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WATER: WHAT MUST WE DO?

Ramaswamy R. Iyer

There is a widespread view that a water crisis is looming on the horizon. The demand for fresh water is expected to increase sharply and rapidly because of the growth of population, the pace of urbanisation and the processes of economic ‘development,’ increasing the already severe pressure on the available (finite) supply. In this view, water scarcity is a natural phenomenon. It assumes that there is not enough water to meet the projected demand, and argues that we must somehow enhance the availability of water for use through large supply-side projects or longdistance water transfers. That seems plausible, but it should be noted that ‘demand’ is a crucial factor here, and that this will, in turn, depend crucially on how we use water. ‘Demand’ is, therefore, what we should look at first and very carefully, before we even begin to think of answers on the supply side.

Taking agriculture first, the benefits of irrigation are evident, but as regards the efficient use of water, it leaves much to answer. The largest amount of water (around 80 per cent) is used in irrigation, but its efficiency level is only up to 30 to 40 per cent, as estimated by the National Commission on Integrated Water Resource Development Plan (NCIWRDP). Yields in irrigated agriculture in India are quite low, and projected at only four tons per hectare even in 2050 (NCIWRDP). Substantial improvements in efficiency in water use in agriculture (in conveyance systems, crop-water requirements, irrigation techniques, yields) are needed. If achieved, it could sharply cut down the agricultural demand for water.

An even more important point is that supply creates demand and necessitates more supply. The availability of irrigation water leads to the adoption of water-intensive cropping patterns. More water is needed even to continue with this kind of agriculture; and of course, there is a desire to expand that agriculture, thus creating a demand for still more water until the demand becomes unsustainable. There is always a demand for more water and still more water. We have to get away from this kind of competitive, unsustainable demand for water.

In rural and urban water supply, the tendency is to project future needs on the basis of fairly high per capita norms, and the thinking is in the direction of enhancing the norms. However, is that necessary? In Delhi, for instance, the actual supply by the Delhi Jal Board is upwards of 200 litres per capita per day (lpcd), which is higher than the current norm as well as supply in other cities. The problem is that it is unevenly and inequitably distributed. There are areas where people, especially the poor, have to manage with 30 lpcd or less, and other areas where people—the middle classes and the rich—use 400 to 500 lpcd or more. What we need to do is to enforce economies on those areas—whether rural or urban—that consume too much water, and improve availability to groups or areas that receive too little. If this were done, it might not be necessary to raise the average.

In industrial use of water, multiple recycling and re-use needs to be insisted upon, allowing minimal make-up water: we must move towards a situation in which 90 per cent of the requirement of water for industry would be met through recycling. That might be very difficult today, but it must be our goal.

Strenuous efforts need to be made to maximise what we get out of each drop of water in every kind of water use. Further, the amount of waste that is taking place in every use needs to be tackled: the waste must be reduced, and a part of it must be recovered for certain uses.

I am not taking the position that supply-side action, i.e., the augmentation of water available for use, is not needed at all. There are only three ways in which water available for use can be augmented—rainwater harvesting, groundwater drilling and large projects (for storage, i.e., dams and reservoirs, or for long-distance water transfers such as the interlinking of rivers [ILR] project). Each of these would have its impacts and consequences. The impacts and consequences of large dams are by now fairly well known. In recent years the reckless exploitation of groundwater and the consequent depletion and/or contamination of aquifers have begun to cause serious concern. Rainwater harvesting has barely begun to be promoted, but some critics have already started cautioning against extensive recourse to this. Obviously, none of these possibilities on the supply side can be ruled out altogether; a wise and prudent combination of all three would need to be adopted. My own recommendation would be to treat local, community-led augmentation as the first choice, and big dams and long-distance water transfers as projects of the last resort, to be adopted only where they are the unique option or the best of available options; and the imposition of severe restraints on the exploitation of groundwater.

While accepting the need for some augmentation of supply, I would nevertheless suggest that the primacy that we have so far given to supply-side thinking must be shifted to the restraining of demand, the maximisation of value (i.e., utility or benefit) from each unit of water, the minimisation of waste, and the remedying of injustice and inequity; and that this must be accompanied by a transformation of our ways of thinking about water.

As I see it, that transformation would include an awareness and understanding of water as a scarce and precious resource to be conserved, protected and used with extreme economy; an integral part of nature; a sacred resource; primarily a life-support substance and only secondarily anything else (economic good, social good, etc); and a bounty of nature to be gratefully and reverentially received and shared with fellow humans (within the state, or province or country, or beyond the borders of the country), future generations of humans, and other forms of life.

Bringing about such a transformation would of course be very difficult. It would be much easier to build a dam or drill deep for water. However, that easier or seemingly more realistic course is not necessarily the wiser one.