Chapter 3: Water Resources Application Questions | geography Class 10 CBSE

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Chapter 3: Water Resources Application Questions | geography Class 10 CBSE | ByteNotes.in

Application Question

Medium difficulty • Concept in a practical situation

Medium

Question 1

Applied Concept

A village in Rajasthan receives good rainfall in July but faces severe water shortage by April every year. With reference to traditional water harvesting methods, suggest how this village can secure its water supply through the dry months.

The village can revive the tradition of building underground tankas — large underground chambers connected to sloping rooftops through pipes — to collect and store monsoon rainwater for use during the dry summer months when all other sources are depleted.
Agricultural fields at the periphery of the village can be converted into khadins or johads — traditional structures that allow rainwater to stand and slowly moisten the soil, recharging groundwater and providing moisture for rabi crops.
Community-level johads can be constructed at strategic locations to harvest and store runoff from rain events, creating a shared water reserve that sustains both domestic use and limited agricultural activity through April and beyond.

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Application Question

Hard difficulty • Concept in a practical situation

Hard

Question 2

Applied Concept

A district in Punjab has a large canal irrigation network from a multi-purpose project. Farmers have shifted entirely to paddy and sugarcane cultivation. Analyse the ecological risks this situation poses in the long run.

Heavy irrigation of paddy and sugarcane — two of the most water-intensive crops — will over-extract surface and groundwater beyond the ecosystem's recharge capacity, causing falling water tables and eventual water scarcity even in this well-irrigated district.
In the medium to long term, continuous irrigation of poorly drained soils in the district will cause waterlogging and salinisation, where harmful salts accumulate at the surface, reducing soil fertility and rendering agricultural land permanently unproductive.
The abandonment of traditional drought-resistant and diverse crop varieties in favour of monocultures of water-intensive crops reduces ecological resilience, leaving the farming system extremely vulnerable to drought, crop disease, and long-term soil degradation.

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Application Question

Medium difficulty • Concept in a practical situation

Medium

Question 3

Applied Concept

With reference to the Bhakra-Nangal project, explain how a multi-purpose project serves both agricultural and energy needs of a region simultaneously.

The Bhakra-Nangal project, located on the Sutluj-Beas river basin, impounds large volumes of river water in its reservoir, which is then released in a controlled manner to irrigate agricultural fields across Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan, ensuring reliable water supply even during dry seasons.
The same falling water stored in the reservoir is channelled through penstocks at high pressure to turbines in the powerhouse, generating hydroelectric power that supplies electricity to industries, farms, and homes across North India — powering both agricultural pumps and industrial units.
By integrating these two functions within one structure, Bhakra-Nangal eliminates the need for separate irrigation infrastructure and a separate power plant, making it a highly efficient multi-purpose investment that simultaneously serves agricultural productivity and industrial energy needs.

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Application Question

Hard difficulty • Concept in a practical situation

Hard

Question 4

Applied Concept

Shillong receives far less water than Cherapunjee and Mawsynram, which are just 55 km away and receive the world's highest rainfall. Using this case, explain the concept of localised water scarcity.

Localised water scarcity occurs when rainfall in a surrounding or adjacent area does not automatically translate into available water supply for a specific settlement — water availability depends on where rain falls, how it is collected, and how it is distributed, not just how much rain falls nearby.
Shillong, despite its proximity to the world's rainiest places, faces acute shortage because the heavy rainfall in Cherapunjee and Mawsynram falls in different watersheds and does not flow to the city's water supply infrastructure; the city must independently secure its own water.
To address this, Shillong residents have adopted rooftop rainwater harvesting in nearly every household, drawing 15–25 percent of their water needs from directly collected rain — demonstrating that community-level, decentralised collection can offset localised scarcity even in globally high-rainfall regions.

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Application Question

Hard difficulty • Concept in a practical situation

Hard

Question 5

Applied Concept

After a heavy monsoon, a city in eastern India experienced severe urban flooding. Local residents are demanding a new dam to control future floods. As an informed citizen, what points would you raise to assess whether a dam is truly the solution?

You would point out that dams designed to control floods have paradoxically triggered floods due to reservoir sedimentation — as sediment accumulates over decades, the reservoir's storage capacity decreases, reducing its ability to absorb excess monsoon discharge and forcing rapid releases that cause downstream flooding.
You would argue that large dams disrupt natural river sediment flow, deprive floodplains of silt (a natural fertiliser), cause land degradation downstream, harm aquatic biodiversity, and have in many documented cases induced earthquakes and spread water-borne diseases.
You would suggest evaluating alternative solutions such as restoring urban wetlands, improving drainage infrastructure, reviving local inundation channel systems, and implementing watershed management in the river's upper catchment — which address flood risk at source without the ecological, social, and financial costs of dam construction.

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Application Question

Medium difficulty • Concept in a practical situation

Medium

Question 6

Applied Concept

A remote tribal village in Karnataka has abundant annual rainfall but no piped water supply. Residents walk long distances for water. How can the Gendathur model of rooftop rainwater harvesting help this village?

The Gendathur model, implemented in a village in Mysuru district, shows that with about 200 households installing rooftop rainwater harvesting systems — using simple pipes from sloping roofs to underground or above-ground storage tanks — each house can collect approximately 50,000 litres annually based on 80 percent collection efficiency.
In a village with rainfall similar to Gendathur's 1,000 mm annual precipitation, each household's harvested water can replace the need to travel long distances for water, providing a reliable in-home source especially during dry months, eliminating the burden that typically falls on women and children.
Collectively, 200 households can harvest approximately 1,00,000 litres of water annually, creating a village-level water security buffer, and since the system requires minimal external infrastructure or government support, it can be maintained locally — making it ideal for remote tribal communities with limited access to piped supply.

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Chapter sections

Chapter 3: Water Resources | Application Questions

A village in Rajasthan receives good rainfall in July but faces severe water shortage by April every year. With reference to traditional water harvesting methods, suggest how this village can secure its water supply through the dry months.

A district in Punjab has a large canal irrigation network from a multi-purpose project. Farmers have shifted entirely to paddy and sugarcane cultivation. Analyse the ecological risks this situation poses in the long run.

With reference to the Bhakra-Nangal project, explain how a multi-purpose project serves both agricultural and energy needs of a region simultaneously.

Shillong receives far less water than Cherapunjee and Mawsynram, which are just 55 km away and receive the world's highest rainfall. Using this case, explain the concept of localised water scarcity.

After a heavy monsoon, a city in eastern India experienced severe urban flooding. Local residents are demanding a new dam to control future floods. As an informed citizen, what points would you raise to assess whether a dam is truly the solution?

A remote tribal village in Karnataka has abundant annual rainfall but no piped water supply. Residents walk long distances for water. How can the Gendathur model of rooftop rainwater harvesting help this village?

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