According
to a UN report, by the year 2030 there will only be 60% of water required in
the whole world without a significant policy change. Now that’s a pretty
serious situation since in 15 years we are going to have to pay water coming in
our homes if this keeps up. Being an Indian, I have how water is used in India.
The country is taking its water reserves for granted and is wasting a lot of it
without even trying to save a little. With the Global warming, rainfall
patterns all over the world have become more unpredictable and cannot be said
to rely on. And as population increases so does the demand for potable water,
which is going to be hot crisis soon.
“India’s
groundwater tables are plunging at an alarming rate with reserves in some
states dwindling to critical levels. Over 16% of groundwater resources are
‘over exploited’ – mainly in north-western, western and peninsular India.
Groundwater extraction in some states including Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and
Rajasthan has reached 100%. Unregulated use has also led to over extraction in
Himachal Pradesh and western Uttar Pradesh. Gujarat, Daman and Diu in the west
and Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in the south have also been put on high alert as
groundwater extraction has reached over 70% of available resources, putting it
on the threshold of ‘critical’.” A report from The New Indian Express says.
Now
let’s focus how India is contributing in upbringing this crisis.
1.
The first thing is Population control. People do
still not understand the importance of Family planning and small families. This
creates a population crisis too while increasing demand in residential land,
potable water, usable energy and food resources which are all scarce in India.
How come population effects water usage? A good question, but the answer is
pretty simple, people cannot live without water, and since Indians take water
resource as never ending supply, we do not understand the need of saving water.
Our gardens use more water in a month than our whole family does in a quarter
year. If we have technology and money, we think we have got the rights to waste
these resources. Higher the populations, lesser the number of people influenced
on saving resources and higher the number of people wasting them.
By equation:
Resource Available = %resource (1+ 1/people saving resource -
people wasting resources)
2.
The second is Water Pollution. This too is
affected by population. The more people there are, the more waste is produced
and it takes a lot of time to clear up the waste. This waste when kept for long
keeps polluting land, air and water around it. In Delhi, I have seen a dumping
site which is high enough to be called a hill. And we have a water canal
flowing just nearby which takes all the unprocessed waste directly into river
Yamuna. If you ever happen to see river Yamuna in Delhi, you would find that
the water has gone black with all the waste and the river smells pretty bad.
This is happening with every river in India. This directly implies that we are
not in the least concerned about our water resources. The river Ganges, the
holiest and purest of all rivers in the world, is also on the verge of ending.
The water level has gone very low and it’s not potable at all.
By equation:
%River water
available = (no. of rivers*100)/(no. of cities touching rivers*Avg. waste
produced)
3.
The third is, Global warming. With the
population we have there are a lot of vehicles running on the road, a lot of
gas stoves burning and those who cannot afford gas stoves use wood burning
chulhas, burning of waste, and many such other factors which add up to air
pollution. This air pollution makes our breathing difficult and lowers our
immunity to diseases but in addition to that it also increases the overall
temperature of the area and depletes the Ozone layer. This rise in temperature
lowers the amount of rainfall in the area. Now air pollution can be controlled
or the effects can be lessened if we have trees in the area. But with amount of
pollution being spread and the cutting of trees to supply demand for land, the
ratio of trees required to neutralize the effect of pollution produced reduces
pretty fast with each year. With this the rainfall in the area is affected,
which in turn increases the requirement of water for residential and
agricultural usage. Thereby increasing the depletion of water resources
available.
The energy requirement is expendable and by that I mean that
we can limit our usage of energy resources by turning our heads toward more
eco-friendly energies, for example solar energy and wind energy. But water
resource cannot be taken into account so lightly. The resource is being used way
too fast and is being replenished way too slow. Even if everyone in India
starts saving water resource in every way possible, we would only be able to
replenish one-third of the resource being used per year. But if we start using
eco-friendly energies though, this percentage rises to 120% approx. a year.
That means if we are to use our resources efficiently and environmentally the
within the next 50 years we would be able to bring our water resource back to
its strength.
4.
The fourth is Diversity. India is a hotpot for
many religion, languages and creeds. With this diversity India becomes a Union
which is a good thing. But it becomes a bad factor in another way where each
state and religion have different understandings and want to emphasize only on
their requirement without understanding the global need. When a new regulation
is formed and released in public interest, it becomes a religious issue and
soon political topic which either pulls down the regulation from being in
effect or nullifies the influence it should have made on the populace.
For instance, let us consider that we ban people from burning
dead bodies, instead we ask them to bury these bodies to reduce pollution of
air. This would be a great regulation had it been in a country of single
religion. But here it will become a religious topic where political parties
will make it sound like the regulation has been released to suppress Hindus and
impress Muslims or such other things. Though this regulation had a completely
different intention but it will become a reason for internal riots, political
or religious, doesn’t matter.
We
also have disputes among states, each state fighting only for its residents and
not taking India as a country. The best example is Maharashtra where recently
people from other states were chased out saying they are creating problems for
Maharashtrians. It is always a Punjabi, Bihari, Marathi, Tamilian and many
other types but never an India. This makes efforts made by government to save
resources very difficult since each state has to be told in their language with
only their interest in it. Otherwise it’s a wasted effort.
With
all these factors, India is contributing to over 30% of world’s water wastage.
This is big number since India is the second largest population and seventh
largest country by area. We should start saving water with all we have. Only
then can we ensure our children’s future.
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