Harvesting water resources to meet the demands for drinking, sanitation and irrigation in hilly areas of Uttarakhand, India

About 70% of the population living in mountainous regions of Uttarakhand State mostly depend on agriculture for their livelihood, but various climatic, geographical and socio-economic constraints have led to a dismal low agricultural productivity in the region. Agriculture is largely (about 90 %) rainfed. Farmers generally face severe soil-moisture stress at the germination stage; long dry-spells during the subsequent growing period of winter (Rabi) and the pre-monsoon period due to the erratic distribution of rainfall amount and intensity. Though the average annual rainfall in Uttarakhand..