About 256 districts across India and a population of at least 330 million are in the grip of a severe drought in India. Such disasters, going by statistics from 1900, when 1.25 million people were killed, to 2002, when 310 million people were affected, have and will occur in the future as fears of climate change and global warming get only too real.

Water management thus is now a key requirement to mitigate the drought crisis India, where there is so much diversity in topography, geology, land cover and land use patterns. Extensive research needs to be done on water budgeting, water sharing, water governance and water markets. “Thus, water experts need to wor