WATER SCARCITY: IMPACT AND
SOLUTIONS
#Environment #Conservation
WHY THIS TOPIC?
As per the NITI Aayog report, around 60 crore people in India
are facing water scarcity. Even Chennai, a major metropolis is
facing the crisis and also the millennium city, Gurgaon. If this,
continues then it is going to impact the entire country by
2030. So, the need of the hour is wholesome state and non-
state actors participation in water conservation.
INTRODUCTION
Problems are huge as precious evolutionary living resources,
natural infrastructure, are going extinct. While we
thoughtlessly build artificial infrastructure, we forget that this
kills natural infrastructure which took evolution aeons to
create and cannot be engineered. We are missing the
essential point that this is our lifeline on the planet. Forests,
rivers, mountains, aquifers and soil are being lost at an
alarming rate. Today, India is in the midst of a suicidal water
crisis as urban and rural landscapes go thirsty.
Over the years, we have seen activists, scientists and experts
from across India working on bottom-up schemes to revive
and rejuvenate lakes, wetlands, streams and other small
water bodies. While these movements have brought about a
significant change at the local level, the scale of our water
problems is much larger.
MAIN BODY
Here we have two intractable issues. First, cities today are
vast agglomerations that continue to spread, with bursting
populations of tens of millions. They are huge parasites on
water, food, energy and all other resources. High densities of
our cities do not allow for water harvesting to fill the gap.
Until now, invasive schemes like dams to service these large
cities and the huge needs of agriculture have caused extreme
ecological devastation.
Second, in our global market economies, the products and
services that are derived from natural infrastructure have
often led to the terminal loss of the source itself. The global
free market, and with it the scale of human intervention, now
exceeds the scale of the planet. These resources (forests,
mountains, floodplains and rivers) are often lost to the greed
of governments, institutions, corporations and individuals.
This is long-term loss for short- term gain. Natural resources
are living evolutionary resources that are constantly renewed
by natural cycles. Therefore, they provide us perennial value
as long as we use them with natural wisdom and not kill them
with exploitation — which is the order of the day.
Groundwater plays an important role in our lives and India’s
economy, but it is disappearing fast. There is mounting
evidence that we are extracting more than can be naturally
replenished. In the hard-rock aquifers of peninsular India,
drilling 800 ft. or deeper is becoming the norm. Groundwater-
dependent towns and villages spend an increasing fraction of
their budgets chasing the water table. Stories abound of
farmers spending their life savings or taking loans to drill a
borewell, but failing to find water. If we “run out” of
groundwater, millions of people will be left without any
means to sustain themselves.
Scientific evidence also points to over-exploitation. The
Central Ground Water Board classifies all blocks in India
based on the fraction of recharge that is extracted and trends
in long-term groundwater levels. Since 2004, almost a third of
blocks have been classified “over-exploited” or “semi-critical”.
If we understand the problem and if the consequences are so
severe, why are we unable to address it? The answer lies
partly in politics, partly in the invisible nature of groundwater,
and partly in our reliance on simple techno-economic fixes.
Flawed regulatory structure: Electricity is supplied to
farmers free of cost. This policy made sense when
groundwater was abundant in the 1980s. Indeed, it helped
millions of farmers escape poverty. But today, where
groundwater levels have fallen hundreds of feet below the
ground, the subsidy is actually only utilised by the richest
farmers who can afford to drill deep. And even so, not all are
lucky enough to strike water. Access to groundwater in hard-
rock regions has almost become a lottery. Yet in the absence
of alternative water sources, charging farmers for electricity is
seen as political suicide.
Groundwater is inherently difficult to monitor and control, in
part because of its invisibility, which also perpetuates the
illusion that each well is independent. The myth is enshrined
in Indian groundwater law that allows landowners to extract
as much as they want. In reality, not only is groundwater
within an aquifer interconnected, but aquifers and rivers are
also interconnected. So depleting groundwater means drying
rivers. Despite this, groundwater and rivers are regulated by
different agencies that do not properly account for the
linkages between them, often double counting the quantum
of the resource.
Much of the current action on the ground is through techno-
economic fixes. These have clear benefits in terms of
reducing pumping costs and using local aquifers instead ofbuilding big, expensive dams. But what they do not do is
create “new” water.
Solution can be floodplain. Research has shown that
floodplains of rivers are exceptional aquifers where any
withdrawal is compensated by gravity flow from a large
surrounding area and can be used as a source of providing
water to cities. Floodplains are formed over millions of years
by the flooding of rivers with deposition of sand on
riverbanks. Some floodplains, such as those of Himalayan
rivers, contain up to 20 times more water than the virgin flow
in rivers in a year. Since recharge is by rainfall and during late
floods, the water quality is good. If we conserve and use the
floodplain, it can be a self-sustaining aquifer wherein every
year, the river and floodplain are preserved in the same
healthy condition as the year before.
The Delhi Palla floodplain project on the Yamuna is an
example of this. By utilising 20 sq.km of the river length and
running at half its capacity, it provides water to almost a
million people daily. Piezometers and a control system have
been installed to monitor water levels and other parameters
through the year, to ensure sustainable withdrawal. Besides,
it provides huge revenue to the Delhi Jal Board.
Preserving the floodplain in a pristine condition is essential
for this scheme to work. Land on the floodplains can be
leased from farmers in return for a fixed income from the
water sold to cities. The farmers can be encouraged to grow
orchards/food forests to secure and restore the ecological
balance of the river ecosystem.
Currently, mineral water is brought from faraway mountain
springs, putting huge pressure on the mountains. It is
packaged and consumed in plastic bottles that end up in
landfills. Forested hills are a result of evolution over millions
of years. They are not polluted and sit on a treasure of
underground aquifers that contain natural mineral water
comparable to that found in a mountain spring. This is
because the rain falls on the forest and seeps through the
various layers of humus and cracked rock pathways, picking
up nutrients and minerals and flows into underground
mineral water aquifers.
Research shows that the water in these aquifers is
comparable to several international natural spring mineral
waters. It also shows that if a scheme of ‘conserve and use’ is
applied correctly, it would allow a forest (like Asola Bhatti in
Delhi) to be sustained as a mineral water sanctuary. About 30
sq.km of the forest could then provide enough natural
mineral water to 5 million people in the city. The Aravalli
forested hills can provide mineral water to all major towns of
Rajasthan. This water can substantially improve the health of
citizens and preserve forests at the same time. The marvel is
that we can provide quality natural mineral water for all from
a local forest tract for 20 times less than the market price and
yet reap great economic returns.
Such non-invasive, local, large-scale ‘conserve and use’
projects till now have not been part of our living scheme.
They change the relationship between nature, water and
cities. They differ in scale from the small, community-driven
projects of check dams, water harvesting and lakes and can
service large populations. Unlike large-scale dams, these
projects work with nature rather than against it. They can be
used around the globe. If we were to recognise the true value
of our natural infrastructure and ‘conserve and use’ our
evolutionary resources with the help of science, it would
secure the future for humanity and the natural world.
Further, boosting recharge through rainwater harvesting
structures such as small check dams is a popular measure.
Another technological solution is to improve efficiency
through subsidised drip irrigation or energy-saving pumps.
CONCLUSION
The way forward is comprehensive water budgeting,
simultaneously in each watershed and the river basin as a
whole. Water budgets at the watershed level will inform
communities about how much water they have, so it can be
equitably shared within communities. Water budgets for the
river basin will inform communities how much must be left
for downstream users, ensuring that water resources are
allocated between communities fairly and transparently.
Given the zero-sum nature of the game and the impossibility
of creating “new” water, it is likely that we cannot restore the
water balance in severely depleted regions without painful
cuts in water use. However, there are some glimmers of
hope. Water users everywhere are worried about the
disappearing resource and willing to engage. The trick lies in
combining technology (low-water-use crops, xeriscaping) and
economic incentives that reduce actual water use (“cash-for-
blue” schemes) without reducing productivity or quality of
life. This needs a strong water governance system based on
awareness building, science and a commitment to fairness
and sustainability.
