01756nas a2200193   4500000000100000000000100001008004100002260001200043653002500055653002600080100002000106700001600126700001600142245007900158856006700237300001400304520123000318020001401548       2013                            d  c02/201310abiomass productivity10aWatershed development1 aRavinder Bhalla1 aDevi Prasad1 aNeil Pelkey00aImpact of India's watershed development programmes on biomass productivity  uhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wrcr.20133/abstract  an/a-n/a, 3 aWatershed development (WSD) is an important and expensive rural development initiative in India. Proponent of the approach contend that treating watersheds will increase agricultural and overall biomass productivity, which, in turn will reduce rural poverty. We used satellite measured Normalized Differenced Vegetation Index as a proxy for land productivity to test this crucial contention. We compared micro-watersheds that had received funding and completed watershed restoration with adjacent untreated micro-watersheds in the same region. As the criteria used can influence results we analyzed micro-watersheds grouped by catchment, state, ecological region and bio-geographical zones for analysis. We also analyzed pre and post treatment changes for the same watersheds in those schemes. Our findings show that WSD has not resulted in a significant increase in productivity in treated micro-watersheds at any grouping, when compared to adjacent untreated micro-watershed or the same micro-watershed prior to treatment. We conclude that the well intentioned people centric WSD efforts may be inhibited by failing to adequately address the basic geomorphology and hydraulic condition of the catchment areas at all scales.  a1944-7973