With India ranking last in the Climate Change Performance Index 2022, it is time to rethink our conservation strategies for nature's biggest lifeline – water
The world famous Oceanographer and Environmentalist Jacques Cousteau once said, "We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one".
It is impossible to sideline the increasingly alarming rate at which Global Warming is adversely affecting the planet. Heat waves are causing train signals in the UK to melt, Italy is battling a drought. Forest fires in Europe this year have been widespread. The tropics are bearing the brunt of floods, each more ferocious & destructive than the previous.
India, despite holding 4% of the world's water resources, is acutely water stressed. The water situation in India can cause a serious national emergency, with droughts drying our lands barren or floods drowning away entire habitats with people, animals, livestock and infrastructure. As one of the fastest growing economies in the world, it is disheartening to see India ranked very low in the Climate Change Performance Index 2022.
Economic sustainability will be severely compromised and we must collectively worry about the rapid decline of stocks of the biggest source of life, water.
Water, water everywhere. Nor any drop to drink
According to a 2019 NITI Aayog report, India is experiencing the biggest water crisis in its history and about 600 million people lack access to clean water. In our mistaken notion that rain will replenish our resources, we consume water voraciously. Water availability per capita has been on the decline, going from 1,816 cubic metres (cm) in 2001 to 1,546 cm in 2011 to 1,367 cm in 2021.
This year our states have experienced varying degrees of hardship. A state like Gujarat had over 300 villages affected by floods. Assam witnessed the displacement of almost 1 lakh people with over 18,000 houses permanently destroyed. The financial capital of the country, Mumbai, initially witnessed a 10% water cut, immediately followed by a full week of red alerts and harsh rains, flooding the city and our lakes. Maharashtra's Wardha district is currently battling heavy rainfalls and floods. Telangana is another state suffering the wrath of the monsoon.
With the increasing complications of climate crisis, and as we head towards becoming the most populous country by 2023, we cannot ignore the need for urgent action in restoring our stock of consumable water in the country. We need bold action and the Modi government has shown that it has the appetite for creative approaches. Some are fraught with political implications but the time to soft peddle has long gone.
Initiatives must include pricing water for agriculture, re-imagining cropping patterns that depend on excessive extraction of ground water, harvesting water in mission mode, large scale reforestation, restoration of water bodies, strict regulation on encroachments especially in our cities, penal provisions on waste and industrial pollution, reimagining our garbage and waste management etc. The former top bureaucrat Param Iyer coming from Jal Shakti Ministry to Niti Aayog is welcome news.
By 2024, the government's Jal Jeevan Mission (Urban) aims to guarantee a universal water supply to all 4,378 municipalities and offer safe tap water to every rural family. That is a laudable objective and a fundamental pre-requisite to basic dignity in our society especially the women who carry the burden of water provision in rural India.
The Objective statement of the National Water mission articulates the challenge and potential solutions very well. While the Government recognizes the problem and is attempting to navigate the landscape of solutions we need Corporates, Civil society and social bodies to play a key contributory role in averting a water crisis. Making industry more water friendly, managing consumption better, educating our children and ensuring vigilance when water bodies are encroached, desecrated or compromised are all key to long term sustainability.
Key Insights
An initiative to promote multidimensional literacy of water in society at large, starting from schools, is crucial. The message needs to be repeated frequently, and according to the philosopher John Stuart Mill, it is our moral responsibility to assure the existence of resources for the future generation. Thus it is our responsibility to inculcate the value of water preservation into our children's value system.
As part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) agendas, companies are increasingly using their management creativity to solve the problem of rejuvenating hitherto shrinking lakes and other large water bodies. Manufacturing companies should be encouraged to reduce water pollution by processing waste better, and more safely.
Rainwater harvesting is key and many initiatives are in place in an attempt to scale up. Companies are pitching in with funding support, either through CSR funding or through their foundations. Many cities are undertaking efforts to this end, and more should; water management should be made part of urban planning as a norm. Every city can be a smart city when it comes to water. As residents and citizens, it is the collective responsibility of people everywhere to manage and moderate their water use.
At every scale, from a single biological cell to the most complex global circulatory system, water is present. Despite that, when it comes to management and conservation, people everywhere seem to suffer from water blindness.
Let's cure it before it's too late.
Courtesy: TOI Online
