Review: Groundwater development and management in the Deccan Traps (basalts) of western India

The Deccan Traps or the basalts of western India are the largest exposure of basic lava flows covering about 500,000 km². Groundwater occurrence in the Deccan Traps is in phreatic condition in the weathered zone above the hard rock and in semi-confined condition in the fissures, fractures, joints, cooling cracks, lava flow junctions and in the inter-trappean beds between successive lava flows, within the hard rock. Dug wells, dug-cum-bored wells and boreholes or bore wells are commonly used for obtaining groundwater. The yield is small, usually in the range of 1–100 m³/day. The average land holding per farming family is only around 2 ha. Recently, due to the ever increasing number of dug wells and deep bore wells, the water table has been falling in several watersheds, especially in those lying in the semi-arid region of the traps, so that now the emphasis has shifted from development to sustainable management. Issues like climatic change, poverty mitigation in villages, sustainable development, rapid urbanization of the population, and resource pollution have invited the attention of politicians, policy makers, government agencies and non-governmental organizations towards watershed management, forestation, soil and water conservation, recharge augmentation and, above all, the voluntary control of groundwater abstraction in the Deccan Traps terrain.