As India’s population booms, the country will need to double its ability to generate water by 2030 to survive.
Despite rainy season relief, the dry months can be a struggle for survival in India. The world’s second largest population lives with only four percent of the earth’s fresh water, and half the water supply in rural areas home to 70 percent of India’s population is unfit for consumption. People walk miles for safe drinking water, only to arrive to contaminated water or pumps that are only available scarce hours each day. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company predicts that as the population booms, the country will need to double its ability to generate water by 2030 to survive.
The Indian government estimates that in the next five years the country will draw $1.6 billion of investment as 200,000 groundwater pumps are switched to more efficient solar irrigation models. The project calls for swapping 26 million groundwater pumps and could save $6 billion a year in power and diesel subsidies, not to mention stop India’s prevalent blackout problems from an overburdened power-transmission grid circa 1960s.
NASA'S GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) mission has been flying satellites to measure the changes from the earth’s gravitational pull (water in aquifers causes minor gravitational attraction), allowing scientists to measure groundwater depletion. Three years ago, they noted substantial water loss in Northwest India. Despite regular rainfall, "over the six-year timeframe of this study, about 109 cubic kilometers of water were depleted from this region. More than double the capacity of India's largest reservoir is gone between 2002 and 2008," explained NASA hydrologist Matthew Rodell.
Groundwater supplies can’t keep up with growing demands, and major cities like Delhi and Mumbai could run dry in only a few short years. There isn’t enough money to build adequate sewage and sanitation facilities and waste trickles into local watering holes. Despite the water-saving drip irrigation systems farmers must use in exchange for the solar pumps, rain isn’t being stored and purified fast enough during the monsoon season, and a lack of funds or foresight from village or town councils still sees pumps and irrigation equipment flooded instead of adequately protected.
However, by combining the cut in fossil fuel and diesel-driven operations with other new projects like Nike’s new water-less factory, there is hope: India and the World Bank just signed a $500 million credit agreement for the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project for Low Income States, a six-year project by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation to increase efficiency and improve pipe water supply and sanitation services in Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, the states with the lowest availability of tap water in India. World Bank predicts that this project will directly benefit about 7.8 million rural people residents in these states.
You can help too. By donating to causes like UNICEF or Water.org, you provide aid geared toward women and children for water-related illnesses. With The Water Project, you can even start your own fundraiser, especially if you have a project in mind like getting fresh water for a specific school.
Featured Image: Water.org
Anokhi Blogs, Anokhi Media, Bihar, Drinking, Efficiency, Farmers, Government, Groundwater, Hydrologist, India, Indian, Irrigation, Pollution, Pumps, Purified, Reservoir, Scarcity, Sewage, Supply, Survival, Water
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