Effective use of land and water is fundamental to growth and sustainable development. The concept of watershed management has evolved to ensure effective use of both natural and social capitals. Thus, the watershed development programmes include land, water and human resources as essential components. The watershed programme is primarily a land based programme, which is increasingly being focused on water, with its main objective being to enhance agricultural productivity through increased in situ moisture conservation and protective irrigation for socio-economic development of rural people. It has been essential in a country like India where majority of the population depends on agriculture and about 60 percent of total arable land (142 million ha) in the country is rain-fed. A large portion of the rain-fed areas is characterized by low productivity, high risk and uncertainty, low level of technological change and vulnerability to degradation of natural resources. Over the years, the sustainable use of land and water has received wider attention among policy makers, administrators, scientists and researchers. CDECS works with community on sustainable use of land and water through soil and land development, water management, crop management, pasture and fodder land development, livestock management, rural energy management, other farms and non-farms activities and development of community skills and resources.

CDECS working in the monitoring & evaluation of watershed projects in the State of Rajasthan. The processes helped the department and the Watershed committee in following ways:

• Department know the processes of implementation of the IWMP projects in the districts, PIA and at the Watershed committee level.
• The bottlenecks in the project at the various levels.
• The status of trainings and capacity building in the projects.
• The IEC system and process, what works well and what need to improve in order to have better outcome and larger awareness.
• The system of monitoring and support available in the project.
• The key initiatives need to be taken in order to improve the project execution.