India is no stranger to water shortages. The nature of its rainfall ensures this, as most of the sub-continent's rain falls during a relatively brief monsoon season. However, despite its historical familiarity with the problem of water scarcity, the world's largest democracy is finding meeting the growing water demands of its increasingly large population to be extremely difficult. Indeed, the Indian government is in dire need of new policies towards water use, and should it fail, the results could be catastrophic.
The task before the Indian government is Herculean. India has the world's second largest population at 1.2 billion, and as India develops, this population will tend to consume even more water on a per-cap pita basis. This stems largely from the new, water intensive lives that more and more Indians will be able to afford as income rises. Meat will become affordable to more Indians, which is a potential problem because meat requires far more water in its production than plants. Moreover, as India develops, the demand for electricity, the second largest source of water demand behind agriculture, will rise, creating yet another drain on India's limited water resources. Climate change could potentially make the problem even worse, by upsetting the delicate monsoon system that provides most of India's already limited rainfall.
The policies of the Indian government so far have only compounded the problem. Farmers are provided with cheap, subsidized electricity, and are using it to rapidly deplete India's aquifers. Moreover, there is no regulation whatsoever regarding the amount of water farmers pump. This paves the way for a tragedy of the commons scenario (yes, another one), as the Indian aquifiers represent communal resources which can be degraded(depleted) by overuse. And while indian farmers inherently have an interest in promoting the sustainbale use of this coomon resource, human nature pushes them into competing to pump as much water as possible before their neighbors beat them to it. This, in term, is bad for the farmers, and for India, in both the short and long-term. In the short term, the farmers must pay for increasingly deep wells and more powerful pumps compete with other farmers doing the same. In the long term, the aquifer is depleted, and the water level drops low enough, infiltrated by salt water, at which point it becomes essentially useless. The government, moreover, further encourages farmers to waste water by subsidizing rice and wheat, two very-water intensive crops.
Solving India's water problems will be an incredibly complicated and difficult undertaking, but there are some simple policy changes that the Indian government could make to promote water conservation. Firstly, The government clearly need to limit somehow the amount of water drawn out of wells. An excellent way to do this would be to put a realistic price on groundwater . As it is now, inexpensive, subsidized electricity combined with unrestricted rights to pump leave farmers with no incentive to conserve water, and in fact encourage waste. Secondly, the government needs to end its subsidies on water-intensive crops like current varieties of rice and wheat, and instead subsidize new more water efficient crops (researchers hover, for example, developed new strains of ge3netically modified rice that require only a fraction of the water as current strains). Finally, the Indian government needs to repair its leaky water infrastructure in cities. The article I read (I'd post a link, but the article is part of a course pack) mentioned that as many as much as 40 % of water is lost to this problem, and spending on infrastructure could boost Indian GDP while saving government money (on, say desalination) in the long run.
The problem of scarce water in India is dire, but I truly believe that, by utilizing some simple policy changes, the Indian government can avert the impending crisis. What are your thoughts on the matter? What else might the Indian government do to promote water conservation?Or more broadly, what might India to address its water shortage problem?
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I agree absolutely that India needs to regulate water use by farmers, and the people in general. That's not to say that people should be limited to how much water they can consume; however, the government should try to find an equitable system that allows people fair access to water without letting them overuse it and inconvenience others. Certainly encouraging produce that takes less water to grow is a good idea. Educating people about the importance of water conservation may also help. I'm not sure what India's economy is like right now, but government incentives might do more in convincing farmers and other large-scale water users to cut back and conserve water on their farm.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while I'm sure that India already has some present, the country should consider investing more in water treatment plants that do reverse osmosis. As India is located right next to a sea, converting the salt water to fresh water would definetly supplement the water stores that they get from the monsoon season.
Reverse osmosis is extremely expensive and difficult to do. I don't really think lack of water is what's India's problem, but rather lack of fresh/good water. Unless you are born and raised in India and are naturally immune to the water their, it's generally not a good idea to try to drink. I remember I did once and was ill for a good 2 weeks. If it's possible to find a cheep equitable way to purify the water great, otherwise salty tap water is the way to go unless one buys a imported bottles and/or their own purifier.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the water sources is not their main issue but rather quality of water and who is allowed the water. They need to decide on a plan with equity. Farmers need to learn conservation of water but also should get the water they need to supply the entire indian population. Also the people who live in india need to exercise caution with their use of water. If they can't afford reverse osmosis they could start importing water from other countries or design irigation systems that reuse water and also some way to preserve all the water brought in by monsoons. If they could find a way t do one of those they would be able to fix shortages of water.
ReplyDeleteBeing a resident in Michigan, this problem seems obviously a bit strange to me, because as we all know, we are surrounded by water. However, I also lived in Pakistan for four years, and their water availability and lack of usable water sounds pretty similar to that of India's problem, only without as many people. India needs to focus on what it can do to preserve its resources and invest in water treatment facilities, much like the ones companies like Hazen and Sawyer design and build in areas that have experienced water rationing like North Carolina. My uncle works for Hazen and Sawyer, and he says they deal with waste water treatment and make the water clean again. So as an alternative to reverse osmosis, this will cost money to produce this type infrastructure, but it will benefit India's growing future greatly. A, E, T.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who is completely foreign to the idea of a water shortage (going to school by Lake Michigan and living by Lake Erie), I couldn't imagine being in charge of solving this problem for 1.2 billion people. The best solution I can think of is limiting the amount of water available to each person, but how the government can come up with a limit and enforce that in such an enormous country is beyond me. Necessity is the mother of invention, and where there is great demand, supply is sure to follow (hopefully). I'm sure that a way will be found. It looks like some serious investment into various purification practices and devices will be necessary.
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I firmly belief that soon water rights issues will be the driving force behind conflict in the world instead of oil, unless we develop better technologies to advert water waste and to render salt water drinkable. As for wasting water in agriculture I think that a lot could be done to save water if we we're so devoted as a world to mono-planted cash crops. By growing grain in large swaths for trade and export, Indian farmers are ensuring their future misfortune. Like the posting states, those crops are very reliant on water, and there is a reason that they were not traditionally planted in those regions. We need to rework the global market, so that countries begin to produce the food that they need first, and the food for export second. Traditional farming techniques of polycultures needs to be instated so that not one water dependent crop controls to industry.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore I don't think that it is just India that needs to improve their water-systems. Think of all the rusty poorly cleaned water in this country that probably doesn't get properly utilized. I think that we need to start realizing that seriousness of this issue and begin to think about it with more action.
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I think the water shortage is not only happened in India, the worldwide have to face to this serious problem. More about the water-system, I believed every country has different problems about the water, India might need focus on how to purified water or provide health, enough, clean water for people to drink. It sounds really hard, however, with the development of the technology, people might work out an effective way such as how to purified the water from the ocean.
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