Shallow Aquifer Management

About Shallow Aquifer Management:

• It is a sustainable urban water management technique and addresses persistent issues of groundwater depletion, drying up of borewells and check quick flooding of city streets.
• How it is done?
  • The project’s concept is to drill shallow water injection borewells to a depth of 100-120 feet and pump out water in the shallow aquifers.
  • This is done so that the layers underneath get recharged whenever there is rainfall, while collecting water from the surrounding watershed and channelling it through recharge pits.
  • Thus, the underground layers are recharged, and water table rises.

SAM Pilot model in India

• It is part of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• Nodal implementing agency: National Institute of Urban Affairs
• In 2022, the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) initiated a SAM pilot across 10 cities in nine states: Bengaluru (Karnataka), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Dhanbad (Jharkhand), Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh), Hyderabad (Telangana), Jaipur (Rajasthan), Kolkata (West Bengal), Pune and Thane (Maharashtra) and Rajkot (Gujarat).

What is an aquifer?

• It is a body of porous rock or sediment saturated with groundwater. Groundwater enters an aquifer as precipitation seeps through the soil.
• It can move through the aquifer and resurface through springs and wells.