Rain water harvesting for large irrigation

A thought!

It has roots in my discussion with a friend of mine. His name is Bharat, a structural engineer now researching in agriculture. He has an idea of rainwater harvesting for poultry farming. He wants to use inexpensive ways to store water. I am thankful to him for sharing his ideas.

Ok now onto my idea.

I have..oops sorry, my father has a land of 15 acres in one plot. We have planted mango trees in this area. The trees depend on rainwater for their water needs. Annual rainfall fluctuates considerably, drought years being frequent. As a result the yield is average. I think my father is contented with the current yield.

But what I want to experiment is this. Convert the whole 15-acre farm into rain water harvesting region.

The system what I want to build goes like this-
1. A system that catches the rainwater before it reaches the ground levels.
2. Since it's a huge area, I cannot store the water in tanks or storage areas immediately after catching and at once. These have to be put through some kind of piping system and later channel them to a storage area.
3. Design a storage area that can store the rainwater.
4. Distribution of the stored water to irrigation. Normally, farmers use pump sets to distribute the well or bore well water to their farms. Though we can use the same system, we have to consider a farmer who doesn't have such a facility.

This stored water then can be used to irrigate the mango trees or use it to irrigate some other crops. We can either use drip irrigation or conventional methods to irrigate the land.

This whole system can be mapped to a river system analogy. Let's take an example of Cauvery river.

1. First, there are some specialized areas called as "catchment areas". These areas will catch the rainwater.
2. After the catchment area catches water, the water is channeled to dams through naturally formed canals (not sure if artificial canals are being used).
3. Dams are huge storage areas that can store the rainwater. Now, rainwater is successfully stored.
4. The stored water is distributed to farmers for their irrigation through artificial canals.

My idea is to develop a similar system to benefit a farming facility. But I am sure this is not going to be an easy task. Each step above throws up challenges. Apart from the immediate challenges the idea throws up, I am foreseeing a few higher-level challenges. These immediate challenges can be like designing a storage area that can store huge amounts of water without requiring considerable investments.

Higher-level challenges:
1. Cost is of the foremost importance. We need an inexpensive system.
2. Ease of implementation.
3. Reliability - The system will be deployed in rough weathers and will be exposed to all kinds of natural tests like wind, higher temperatures and severe sunlight.
4. Practical – I do not want this idea to end in a word document or a weblog. It should be able to reach the common men. Also, the idea is targeted at people who are mostly illiterate with little or no technical know-how.

As of now I am still stuck with the thought. I honestly do not know how to design the thought into a full-fledged idea and then into a practical solution.

If it proves successful, I can extend it to the remaining farmers around that area.

I am looking for ideas from interested people. If any of you have ideas on how to acheive this, do let me know. I'll be glad!

By the way, why do we have to spend time in rainwater harvesting if we can dig a borewell and extract ground water? Read the link below. It promts us to think about alternative ways to feed our hunger.
Eating Fossil Fuels

More on this later!

Straight from Paris!

E-mail to my colleagues in India. Copy pasting it!
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Hello all,

I know you are looking for some news and updates from France. Ok here it is straight from the capital of France, Paris.

Alright, the highlghts first:
- PARIS, by far the most beautiful place I have ever seen.
- Juliet said France is famous for wine, women and one more thing. I do not know about the other two, but the women are certainly beautiful. Sorry they are really really pretty. Believe me!

Now the details.
Our first day had been a memorable one. When pilot announced that we were about to reach Paris it was about 7:15AM. The immigration officers did not create any problems. When we thought we will buy some duty free liquor we were already out of the airport. So it started with a flop show. Matthieu was about to pick us up at 8:35 but he was a bit late. Till then we're enjoying our first glimpse of the city.

We drove down to the hotel only to realize that the room booked for us was not yet ready for occupation. The hotel receptionist asked us to roam around till then. Matthieu was determined to make our first day a good one.
So he took us to a place called Basillica church near the hotel. That place was really good. It was a huge building built between 1875-1914 and it is on top of Paris. We could see most of the city from that place including the Eiffel tower. Then we went back to the hotel, got freshened up and by the time we came out Matthieu had bought the city map, metro map (MRT or local train in other words) and a week's metro tickets for both of us. This costed us 30 EUROs!!! Do not try to convert it to rupees!

Matthieu then took us for a drive around the city and dropped us in one place for us to discover the rest and returned home. He had to catch up with his girlfreind's parents.

We were on our own in a place we didn't know anything about and a place we couldn't even communicate. By this time we'd realized that the women were really beautiful. More than that it's the way they carry themselves. That makes them stand out in the crowd. They are extremely fashionable. You can see best of the fashion in the streets of Paris.

Ok, I'll stop here about the women. If I had not started with this subject I am sure some of you wouldn't have read this e-mail;) So let's look at the remaining interesting facts.

Certainly there is life and excitement here. People jump signals. If you want to take a U turn from the extreme left or right, you don't have to show a hand also. Just go ahead and take the turn. Nobody will stare at you or no police will catch you. It's part of life. You want to throw a cigarette bud, no issues, throw where ever you want. You don't have to look like a thief to do that! When you are in a hurry, you don't have to follow the traffic rules. You can stop the flowing traffic and make your way. Same like Chennai!!

Let's return back to our favourite subject...girls!
Have you ever seen girls wearing bikini's in public parks? Atleast I had not seen. After our lunch, Betty and Gaelle took us for a walk to the nearby park. People were sleeping, sun-baths, games and most important, most of the women were in bikini's!! All this on a Monday afteroon.

Among other things, I found a clone of our bullock cart on the streets of Paris. Wondering what it is? (Sorry Sridhar, please blame Juliet)Fiat Uno.
Small cars are a big craze here. If you think Reva is a small car, then there are smaller cars than that too. In fact you can find cars half the size of a Reva.

People enjoy their lives here. There is originality. France and French people have a history unlike most of the other western countries and Singapore ;) Probably that's the reason why they feel French is superior to English. They don't feel sorry when they can not speak English (he he he ... unlike Indians).

Last but not the least. Everything is damn expensieve here. 6 pieces of meat and 2 fried pototoes will cost you 14 EUROS. One film role will cost you 10 EUROS!!

That's all I have for now. More to come later. Till then have a good day and enjoy!
-subbu