The global cost of disasters is growing: The economic burden of disasters is intensifying. While the direct costs of disasters averaged $70–80 billion a year between 1970 and 2000, between 2001 and 2020 these annual costs grew significantly to $180–200 billion. But the real cost is far higher. Disaster costs …
Sri Lanka is facing a severe drought and the number of affected people is estimated to be around 1.5 million across seven of the country's 25 districts. The US-based World Vision Organisation said government agencies would need to distribute an estimated 45,000 tonnes of food over the next six months …
Rajasthan, which is facing a severe drought for the third consecutive year, has decided to start a social audit system for its relief operations. The state government, which has undertaken its largest-ever relief operation this year, claims that the work is free from any financial leakages. The audit system is …
For all the people scripting the success stories, there is a warning: history has seen the death of millions of the country's water structures due to government's apathy. Now, for the first time in the last 50 years governments have really shifted their focus to drought proofing from the adhoc …
Keshubhai Patel Chief minister, Gujarat On overflowing check dams: We needed a permanent solution that not only drought-proofs the state but also provides livelihoods. The effort is to trap every drop of rainwater through check dams. The overflowing dams are a lesson for people to take up more water conservation. …
Digvijay Singh Chief minister, Madhya Pradesh On institutionalisation of structures: They are already public property. They were built according to needs of the people. For example, the farmers themselves have worked on the recharging of wells without any government money. Though loans are given, the wells belong to the people. …
This is not the only hurdle in making water conservation a long sustained movement. To make it a sustainable social movement and to reap its dividend in the form of poverty eradication, the government needs to put in prolonged efforts. Most of India's poverty eradication programmes have failed because they …
Investment in water is an insurance against poverty and drought. Down To Earth reporters visited the eight villages below during the droughts of 2000 and 2001. These villages have several years of experience in water conservation. The inference: the more the years of water conservation, the more the capacity to …
Kalakhoont village's spin out of the poverty cycle began on a rainy day in June this year. Four days of rain filled up to the brim the long-forgotten tank in this nondescript village of Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh ( mp ). Now almost the entire village is encircled by …
To fight drought, the Madhya Pradesh government embarked on a water conservation drive in February this year with its Pani Roko Abhiyan (Stop Water Campaign). The state administration geared up to reach all its 52,000 villages. It was inspired by an earlier effort of the state to conserve water through …
The experience of the last 22 years, starting from Ralegan Siddhi and Sukhomajri, shows that regeneration of a highly degraded village, ecologically and economically, takes more than 10 years. The chart below is a summary of the ecological regeneration-economic development process in six villages spanning over 16 years. The chart, …
This is a story of hope and of a major change. For the first time in the last 50 years, several state governments are dealing with drought in a different way
A large sum of money will be spent on the installation of 10,000 tubewells in different parts of Pakistan. The move is aimed at combating drought that has affected many parts of the country for several years. In the Sindh province, 5,000 tubewells will be installed, in Punjab 3,000, while …
Never has a monsoon entered India with so much people-government efforts to arrest its downpour. An extensive array of water harvesting structures built after three drought spells in 11 states
for the first time in many years, the village of Lava-ka-Baas in Alwar district, Rajasthan, got water just a month ago. With the first showers of monsoon, its 500-odd residents saw the traditional water harvesting structure that they had built in their village fill up with water. And joyfully they …
Two people died and 40 others were injured during one of Pakistan's worst riots over water on June 10, 2001. The incident took place during a rally organised by a political party called Jiye Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (jsqm) and the Jeay Sindh Students Federation against the severe water shortage in …
desert dust blown from one part of the world to another can choke rain clouds, cutting rainfall hundreds of kilometres away. This discovery, made with the help of us National Aeronautical and Space Administration ( nasa) satellites, suggests that droughts over arid regions, such as central Africa, are made worse …
Facing its worst drought in 90 years, South Korea has mobilised a fifth of its military force to help combat the situation. At least 130,000 troops were sent to 90 worst-hit regions armed with drilling machines, trucks, excavators and pumping motors, to dig wells or draw water from reservoirs. "It …
The Employment Guarantee Scheme ( egs ) of Maharash tra is said to be the only one in the world that guaran tees employment on demand. This was for the first time an employment generation programme was conceived to create productive works at the village level. The absence of social …
During the 1999-2000 drought, Down To Earth ( dte ) reported that five villages in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh had enough water during the drought because of the water conservation activities they had undertaken. dte revisited these villages, reeling under the second successive drought. Unlike last year, some of these …
