Coastal reservoirs, a technology to store fresh water in coastal environment, can help meet water requirements of the country, experts have said.

Speaking at a workshop on ‘Coastal Reservoirs as a Sustainable Strategy for Water Scarcity’ at National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK) in Mangaluru taluk on Monday, M Sivakumar, Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wollongong, Australia, said countries must properly manage their river basins using sustainable and integrated management approaches. The growth in population, urban, agricultural and industrial demands, and the impact of climate change have put pressure on water.

Coastal reservoir tech

Stressing the need to implement coastal reservoir technology to meet water requirements, he defined coastal reservoir as a technology to store fresh water in a coastal environment before entering the sea. Such reservoirs have already been set up in China, Singapore, the Netherlands and Australia.

(The International Association for Coastal Reservoir Research defines a coastal reservoir as a freshwater reservoir located within the ocean, with an impermeable barrier separating the two water bodies. The reservoir may be located close to or within a river mouth, and may be constructed as a solid dam, a soft dam or any combination thereof. The water within the reservoir can be utilised for various domestic, industrial or agricultural purposes, it adds.)

Underlining the need to develop a revolutionary way for scientific usage of water, TG Seetharam, Director of IIT Guwahati, said the water demands of the country can be met by developing storage in coastal reservoirs. These structures will also help solve water disputes to a larger extent. He said the cost of coastal reservoirs is much lower compared to alternative water diversion schemes. The coastal reservoirs will not pose any harm to river basins or will not lead to the alteration of river course.

He said there will not be any disturbance to forest cover, and the question of submergence of land will not arise in this case. There will not be any worry related to reservoir-triggered seismicity either.

Yettinaholey river project

Referring to the Yettinaholey river diversion project in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, he said such a project will damage the environment. There will not be much water to divert from the Yettinaholey stream.

Desalination plants, which are expensive, are not environmentally sustainable. He said such plants are not meant for countries such as India.

Shu-Qing Yang, Associate Professor from School of Civil, Mining, and Environmental Engineering of the University of Wollongong, highlighted some of the success stories related to coastal reservoirs across the world. Quoting the example of a decade-old coastal reservoir in Shanghai of China, he said nearly 24 million people are benefitting fromthis structure.

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