Plastics - Did we dig our own grave by inventing it?

Water Crisis – ‘Day Zero’ threat imminent for India

The world runs on H2O. Clean, reliable water supplies are very important for our agriculture, industry, society and energy production. All the ecosystems and communities on Earth depend on safe water for their daily survival, sanitation, and hygiene. We are losing our forests, rivers, mountains, aquifers, and soil at an alarming rate. Water pollution has reached unprecedented levels and degrading our freshwater and coastal ecosystems. On the other side, climate change is poised to bring a dramatic shift in the precipitation patterns, speed glacial melt, alter the timing and distribution of water and intensifying floods and drought. Though many don’t realize water as the most precious commodity, it is greatly abused, and there is fear that this might lead to another world war. Several Indian states today are locked in major disputes over river water-sharing. India is also caught up in long-standing disputes with its neighbors over the water sharing from rivers that cross national boundaries.

India’s water systems today face formidable threats from various fronts. Think tank NITI AAYOG states that India is very close to witnessing its worst ever water crisis and it’s only going to get worse in the coming years. We stand amid a suicidal water crisis as urban and rural landscapes go thirsty. At least 2 lakh people die every year in India due to lack of access to safe drinking water, and as many as 40% of the current population will not have access to drinking water by 2030. India's huge groundwater dependent population, highly uncertain climate and uncritical land use with increasing urbanization are among the many factors that have rendered the groundwater situation to become a paradigm for water scarcity in both quality and quantity. Indiscriminate use of rivers, surface water bodies and unregulated disposal of sewage and industrial waste into our flowing rivers, lakes, etc. has rendered most of them non-potable. We can’t turn a blind eye to this crisis.

According to the world bank, India as a country extracts the highest amount of groundwater in the world. In our country, groundwater can be used and abused at a very low cost. Several state policies providing free electricity to farmers or financial support for groundwater extraction has resulted in uncontrolled exploitation leading to wasteful consumption of water. People think water is free and there is a belief that if they own the land, they own the water. As India advances and grows to back its 1.3 billion people, it is on the brink of an inescapable crisis. Depleting freshwater reserves coupled with erratic weather patterns, rising temperatures will further exacerbate the scarcity of water.  

It cannot be denied that each one of us will pay a heavy price when we see Day Zero (the day when taps run dry) which has already shown its presence in Cape Town, South Africa 2018. Cape Town crisis has thrown light on the fact about the perils of unplanned urbanization and how it can be affected by water availability. India too is reeling under a sustained water crisis that shows no signs of abating. Last year towards the end of May, Shimla one of India’s most popular summer retreats nearly ran out of the water. It has forced govt. Authorities to ask tourists to avoid visiting the hill station. Also, the state of Gujarat has stopped the supply of irrigation water from one of its major dams to ensure there was enough water for drinking purposes. WRI's Aqueduct global water risk mapping tool gives an idea about water risks worldwide and we can see many regions in India are under high risk. (Ref Fig 1  below)

     Fig 1: WRI Aqueduct tool (https://www.wri.org/our-work/project/aqueduct)

When I introspect myself about this imminent crisis, I feel the blame lies in our uninformed choices. 

• Inadequate Sewage treatment plants: We conveniently dump our waste in canals, rivers or streets thereby blocking the drains, reducing the canals and making them untreatable. With lack of an adequate number of sewage treatment plants, untreated urban wastewater is often added to water flowing downstream and the same contaminated water used in rural areas for drinking.

• Archaic agricultural practices: Our country’s dependence on agriculture, which employs about 800 million people, cripples the water management further. The agricultural infrastructure built by the government is not so effective. Though, traditional methods of collecting and preserving rainwater have offered some relief to the rural dwellers it ceases to be enough during a drought. Farmers are also sometimes slow to change what they sow and continue to cultivate thirsty crops like rice and sugarcane in dry regions. They meet the irrigation requirements by indiscriminately extracting groundwater. Also, most of our country’s agricultural products like rice, wheat, and sugarcane are incredibly water-intensive, and their proclivity for a high yield makes them as their popular choice than going for other environmentally friendly options. 

• Unplanned urbanization: Increased pace of urbanization without any check has turned cities into settlements that trap heat due to extensive concretization. This trapped heat increases the rate of surface water evaporation, and, as a result, increases dependency on groundwater. It also results in a big spike in the consumption levels of potable water, aggravating the water crisis. At the same time, we also find that urbanization degrades the water quality of streams, rivers, and lakes due to pollution due to multiple reasons.

• Lifestyle: With our lavish lifestyles and ever-increasing demand for water usage, it is appropriate to say that sooner or the later we are likely to end up facing the Day Zero. Water footprint in our homes presents some astonishing figures – shower, kitchen, toilet (single flush), etc. together with an average individual consumer around 180-200 litres per day. Today, in the time of swift urbanization in several parts of our country, the burden on urban water resources is increasing exponentially, and demand would be twice that of the available resources by 2030. This would slash India's GDP by 6%. Rivers are vanishing, cities are overwhelmed by sewage, surface water has become toxic, and underground aquifers are running close to non-usable levels.

• Widespread Leakages: Enormous amount of water is wasted through leakages from pipes, taps in every part of our country. We don’t realize the impact of this until at a small scale but when aggregated this is further adding to the sad state of affairs of the water resources. With a fifth of our mains water lost due to leakages, there must be a concerted effort to prevent them and encourage consumers to use water more efficiently.  

• Climate change: Climate change has disrupted our Earth’s hydrological cycle altering when, where, and how much precipitation falls. This has made the job of water management and planning far more challenging. Reports suggest that a 1.5°C rise in the average global temperature will eventually expose around 350 million urban dwellers to extreme droughts.

• Production & Consumption of goods: Many products that we use today have a larger impact on the global water supply than we realize. For example, the amount of water going into making a 1 litre bottle could be up to six to seven times what's inside the bottle when we consider the true water footprint used in production including packaging.

These are some of the few reasons which have a significant contribution to the water problem and thus it remains a colossal issue. India has approximately 4% of the global water resources but 16% of the global population. Thus, the issue of water shortage and its ramifications will be realized in the coming years. 

            

                                          Fig 2: The sacred River Ganga and its tale of pollution

Unfortunately, unchecked pollution has already turned thousands of water sources in our country into bodies of filth and disease. The Ganges, one of India’s most famous and important rivers is horrifically polluted and successive governments have failed to clean them up. In South India, Bangalore’s Bellandur Lake has gone so toxic that methane fires are often seen on its surface. Both our state and central governments have not come up with any concrete actions and are also not serious enough to translate goals into reality. 

Today, we need better water management practices, legislation for the protection and restoration of water bodies as well as for groundwater extraction. Also, a sustainable framework must be built to take care of any situation. We don’t want to for a crisis to be the trigger point which will probably bring in a change in the government’s policies and practices. 

Fig 3: Toxic Bellandur lake 

So, why can’t we afford to pay a reasonable cost for its appropriate management to avoid that situation?

Below are few of the areas which are to be addressed to tackle this colossal problem:

• Emphasis should be laid on increasing the wastewater reuse in cities and towns and divert the surplus if any to recharge our depleted aquifers and use on crops.

• Farmers should adopt conservation agriculture as a practice to utilize a greater portion of rainwater rather than depending on irrigation and follow crop rotation to maintain soil cover.

• Choice of crops – We must reconsider what is grown and adopt better ways to cultivate crops.

• Drip irrigation – In spite of its high efficiency in distributing water, this has seen few customers owing to the high costs for an average farmer. Widespread adoption has to be driven by the government agencies and bring in a culture change.

• Rainwater harvesting: As a very simple and cheap solution known since ancient times, every household should realize the importance and make necessary arrangements for the same in the form of rooftop rain harvesting, etc.

• Desilting of ponds and revival of lakes in cities: Many ponds & lakes are covered with water hyacinths and are used as a sink for sewage waste. We have to keep a check on these practices, and everyone should support the revival of the same.

• Energy production - Thermal power sources require huge amounts of water for cooling whereas renewables for the most part (solar and wind) do not. So, we must reduce our dependency on coal-based plants and policies should encourage, incentivize, and invest in renewable sources.

• Technology - Technology will have a farfetched impact on domestic water consumption. Data-driven farming will enable efficient water utilization and soil sensors to help in analyzing the moisture content and control the amount of water released to crops.

• IoT sensors are known to detect the leakages in irrigation pumps, pipes, and water flow systems thereby enabling to plug the leaks. Through smart meters, leaky taps will no more be a problem for the public as they will be able to shut off valves remotely.

• Behavioral change in water utilization: Using gamification models that will score households in comparison to their neighbors and smart meters which ranks users on their water usage patterns will bring in a behavioral change in the communities.

• Lifestyle and choices: We must certainly leapfrog the long-accepted 'gold standard' of sanitation. Solar-powered flushing systems, dirt-sensor taps, and self-cleaning surfaces can be a standard fixture in homes, offices, and public institutions. The Gates and Melinda foundation realized that it's not practical for the entire world to adopt flush toilets and they are spending enormous amounts to fund research into toilets that don't require a sewer system.

• Adoption of best practices: India can adopt some of the practices followed by Israel which is known for its sustainable water consumption in the world. Israel has executed a centralized water management system and set up various desalination plants. They have also encouraged the use of treated wastewater for farming and proliferated the idea of drip irrigation. Similarly, Singapore has been very smart about meeting its water needs proficiently. Apart from desalination plants and the use of recycled wastewater, the city-state gives precedence to building reservoirs and catchments to collect as much natural water as possible.

• Lastly, a combination of investments in research to identify regions with low and high crop yields and low and high potential for increasing water use efficiency should Also, Investments should be made in small-scale structures that can enhance groundwater recharge in locations.

Conclusion:

There’s not an infinite supply of water. Either we continue to use water immaturely, threatening the very existence of this planet, or we adopt sustainable and smart water-management practices to secure water future. We should contemplate several measures: short, medium- and long-term remedies to sustain and revitalize the accessible, residual, unpolluted groundwater in these challenging times of changing socio-economic needs. And we should aspire to bring a turnaround and move from groundwater-deficient to groundwater sufficient.

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Reference: 
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/15/health/india-water-shortage-crisis-intl/index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5pcEniBwf0 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZmxEY6QoUY (Cape town crisis)
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Growth-and-Opportunity/Water-Sanitation-and-Hygiene/Reinvent-the-Toilet-Challenge-and-Expo
https://www.wri.org/applications/maps/aqueduct-atlas
http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/water/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/23/england-at-risk-of-water-shortages-due-to-overuse-and-leaks-report-warns