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Preservation of the river and floodplains must be informed by the ‘conserve and use’ standard

We use ground agricultural data to assess the loss of water in the cultivated area in northwest India and find that this loss is about 3.5 times the reported average loss over the whole area using NASA gravity satellite, ‘GRACE’, data. This long term water deficit would result in a loss of 40% of the cultivated area.

If some of this area is turned into forest agriculture, water loss may be recovered in about forty years. Forest agriculture can also substantially cut total carbon emissions. The article addresses long term water policy for the country.