Dear Dr. Raghu Murtugudde, You have brought out a very important point of dealing with drought and flood on basis of the information collected every year. Which has now been updated in South India but still has to be fully implemented in North India. The analysis for long term planning for water and land availability upto the year 2050 is still to be taken up on a full hydrological-cycle basis in a holistic manner. This work for land and water use for full hydrological-cycle from sea, clouds, various uses of land and flow of balance water back to the sea from each river basin for starting the cycle again. A study 'Water Resource of India' was done in 1974 by the National Commission on Agriculture. More recently ‘Management of Land and other resources for inclusive growth: India 2050’, which gives a more updated picture of management (Link: http://alternativefutures.org.in/userfiles/file/Urbanisation%20paper%20AF%20rev_%20ver5%202015.pdf). In the last five years more improvement in technology at reduced cost has come-up like: solar power, wind power and desalination of sea water and salted groundwater for further improvement. Due to climate change and the recent indications that the low level clouds giving rainfall may also get reduced, affecting the precipitation in quantity and space. A new study is required by a team of various experts to consider all these factors into account, so as to achieve socio-economic improvements for 1600 million people by 2050. The policy of allocating land and water for various sectors has to be decided for balanced development. Almost 70-80% of water and land is polluted, which is to be given top priority for cleaning and preventing future pollution. All types of waste in rural and urban areas should be converted into energy, manure and other usable items, with the help of water harvesting and solar power. In the past 20 years due to miss-management of forest, flood plains and the mountains and hills, groundwater recharge during monsoon has reduced and flood flows have increased in intensity which have to be corrected and prevented in future. Floods and droughts cannot be prevented by annual information and disaster management only.

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Dear Dr. Raghu Murtugudde,

You have brought out a very important point of dealing with drought and flood on basis of the information collected every year. Which has now been updated in South India but still has to be fully implemented in North India. The analysis for long term planning for water and land availability upto the year 2050 is still to be taken up on a full hydrological-cycle basis in a holistic manner.

This work for land and water use for full hydrological-cycle from sea, clouds, various uses of land and flow of balance water back to the sea from each river basin for starting the cycle again. A study 'Water Resource of India' was done in 1974 by the National Commission on Agriculture. More recently ‘Management of Land and other resources for inclusive growth: India 2050’, which gives a more updated picture of management (Link: http://alternativefutures.org.in/userfiles/file/Urbanisation%20paper%20AF%20rev_%20ver5%202015.pdf).

In the last five years more improvement in technology at reduced cost has come-up like: solar power, wind power and desalination of sea water and salted groundwater for further improvement. Due to climate change and the recent indications that the low level clouds giving rainfall may also get reduced, affecting the precipitation in quantity and space. A new study is required by a team of various experts to consider all these factors into account, so as to achieve socio-economic improvements for 1600 million people by 2050. The policy of allocating land and water for various sectors has to be decided for balanced development.

Almost 70-80% of water and land is polluted, which is to be given top priority for cleaning and preventing future pollution. All types of waste in rural and urban areas should be converted into energy, manure and other usable items, with the help of water harvesting and solar power. In the past 20 years due to miss-management of forest, flood plains and the mountains and hills, groundwater recharge during monsoon has reduced and flood flows have increased in intensity which have to be corrected and prevented in future. Floods and droughts cannot be prevented by annual information and disaster management only.