General

WATER SCARCITY AND SECURITY IN INDIA

• 29.12.2018
• Author:admin
• (0) Comment
• 967

Dr. N.G. Hegde, Trustee BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune Water is life because plants and animals cannot live without water. Water is needed to ensure food security, feed livestock, take up industrial production and to conserve the biodiversity and environment. Although, India is not a water poor country, due to growing human population, severe neglect and over-exploitation of this resource, water is becoming a scarce commodity. While this is a growing concern all over the world, India is most vulnerable because of the growing demand and in-disciplined lifestyle. This calls for immediate attention by the stakeholders to make sustainable use of the available water resources to ensure better quality of lives. Global Water Availability 70% of the earth surface is covered with water, which amounts to 1400 million cubic kilometres (m km3). However, 97.5% of this water being sea water, it is salty. Fresh water availability is only 35 m km3. Out of the total fresh water, 68.7% is frozen in ice caps, 30% is stored underground and only 0.3% water is available on the surface of the earth. Out of the surface water, 87% is stored in lakes, 11% in swamp and 2% in rivers. As all the sweet water is not extractable, only 1% of the total water can be used by human beings (Anon. 2006). As water was available in plenty, it was considered as a free resource since generations. However, with growing demand for water and depletion of the available water, assured supply of good quality water is becoming a growing concern. As the water resources are not evenly distributed, across different continents, some countries have surplus water while many other countries are facing scarcity of water. Likewise, there is skewed growth of population in different continents, resulting in a wide mismatch between the existing population and water availability. Among various continents, Asia has 36% of the available fresh water reserves, with over 60% of the world population where water is a scarce commodity. In fact compared to Asia, Africa is in a better situation, where 13% of the population has access to 11% of the fresh water reserves. Australia and Oceana have plenty of water with 1% population owning 5% of the fresh water reserves, followed by North and Central America, with 8% population and 15% water reserves and South America with 6% global population and 26% fresh water reserves. Since generations, the pattern of water use in different countries is mostly dependent on their culture, lifestyle and industrial development, as availability of water was not a serious concern. Table 1 presents the per capita water use in different continents. It may be observed that the per capita water use is only 245 m3 per year in Africa followed by 478 m3 in South America, 519 m3 in Asia, 713 m3 in former USSR, 1280 m3 in Europe and 1861 m3 in North and Central America. The available water is generally used for agriculture, industrial production and domestic purposes. Water is also needed for fishery, hydro-power generation, transportation and maintaining biodiversity and ecological balance. The proportion of water used for agriculture and industries varies from country to country depending on the lifestyle, extent of industrial development and water use efficiency. Table 2 highlights the water usage in India vis-à-vis Africa, Europe and the world. It can be seen from Table 2 that the developing countries use comparatively less water for agriculture and more for industrial and domestic purposes. Contrary to this, developing countries like India and Africa use 80-90% of the water for agriculture and only 5-12% of the water for industrial use. This is reflecting on inefficient use of water in agriculture and poor investments in industrial development. With the urbanisation and industrial development, the usage of water is likely to increase in the coming years as presented in Table 3. It may also be noted that the per capita water use in India will increase from the current level of 99 litres per day to 167 litres per day in 2050. On the other hand, currently, the per capita consumption in USA will reduce from 587 litres to 484 litres per day in 2050 (Table 3). to read full article please click on WATER_SCARCITY_AND_SECURITY_IN_INDIA