface of nullahs. Every geographical area has a number of small rivers/Nullahs which are either seasonal or get dry during summers. Further there are some Nullahs which remain dry throughout the year but only flow during mansoons or during the period of heavy rains. Maximum of water of a particular area flows through these Nullahs during raining periods. These Nullahs fall into the main river flowing through the geographical area. And it is these Nullahs which are mainly responsible for increase in the level of main river. We can stop the main rivers from flowing above the dangerous level if we are able to reduce the direct flow of rainwater from the tributaries/Nullahs/small rivers to main river by saving the same rainwater in the tanks created under these Nullahs. During the summers, these Nullahs have either very little flow of water or remain dry which leads to shortage of water for that area. We can harvest excess of rainwater by making a number of reservoirs/tanks (underground) on the surface of these Nullahs which should be deep enough to store a vast amount of water which would otherwise flow into main river causing it to flow over the danger level leading to floods. The water in the reservoirs could be used for the purpose of agriculture during the summer periods thus saving the region from drought like condition upto certain extent.
Suppose Width of a particular Nullah is 3 m. If we create a underground tank\reservoir across 15km (=15000m) length of this Nullah which is 3 m deep. Then the quantity of rain water which can be stored in reservoir is 15000 x 3 x 3 cubic meters which is equal to 13,50,00,000 litres. This quantity of rain water is equal to 11,250 tankers of 12,000 litre each. In this way we can stop a huge quantity of rain water from flowing from Nullahs to main rivers by storing the same water under the same Nullahs. This process could be much helpful in preventing the floods.
Sunil Kumar
GMS Jakhar
Tikri (Udhampur)
