Residential training on “Planning and Designing of Groundwater recharge structures in Urban Areas”

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in partnership with National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India conducted the residential training on “Planning and Designing of Groundwater recharge structures in Urban Areas” from August 21-23, 2024. The training was conducted, under the ‘CSE-NMCG capacity building initiative on ‘Making Ganga basin studies water-sensitive’.

The training was aimed to capacitate state / municipal functionaries and other sector players on issues, challenges, and management of rainwater and stormwater in urban areas.

For the training a total of 38 nominations received from across India and attended by 21 participants, all of which were govt officials from Groundwater Department Rajasthan, NMCG- State Programme Management Group (SPMG) Bihar, Urban Development and Environment Department (UDED) Madhya Pradesh, Jal Nigam-Urban.

The training was conducted at CSE’s residential training campus, Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI), Nimli Rajasthan between August 21-23, 2024. 

The main objective of the training was to capacitate the officials on the issue of groundwater management in cities through aquifer mapping using advance tools. The guest faculties from reputed institutions like Central Groundwater Board (CGWB)) were invited to deliver lectures on specific topics.  

The group exercise was on locating the potential groundwater recharge zones using remote sensing and GIS which will help the participants in effective planning and implementation of groundwater recharge structures. The brainstorming sessions during the training were done to make the training more interactive and for active engagement of the participants. Each brainstorming session had some unique activities followed by.

Apart from the classroom sessions, a field visit to East Nizamuddin colony was organized to understand the implementation of rainwater harvesting systems at community level, where CSE had provided the technical guidance for the implementation. AAETI also has live models of rainwater harvesting, where participants visited to understand the implementation at institutional level.

The overall training was well appreciated by the participants. They appreciated the content, faculty, mode of training, live models at AAETI and other logistical arrangements at AAETI.