Watershed Management Structures and Decision Making Frameworks

Integrated watershed management has been adopted worldwide as best management practices, can minimise the climate change impact on agricultural production and fresh water resources. Critical elements for making best watershed management systems, like precise locations and designs of recharge structures, correct location of check dams within the watershed to ensure the optimum utilization have been discussed. Best Management Practices (BMP) for agricultural watershed management that includes integrated and consortium approach has been proposed. Case study demonstrates that the construction of artificial recharge structures like check dams on the upstream of the tributaries not only causes additional recharge but is also useful in improving the ground water quality. Study also proposes a watershed performance assessment model for identifying the parameters in the watershed, whose precise characterization is essential for the success of any watershed management program. A methodology has been develop for the evaluation of a complete watersheds model parameterization and performance scores has been assigned on the basis of parameter impact on output. The analysis and methodology of the proposed work can extremely useful for the practice of evaluation and effective implementation of watersheds.