Exam-useful questions from this chapter, grouped by marks, each with a full model answer. Try writing the answer yourself first, then check it against this one.
1 1-Mark Questions
Q. What percentage of the earth’s surface is covered with water, as stated in the chapter?
Answer: Approximately 71 per cent of the earth’s surface is covered with water.
Q. What proportion of the total water on earth is freshwater?
Answer: Freshwater constitutes only about 3 per cent of the total water on earth.
Q. What is India’s total utilisable water resource, in cubic km?
Answer: India’s total utilisable water resource is only 1,122 cubic km.
Q. How many rivers and tributaries longer than 1.6 km does India have, per the chapter?
Answer: India has about 10,360 rivers and their tributaries longer than 1.6 km each.
Q. Name the four major sources of surface water listed in the chapter.
Answer: The four major sources of surface water are rivers, lakes, ponds and tanks.
Q. What is the total replenishable groundwater resource of India?
Answer: The total replenishable groundwater resources in the country are about 432 cubic km.
Q. In which year was the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) launched?
Answer: PMKSY was launched by the Central Government during 2015-16.
Q. Define water quality, as given in the chapter.
Answer: Water quality refers to the purity of water, or water without unwanted foreign substances.
Q. At how many stations does the CPCB, with State Pollution Control Boards, monitor water quality?
Answer: Water quality of national aquatic resources is monitored at 507 stations.
Q. Which river is named as the most polluted river in the country?
Answer: The Yamuna, between Delhi and Etawah, is the most polluted river in the country.
Q. What is watershed management, in its narrow sense?
Answer: In its narrow sense, watershed management refers to the efficient management and conservation of surface and groundwater resources.
Q. What are Kund or Tanka, as described in the chapter?
Answer: Kund or Tanka are traditional rainwater harvesting structures found in Rajasthan, covered underground tanks constructed near or in the house or village to store harvested rainwater.
2 2-Mark Questions
Q. Distinguish between the water available from precipitation and the water that is actually utilisable, using the chapter’s own figures.
Answer: The total water available from precipitation in a year is about 4,000 cubic km, while the water available from surface water and replenishable groundwater is only 1,869 cubic km; of this, only 60 per cent can be put to beneficial use, so the total utilisable water resource is just 1,122 cubic km.
Q. Name the states with very high groundwater utilisation and the states with low groundwater utilisation, per the chapter.
Answer: Groundwater utilisation is very high in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, while states like Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Kerala utilise only a small proportion of their groundwater potential.
Q. What consequences of over-extraction of groundwater does the chapter describe?
Answer: Over-extraction of groundwater has led to a decline in the groundwater table, an increased fluoride concentration in Rajasthan and Maharashtra, and an increased arsenic concentration in parts of West Bengal and Bihar.
Q. Name any four multipurpose river valley projects mentioned in the chapter.
Answer: The chapter names the Bhakra-Nangal, Hirakud, Damodar Valley and Nagarjuna Sagar projects, along with the Indira Gandhi Canal Project, among the multipurpose river valley projects taken up to develop irrigation.
Q. What are two of the objectives of PMKSY, in the words the chapter’s box gives?
Answer: PMKSY aims to enhance the physical access of water on the farm and expand cultivable area under assured irrigation (‘Har khet ko pani’), and to improve on-farm water use efficiency to reduce wastage and increase availability (‘Per drop more crop’).
Q. What two legislative measures does the chapter say have not been implemented effectively against water pollution?
Answer: The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and the Environment Protection Act, 1986 have not been implemented effectively; as a result, in 1997, 251 polluting industries were still found located along rivers and lakes.
3 4-Mark Questions
Q. Explain the factors responsible for the depletion of water resources in India. (Exercise-based)
Answer: Water resources in India are depleting due to a combination of factors: a rising population increases per-capita demand while supply stays limited; industrial, agricultural and domestic effluents pollute available surface and groundwater, further limiting usable supply; heavy irrigation of water-intensive crops such as rice, sugarcane and jute draws heavily on both surface and groundwater; and over-extraction of groundwater for irrigation in states like Punjab and Haryana has caused the water table to fall. Growing demand combined with deteriorating quality means the resource that is actually usable keeps shrinking even as the population needing it keeps growing.
Q. What factors are responsible for the highest groundwater development in the states of Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu? (Exercise-based)
Answer: These states show the highest groundwater utilisation because of their heavy dependence on irrigation for water-intensive cropping. Punjab and Haryana, together with western Uttar Pradesh, have more than 85 per cent of their net sown area under irrigation, with wells and tubewells irrigating 76.1 per cent of Punjab’s and 51.3 per cent of Haryana’s net irrigated area, reflecting the Green Revolution’s dependence on an assured water supply. Tamil Nadu similarly draws heavily on groundwater to sustain its irrigated agriculture; the chapter lists it with Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan among the states where groundwater utilisation is very high.
Q. Why is the share of the agricultural sector in the total water used in the country expected to decline? (Exercise-based)
Answer: Agriculture currently accounts for the highest proportion of water use, 89 per cent of surface water and 92 per cent of groundwater utilisation, against only 2 per cent and 5 per cent for industry and a higher domestic share of surface water. The chapter states that with continuing development, the shares of the industrial and domestic sectors in total water utilisation are likely to increase, which correspondingly reduces agriculture’s relative share of total water use, even without agriculture’s own consumption falling in absolute terms.
Q. What can be the possible impacts of the consumption of contaminated or unclean water on people? (Exercise-based)
Answer: The chapter explains that toxic substances entering lakes, streams, rivers and other water bodies get dissolved or suspended in the water, deteriorating its quality and rendering it unfit for human use, and such polluted water can also seep down and contaminate groundwater. Consuming water contaminated this way, or water with high concentrations of heavy or toxic metals, fluoride and nitrates, exposes people to serious health risks from unsafe drinking water, which is why the chapter treats deterioration of water quality as a serious emerging water problem alongside the shrinking availability of usable water itself.
Q. Explain the meaning and objectives of the National Water Policy, 2012.
Answer: The National Water Policy, 2012 aims to assess the existing water situation in the country and to propose a framework for a plan of action with a unified national perspective. Its salient features include the need for a national water framework law for inter-State rivers and river valleys; treating water, after meeting pre-emptive needs like safe drinking water, sanitation, food security and poor farmers’ livelihood, as an economic good to promote conservation and efficient use; adaptation strategies for water resource structures in view of climate change; developing benchmarks such as water footprints and water auditing for efficient use; removing the large disparity between urban and rural water supply; and managing water resource projects and services with community participation.
4 6-Mark Questions
Q. Discuss the pattern of water demand and utilisation for irrigation in India, with reference to Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. (Exercise-based)
Answer: India has traditionally been an agrarian economy, with about two-thirds of its population dependent on agriculture, so India’s water demand is presently dominated by irrigational needs, and multipurpose river valley projects such as the Bhakra-Nangal, Hirakud, Damodar Valley, Nagarjuna Sagar and Indira Gandhi Canal Project have been taken up to develop it. Irrigation is needed because of spatio-temporal variability in rainfall: large tracts, especially north-western India and the Deccan plateau, are drought-prone, and even high-rainfall states like West Bengal and Bihar face dry spells when the monsoon fails. Certain crops, such as rice, sugarcane and jute, have very high water requirements that can only be met through irrigation, and irrigated land is more productive than unirrigated land, so the Green Revolution strategy of agricultural development succeeded largely in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, where more than 85 per cent of the net sown area is under irrigation. Of the total net irrigated area, 76.1 per cent in Punjab and 51.3 per cent in Haryana is irrigated through wells and tubewells, showing these states’ heavy use of their groundwater potential, a pattern that has resulted in a decline of the groundwater table and, with over-withdrawal, an increased fluoride concentration in Rajasthan and Maharashtra and an increased arsenic concentration in parts of West Bengal and Bihar.
Q. The depleting water resources may lead to social conflicts and disputes. Elaborate this with suitable examples. (Exercise-based)
Answer: The chapter opens by noting that water is a scarce and unevenly available resource, so tensions and disputes over sharing and controlling it are becoming contested issues among communities, regions and states. Examples: (1) Between states: inter-state river-water disputes, such as the long-running dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over sharing the waters of the Cauvery, arise because each state wants more water for irrigation and cities from the same river. (2) Between countries: the book’s news item “Rivers of conflict… but also of peace” notes more than 500 conflicts over water in the past century, and more than 260 river basins that cross national borders; yet India and Pakistan, in conflict over other matters, have reached a workable accord on sharing river waters. (3) Within communities and regions: over-use of groundwater for irrigation has lowered the water table in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, so wells of small farmers dry up while those who can afford deeper tubewells keep pumping; over-withdrawal has raised fluoride in Rajasthan and Maharashtra and arsenic in parts of West Bengal and Bihar, making drinking water unsafe. (4) Between users of the same river: polluted stretches such as the Yamuna between Delhi and Etawah set downstream users against upstream cities and industries. Since per capita availability keeps falling as population grows, such conflicts will sharpen unless water is shared fairly and conserved through watershed management, rainwater harvesting and efficient irrigation.
Q. What is watershed management? Do you think it can play an important role in sustainable development? (Exercise-based, with reference to Ralegan Siddhi)
Answer: In its narrow sense, watershed management refers to the efficient management and conservation of surface and groundwater resources, by preventing runoff and storing and recharging groundwater through percolation tanks, recharge wells and similar methods. In its broad sense, it includes the conservation, regeneration and judicious use of all resources, natural (land, water, plants and animals) and human, within a watershed, aiming to balance natural resources and society; its success depends largely on community participation. Ralegan Siddhi, a small village in Ahmadnagar district, Maharashtra, illustrates this role in sustainable development: caught in poverty and illicit liquor trade in 1975, the village built a percolation tank whose leaking embankment was voluntarily repaired by the people, after which the seven wells below it held water for the first time in living memory; a youth group, Tarun Mandal, banned dowry, caste discrimination, untouchability, open grazing and water-intensive crops like sugarcane, a system of Nyay Panchayats ended the need to refer disputes to the police, and a Rs. 22-lakh school was built using only the village’s own resources, with no donations taken. As the chapter records, water is now adequate and agriculture is flourishing at Ralegan Siddhi, showing how community-driven watershed management can turn around both the natural resource base and the society depending on it, exactly the balance sustainable development requires.
5 Case Studies
(A) 1 mark What is the objective of the National Water Policy, 2012?
Answer: To assess the existing situation and to propose a framework for a plan of action with a unified national perspective.
(B) 1 mark According to the passage, what benchmarks should be developed to ensure efficient use of water?
Answer: Water footprints and water auditing.
(C) 2 marks According to the passage, what needs must be met before water can be treated as an economic good?
Answer: Safe drinking water and sanitation, achieving food security, supporting poor people dependent on agriculture for their livelihood, and high-priority allocation for minimum eco-system needs.
(A) 1 mark In which year was the Jal Kranti Abhiyan launched, and by whom?
Answer: It was launched by the Government of India in 2015-16.
(B) 1 mark What is a ‘Jal Gram’ under the Jal Kranti Abhiyan?
Answer: One water-stressed village selected in each of 672 districts of the country, developed as a ‘Jal Gram’.
(C) 2 marks According to the passage, what is the aim of the Jal Kranti Abhiyan, and who does it involve?
Answer: Its aim is to ensure water security through per-capita availability of water in the country, and it involves local bodies, NGOs and citizens in creating awareness of its objectives.