Earthen aquariums may soon be visible for conservation of rain water in Palamu. The Staggered Contour Trench (SCT) and Water Absorbing Tank (WAT) have a look like of any aquarium sans any fish.
Sources said Palamu administration is set to save rain water as much as it can with SCT and WAT. One hectare of dry ridge at Bhoosarya contains 600 SCT and WAT together.
Sources said SCT and WAT are made of no glass, sand, cement or brick. It is all made of natural resources. Soil is the only ingredient.
Sushant Gaurav deputy development commissioner (DDC) Palamu said, “Rain water runs off at high speed on the ridges. Palamu has numerous ridges. Here we have done SCT and WAT to save rain water from running off.”
Gaurav said the rain water runoff from ridges causes two major damages to eco system. First high speed run off rain water causes massive erosion and top soil moisture loss. Further run off rain water causes deep cuts and thus makes the land down more arid.
“This SCT and WAT that we have built for rains to come this year will end this problem and will help create a landscape with great vegetation and moisture of soil,” added Gaurav.
Technical Expert of SCT and WAT Sudhir K Roushan said, “A fleet of SCT and WAT has been readied at Bhoosarya ridgein Sadar block of Daltonganj. The SCT and WAT are purely earthen structures. It involves no masonry work unlike building check dams. All that has been done to build this fleet of SCT and WAT is digging up of earth. Earth has been dug up at Bhoosarya with JCB machine as it is permissible in water shed management.”
SCT and WAT are oblong dug up earth work. The mathematics behind it is that after every ten or twelve SCT there is a WAT. The SCT and WAT are oblong boxes for rain water to put it simply and these earthen boxes (read aquarium) have tremendous capacity for retaining and detaining rain water.
One SCT has the capacity of retaining 3 cubic meter of rain water and by this account it is 3,000 litres of rain water.
Similarly a WAT has treble the retention of rain water in it. The cost of retention and detention of rain water is very notional said Gaurav who added ‘ Catch and detain rain water at the ridge itself before it rushes down to the valley ( read plains) where the cost of retention and detention of rain water is sky rocketing but the output of rain is limited and valley rain water requires much more management than these SCT and WAT.
Satya Narain Oraon is a capacity building personnel associated with SCT and WAT at Bhoosarya who said, “Villagers first do not understand the utility of SCT and WAT and believe it is like any other failed attempt to save rain water but sustained counseling and interaction with them makes the villagers ready to allow SCT and WAT to be done in their vicinity.”
Bhoosarya where this Staggered Contour Trenches and Water Absorbing Tanks have come up is at present a land of lantana, sick and pale grass where even no cattle likes to graze at all but with this SCT and WAT officials believe this coming rainy season the texture of soil of Bhoosarya will change to cater to the needs of the people shepherd and cattle. Sources said this experiment will be taken down to other ridges in Palamu before the onset of rains.