This research studies groundwater sustainability in the Ramganga river basin of northern India. This region experiences a trifecta of hydrological stressors from groundwater over-extraction, frequent flooding during wet seasons, and agricultural droughts during dry seasons. There is a growing body of interventions known as Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) which attempts to co-manage these three concerns. One such example is a technology known as Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI) proposed by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI.) The most common mode of UTFI is recharge ponds and IWMI has technically proven its validity along with extensive piloting work in rural regions of the upper Ramganga basin. When it comes to groundwater planning, what is missing is a holistic approach that encompasses rural and urban (R & U) to study their collective demand for groundwater and plan for implementation of recharge structures; thereby ensuring better groundwater sustainability. Considering this, this thesis analyzes opportunities and barriers for UTFI’s scale-up in growing rural-urban regions of the Ramganga basin by unpacking rural-urban linkages. It proposes a holistic R+U approach for land-use planning to incorporate recharge infrastructures and in so doing, identify rural & urban implementation zones like existing ponds and parks for mixed interventions. This work adopts mixed-methods of qualitative and quantitative to conduct desk research and fieldwork, backed by relevant academic theories. The thesis culminates in land-use planning recommendations for the rural and urban to cohesively take steps towards groundwater sustainability and hydrological disaster resilience within a chosen study region. These recommendations are useful for planners and policy makers in the field, along with specific spatial, community, institutional and planning strategy aimed for IWMI’s use.

As a result of ongoing climate change, urban environments are put under increasing pressure from extreme weather events. Insufficient research is being done into the modeling of urban drought resilience. Most urban drought resilience and water network optimization models are designed for city-scale demand with regional water supply networks and vegetation water demand models generally address agricultural systems. This research addresses this gap by developing a neighborhood-scale digital representation of the Bajeskwartier water system to assess drought resilience while incorporating the local vegetation water demand. Starting with a system thinking perspective, the interconnections of soil moisture processes in the local water systems provide the base of the model.
By incorporating scenario analyses on climate change projections and vegetation types, the water demand and drought sensitivity patterns become clear. Furthermore, the implementation of an optimization solver to assess a rainwater capture, storage, and irrigation system results in a robust water system. The system proves to have sufficient capacity to prevent drought stress in a 1-in-30-year drought.
This research not only contributes to enhancing urban drought resilience within the Bajeskwartier but also provides a valuable foundation for future studies in similar urban contexts. It emphasizes the importance of considering local vegetation water demand and climate change scenarios in urban water system modeling, highlighting the need for tailored approaches to address evolving climate-induced challenges in urban environments.