Sustainability in large-scale water resources project planning

Large-scale water resources projects are essentially irreversible human interventions of nature usually requiring huge amount of public investment and affecting large segment of population. It is therefore imperative rather ethical that any such project proposal is thoroughly scrutinised before implementation.The universally accepted criteria for judging the suitability of a large-scale water resources project are economic development, social equity and environmental sustainability. Economic development focuses on monetized gains that the project would deliver, social equity ensures a fair share of water resources to each member of communities in project area, and environmental sustainability aims at preserving the vital components of the resources of the current generation for making these resources available for use by the future generation.