5th September 2020
When it comes to the global water crisis, numbers are truly sobering and in some parts of the world, they are sounding the alarm bells loud and clear.
Water shortage is a global problem par excellence.
Currently, 2.1 billion people lack access to safe and sanitary drinking water.
Globally, the gap in the water supply is estimated at 40%. Unsanitary water consumption kills an estimated 780 thousand people every year across the world.
No wonder then that for eight years in a row, the issue of water has consistently made the top five list of the Global Risk Report published by the Economic Forum.
However, these numbers and statistics, descriptive as they may be of the situation, still don’t begin to show the true depth of the problem.
Unfortunately, water shortage is further complicated by a multiplicity of other mutually effective and equally pressing issues such as food, energy, economic growth, and the environment.
India could serve as an example to examine the situation in all its complexity magnified by the characteristic size of the country’s population, its economic growth, and the different strategic approaches taken to address the water crises.
India is a country in full economic growth and is home to all top ten booming cities.
By 2030, hundreds of millions of lives countrywide will be on the line, as available water supplies will only meet half of the demand.
In cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad taps run dry a long time ago leaving people dependent on emergency government tanks.
Meanwhile, tanker mafias run rampant setting their own water prices and deciding who gets the precious limited amounts and who is left to face thirst.
Likewise, in Chennai, water shortage is no longer about numbers and projections.
It has become a daily struggle in the fourth largest Indian city where millions of people find themselves facing the bleak reality of being short of water.
There, piped water had already run dry and 21 other cities are facing the looming fate of “Day Zero” when water supplied by municipalities will no longer meet the demands of the population.
It is worth noting that Chennai is home to 8 million people and that the city (like all of South Asia) is dependent on the mercy fall monsoons for almost 50% of its annual rainwater.
During 2018, the monsoon was not so generous to Chennai.
The season ended up being not so rainy with the monsoon ending too early in December.
The city had 55% less rain than the average amount and went 200 days in drought.
With the coming of spring and the rise of temperatures, Chennai’s four water reservoirs dried up.
As a result, some areas of the city went months without water.
It seems that many Indian cities are racing towards the crisis and even if they don’t reach the frightening “Day Zero”, there will surely be a radical backward movement in their citizen’s life quality as well as in economic and social, and health development.
Globally the numbers show that up to 70% of freshwater withdrawals go to agriculture, while 30% of total global energy is consumed by food production and supply chain.
The world will have to increase food production by 60% to meet the demands of the world population by 2050.
Therefore, water supply and demand equilibrium, food production, and energy consumption are interrelated.
They have a direct impact on each other in ways that are, for now at least, not very positive.
As a result, in order to ensure food security in the future, sacrificing water or energy security might be the only way to go.
So eventually, will the world be pushed to pay such a costly price and make such a hard choice?
It seems that achieving security and abundance in one sector will necessarily risk the other(s).
Certainly, it is a delicate balance, which needs to be achieved.
Water, energy, and food are pillars not only of the world’s economic growth but also of humankind’s existence.
They are some of the most important elements for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals so it must be understood how mutually dependent they are in order to approach them comprehensively rather than separately.
This is crucial to preserve and sustain the world’s precious resources, in the hopes to be able to ensure a future when all these pillars are kept intact.
On the other hand, as complex as the water shortage problem might be, its solutions are not necessarily so complex but rather much simpler and efficient.
In India, for example, decision-makers have opted for some of the most creative and up-to-date solutions to tackle water shortages like lakes, groundwater, and desalination.
Notably, up to 30% of global water loss is due to pipe leaks.
The number could go up to 80% in some places of the world. One-third of the water in India is lost to leaks!
Leakage happens when there is excessive water pressure across drinking water supply systems, which damages the pipes.
In their turn, leaks cause increases in maintenance costs as excessive pressure also leads to more water loss when there is a leak.
This is a problem on multiple fronts as a waste of water inevitably results in a waste of energy and capital.
What is necessary in such cases is the efficient management of resources.
If pressure across water supply systems is redistributed rationally following specific needs of different areas, the loss is reducible by 38%.
The installation of water sensors and variable speed drives across supply systems can offer a way to adjust pressure and thus minimize the loss in water (by 40%), energy (by 20 to 40 %), and maintenance costs.
Also, metering devices could help monitor, isolate, and fix leaks more efficiently and thus reduce water loss.
The same applies when it comes to other water uses such as agriculture.
Almost a quarter of the amount of water used in agriculture produces food that will eventually go to waste, which is inefficient, to say the least.
Again, reducing losses across food supply chains; from the fields all the way through to storing and distribution could translate to considerable gains using less water for irrigation saving more land from deforestation and saving energy in farming equipment use.
Through this kind of comprehensive and big-picture-oriented approach, the situation is more manageable and what is more, big losses are opportunities for considerable gains.
Solutions proposed and implemented by Indian decision-makers are focused on big-scale projects with enormous budgets: mega-dams, desalination plants, linking rivers, and other big projects of moving water towards demand areas.
The Indian government is quite ambitious in its attempts and its goals.
Narendra Modi, the Indian PM, promises that come 2024, piped water will be provided for all Indians.
Of course, the Indian PM’s promises are backed up by many achievements in his portfolio from rural electrification to the development of sanitation infrastructure.
Modi did indeed take some practical measures to address the situation of water shortage.
First, the Indian government decided to merge four bodies commissioned with water management into one ministry (“Jal Shakti” or waterpower) which facilitated the governmental efforts on the issues by reducing bureaucratic limits.
Besides, the National Institute launched “the Composite Water Management Index for Transforming India” (a tool for water management) providing a detailed and comprehensive record showing data about levels of water use and allowing progress to be closely monitored.
Also, around 250 fifty officers were hired as boots on the ground to pay close attention to water-stressed rural communities around India to monitor the progress on the fields.
Nonetheless, the government is arguably too focused on big-scale projects. In less than a decade, the third desalination plant is being built in Chennai.
Some, however, would suggest that the government is more likely to achieve its ambitious goals if it shifted its focus towards smaller-scale local projects that are nature-based and in harmony with the specificities of the local climate.
An example of this was attempted by Indian villagers who built thousands of mini dams (locally referred to as “Johads”) placed in strategic ways as the capture the fleeting rainfall of monsoons and hold on to it as long as possible.
This helped recharge wells and aquifers previously dried up for decades and turn once-barren fields into vast green landscapes.
Similar small and local efforts are dispersed across the country (trees planting, water capturing projects, land sculpting…).
The results were impressive; groundwater levels raised, soil quality improved, and in some areas, in just four years water tankers use completely deserted.
These small projects can also help improve unemployment rates (the highest since the ’70s) since they require more labour.
The collective effect of these small-scale strategies can outdo mega-infrastructural projects with their enormous budgets and dangerously high-energy consumption.
The government had also better revise already established agricultural practices and reconsider the exportation of water-consuming crops such as rice and cotton as 90% of fresh water in India is consumed in agriculture.
Other possibilities to regain water resources are opening up in the agricultural sector.
Drip irrigation is just one of these opportunities and it is a formidable solution to inefficient water use in irrigation.
It is simple, inexpensive, and nature friendly allowing agriculture to flourish in the most water-deprived areas.
Other solutions include reusing recycled wastewater in agricultural irrigation.
Some of the most innovative technologies were provided within the intra-national collaboration projects between India and Israel, a leader in the field, offering farmers in India advanced technologies with minimal costs.
Currently, only 30% of the wastewater generated in India is treated and reused.
However, the government sees immense potentials to improve that number as many industries can reduce the use of fresh water and replace it with wastewater recycling, becoming independent from the municipal water supply.
At the same time, wastewater-recycling technologies help protect natural resources of fresh water from sewage pollution, as the wastewater is no longer discharged in them but properly treated and reused.
