Water Archives - The TrickyScribe™

Ashish Saurabh | The TrickyScribe: Water, according to leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm Goldman Sachs, is the ‘petroleum of the next century’ and is one of the most immediate prerequisites for the survival of the humanity, has been the cradle for civilizations since time immemorial.

Disputes around the issue of water are too numerous to be encapsulated here. Be it Indus or Cauvery. Issue remains the same. No exceptions! The intermittent water disputes, plaguing the sub-continent, need to be addressed in a comprehensive way; at the earliest.

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Latest spike, however, in the number of water dispute in the South Asian sub-continent is a reflection of larger global trend that is casting its shadow on the hitherto water sufficient region of the globe. With India threatening Pakistan for using the share of Indus water that ‘rightfully belongs to India’; the domestic water war has plagued India itself for too long.

In India, the federal fabric happens to be under severe strains owing to surge in the number of inter-state water disputes. Many of the disputes that surfaced recently have a long duree, nonetheless, the intense passion and jingoism that was put on show is alarming. The larger issue, however, is still to be framed in the debate, the issue of water intensive lifestyle.

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Modern day technology has been a transformative experience in Anthropocene. The tremendous impact has affected us in many ways. Right from our daily chores to agriculture, we have been adding many ways to enrich our water intensive lifestyle.

Sugarcane, for an example, was grown in areas that had high water supply. Blessed with irrigation facilities, areas that were hitherto water deficient have started growing the water intensive crop, thereby increasing the water appetite for the region.

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From car washes to frequent flushes in restrooms, we have been wasting waters in numerously creative ways which our forefathers didn’t. It is not to say that these habits are to be forbidden but to mark that our water appetite has grown humongously. Equilibrium is nowhere close to the horizon.

Politics of freebies

From waving of water rent to supply of free electricity for the pump sets, political elite has always been hand-in-gloves with our water intensive lifestyle and has further incentivised it. Often to gain extra marks from the potential voters, political parties especially those with regional orientation fuel the issue and provoke passion.

World Water Day

As a mean of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources United Nations designated as World Water Day. The theme this time is ‘Leaving no one behind’. It aspires at reminding people about the significance of fresh water and to promote sustainability for fresh water resources’ management. It’s a day designated to prepare for how we manage water in the future; a day to celebrate water. Interestingly, the theme in 2020 will be about Climate change.

Water for All!

Once the Agenda 2030 was adopted by the UN back in 2015, countries and stakeholders set out an ambitious agenda envisaging a world free of disease, hunger and poverty; a world where lifeforms can thrive with no one is left behind.

‘Water for All’ implies that all including those elderly, disabled, marginalized and poor get access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation as mentioned in Sustainable Development Goals. Billions of people are doomed to live without access to safe water – their households, schools, workplaces, farms and factories struggling to survive and thrive.

Marginalized groups – women, children, refugees, indigenous peoples, disabled people and many others – are often overlooked, and sometimes face discrimination, as they try to access and manage the safe water they need.

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The year 2014 marked the end of water woes for 56-year-old Rampravesh Singh, a fruit and vegetable farmer from Thumbo ka Golia, a village in Jalore district, Rajasthan. His income grew 40% in 2015 over his 2013 income, as he switched to growing vegetables and fruits from castor oil, helped by the bountiful monsoon which raised the water level in his well by 9.14 feet, almost double the rise in 2014 that was somewhere close to 4.57 feet.

In contrast, the average farmer in Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana faces the prospect of having no groundwater left for irrigation by 2025. Groundwater extraction, in these states, generally exceeds the rate at which it is being replenished through rainfall, backflows from irrigation and seepage from canals, other waterbodies and conservation structures.

Increasing use of riverbanks damaging Gharial habitat

Singh’s well bucked a nationwide trend–across India barely 3% wells registered a rise in water level exceeding 4 metres in the year ending January 2016, according to a 2016-Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) report.

Merely around 35% of wells showed any rise in water level, which declined in 64% of wells. Average water levels in January 2016 were lower than the average water level between 2006 and 2015.

Behind the trend of falling water levels is India’s annual extraction rate of groundwater which is over 251 cubic kilometer (cu km)–equivalent to 26 times the water stored in the Bhakra Dam–making India world’s biggest consumer of groundwater, according to a 2012 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization report. With annual extraction rates of 112 cu km, the US and China tie at a distant second.

Over 90% of groundwater is extracted for irrigation, as per the Ground Water Year Book for 2014-15 as released by the CGWB, underscoring India’s dependence on groundwater for irrigation–it provides water for 60% of the irrigated area.

Over the past four decades—when India commissioned roughly half of its 50 biggest dams—around 84% of the total addition to the net irrigated area has come from groundwater, as per a government committee report in 2016 .

The problem–and the advantage–with groundwater is its decentralised access. Consequently, India has an estimated 30 million groundwater structures, according to the July 2016 government report.

Depleting groundwater table

The storage facility is available in 91 major reservoirs of the country for the week ending on May 18, 2017 was 35.622BCM, which is just 23% of combined storage capacity of these reservoirs. The same was 24% for the week ending on May 11, 2017.

The total storage capacity of surveyed 91 reservoirs is 157.799 BCM, almost around 62% of the total storage capacity of 253.388 BCM which is estimated to have been created in the country. As many as 37 reservoirs out of these 91 have hydropower benefit with installed capacity of more than 60 MW.

Should communities manage groundwater?

Local stakeholders can prove to be the best in policing the use of water, and they are more likely to do so honestly because their lives depend on its availability.

Community-driven decentralised water management was the norm in India until about 100 years ago, prior to the development of the modern canal-based flood irrigation system and extraction technology.

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Water

WATER FOR ALL: NO ONE TO BE LEFT BEHIND