Check dam near Chicholi
cd-3 · 21.3645, 79.6123 · PIN 441914
Contributing catchment 69.13 km² · at a 3 m bund it impounds 158 thousand m³ over 16 ha · design monsoon yield 40,211 thousand m³ · soil HSG-D (clay 43%).
In plain words
A check-dam site near Chicholi on a 69 km² catchment where the caution is the water witness itself: the two satellites barely track together (correlation 0.23) and the observed water is small (13 ha optical, under 4 ha radar). Twelve buildings sit within the 3 m footprint, and the large catchment again points to a through-flowing nala.
What to build
Survey to settle two things — whether there is really a harvestable, holdable flow here (the sensors disagree), and the twelve-structure land question.
Why here
Its place on the list rests on a big catchment and both sensors seeing a monsoon pulse, but the weak agreement and small extent make the water case the thinnest in this tier — it could as easily be dropped as promoted.
How
Ground reconnaissance of the flow and pour point across a monsoon; cadastral check of the twelve structures.
The delta — now vs after
If the ground confirms a real, holdable flow and the land clears, it promotes; if the flow is as marginal as the sensors suggest, this is a drop — better known before spending.
What it delivers · indicative
Indicative benefit at a 3 m bund (DEM area-capacity at 3 m bund) under standard norms (irrigation ~5 TCM/ha; drinking 150 lpcd). Recharge is limited on HSG-D clay (12% of storage). Actual yield varies with monsoon reliability, seepage and siltation.
Incremental over today · the net-new gain, from the 4-year record
≈ 158 thousand m³ of net-new water · 32 ha irrigable · 2,873 drinking person-years.
full design storage — no structure holds water here today.
Why this site
Sited on an order-4 nala with a 69.1 km² contributing catchment and gentle grade — a nala/check dam impounds monsoon runoff on the clay lowlands where infiltration is low.
Seasonal water extent · dual-sensor
Radar (S1, 48 passes) fills the monsoon gap that cloud hides from optical (S2, 38 scenes). Radar peak vs summer low: 3.4 → 0 ha, a 3.4 ha annual draw-down — the storage renovation recovers.
Area-capacity (DEM, 30 m) · gross storage by bund height
Cross-witness & confidence — independent corroboration
Two sensors track together
Optical (S2) and radar (S1) rise and fall together with correlation r = 0.23 across 38 paired months. Absolute extents match 0% — they differ by sensor physics on a flowing nala, so the shared rhythm is the witness, not the magnitude.
Nala flow (new-build site)
No existing lake here — expected for a new structure. Sensors confirm a monsoon flow pulse in the nala; nearest mapped lake is 3,421 m away.
Land acquisition (submergence)
A 3 m bund would submerge 16 ha — the land to be acquired. Cost & consent scale with this.
⚠ catchment likely includes a through-flowing nala — verify pour point
Displacement witness — real building footprints
Several structures — survey neededIn the submergence footprint
12
buildings within the 224 m design-submergence radius (16 ha pond at 3 m).
Nearest structure
108 m
to the closest mapped building.
Within 500 m
94
buildings in the influence ring.
Overture Maps buildings 2026-05-20.0 (union of OSM / Google Open Buildings / Microsoft / Esri), Bhandara admin_code=506. A desktop displacement screen — precedes, not replaces, cadastral (7/12) verification.
Reconnaissance context & access — Ola + Google Places
Nearest habitation
Chicholi
1,294 m away · PIN 441914
Nearest landmark
Akola Rod Narayan Kirana Store
Schools within 2 km
5
nearest 1,221 m
Health within 2 km
9
nearest 478 m
Google Places (New) searchNearby + Ola Maps Places nearbysearch · reconnaissance-grade. Independent witness to the buildings displacement layer — dense amenities near a site corroborate high displacement. Does not replace cadastral 7/12 records, geotechnical bores or a level survey.
Human pressure — land-cover change (2022 → 2026)
Greening (more vegetation)Vegetation (NDVI) change
+0.066
50 ha lost · 364 ha gained over 1,863 ha land
Built-up (NDBI) change
22.6 ha
new built-up / bare (construction proxy)
Window
2022-11..2023-02 (8 scenes)
→ 2025-11..2026-02 (8 scenes)
Sentinel-2 L2A dry-season MEDIAN composites (2022-23 vs 2025-26), water-masked; NDVI+NDBI change screen — not cadastral or DEM cut/fill
DPR-grade desktop hydrology from Copernicus GLO-30 (30 m) + ISRIC SoilGrids + ESA WorldCover; water extent from Sentinel-2 L2A MNDWI (optical) and Sentinel-1 GRD VV radiometrically calibrated to σ⁰ (DN²/sigmaNought² from the product calibration LUT, GCP thin-plate-spline geocoded, open water at σ⁰ < −17 dB; thermal-noise floor not subtracted). A desktop assessment that precedes — not replaces — the statutory ground & geotechnical survey.