MANAGING DROUGHT AND WATER SCARCITY IN VULNERABLE ENVIRONMENTS: A CASE STUDY WITH REFERENCE TO INDIA AND PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

India is basically an agrarian country with more than 70% of people are depending on agriculture as the main occupation. Although the Indian subcontinent consists of extremities both in surplus and deficit water areas in terms of its water resource potential In terms of consumption of water by different economic sectors, the agricultural sector is the major economic sector consuming water heavily followed by the industrial and energy sectors. Being a country noted for its monsoonal rainfall, the entire agriculture is activity is based on irrigation potential of the country based on the ground water and surface water potential now and then replenished by the timely arrival of the rainfall. Drought occurrence is a periodical phenomenon due to the water scarcity and over exploitation of water associated with increasing growth rate of urban population and industrialisation. The other economic sectors impinge on the existing available water resources and causing a major threat to agricultural sector. The objective of the present study is to attempt to bring out the Drought occurrence, its periodicity and associated factors in vulnerable environments in selected agricultural regions of India particularly with reference to India and also to study the extent of water scarcity caused in these vulnerable environments. An atteempt is also made to observe the impact of climate change on water distribution pattern and also to study the crop dynamics can be scientifically designed to the water scarcity regions with minimum of supply of water of its optimum use for sustainable development. The study with the help of selected variables a factor analysis is performed to identify the major dimensions to manage the drought in water scarcity regions of India. The study was based on both secondary and primary data collection. The findings of the study also explained the the farmers participation is utmost essential not only to manage the drought but also the land can be managed with suitable landuse dynamics with available water supply.