By 2030, India may not meet half of its water demand, claims new book

Water availability in India has been decreasing for decades, leaving several parts in a cruel day-zero situation, shuttering factories and pushing farmers over the brink and by 2030, the country may fail to meet half of its water demand, warns a new book.

In "Watershed: How We Destroyed India's Water and How We Can Save It", Mridula Ramesh lays bare the past and present of India's water and underlines why it is crucial to secure its future now.

Ramesh also warns that there can be little doubt that the many hues of water crises plaguing India will get worse.

"Within each of them lies a shared seed - a disrespect, a disdain for India's water facets. A warming climate and changing demographics are stressing those facets and exposing fault lines. Coming out of the crisis requires a change in mindset, a different way of looking at the world, and recognising and respecting India's water facets," she writes.

The book delves into the factors that have led India to this crisis, tracing 5000 years of history, joining the dots between key issues of concern in the country today - from extreme weather events and farmers' protests to water-related geopolitics and the role of clean-tech - and providing practical and scalable solutions to them.

"Over the past 150 years, we have radically changed what we grow and eat in India: from a nation primarily growing millets in the 19th century, we have become a rice-and-wheat-growing behemoth," Ramesh writes in the book, published by Hachette India.

Agriculture is the largest user of India's water, and this transformation places tremendous stress on the water because the country's biggest breadbaskets Punjab and Haryana don't get much rain, she says.

According to her, rising urbanisation adds to the stress.

"Between 2011 and 2030, more than 200 million people will move to India's cities. Even if each of them gets just 85 litres per day, this still translates to billions of litres more water that need to be transported to cities daily," the book says.

To meet this challenge, India has to transform its seasonal, geographically spread-out water to satisfy perennial, geographically concentrated demand, it says.

"This transformation requires massive spending on dams and canals, making urban water supply inherently expensive. Given India's rising population, urbanisation and wealth, about half of India's overall water demand may go unmet by 2030," it adds.

Ramesh says the warming climate is changing India's water from something mundane and plentiful into something volatile and precious that needs to be managed with great care.

"This pulling-the-carpet-from-under-your-feet shift is spelling the end for industries, and birthing new ones while transforming others. In this new world, the evolving preferences of customers, investors and the government makes mainstreaming water in one's business strategy a source of competitive advantage," she writes.

"Businesses (and their leaders) exist on a spectrum. Some get that this change is happening. Others don't. And as with every change in the history of business, this one too will create a new cohort of winners and leave those who don't adapt in the recycle bin," she argues.

The book takes a long view and offers solutions that have been proven to work at scale and within political realities. It shows why and how India's water is unique and so vulnerable to climate change, politics, and geopolitics.

It also addresses other key topics like why is water more central than carbon for India's climate change story, why and how will the dam that China is building near the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh reshape the geopolitical landscape of the Northeast, and will the river interlinking scheme help overcome the water crisis.

Ramesh, who is the founder of Sundaram Climate Institute and author of "The Climate Solution: India's Climate-Change Crisis and What We Can Do About It", takes readers through thousands of years of history to track how India's water has reached this critical point.

From stories of ancient water-engineering marvels in the Indus Valley and Tamil Nadu to how water shaped medieval Delhi; from the burning fields of the country's Northwest to the hilsa's curtailed journey; and from the forests of Kanha and dams in Arunachal Pradesh to Kanpur's tanneries, "Watershed" seeks to uncover how India's fate is gradually being sealed by the extremes of drought and floods.

Ramesh suggests a number of actions for the government, saying much of the policy can be implemented regionally and implementation should be prioritised in high climate-risk regions, where political competition is low.

She says waterbodies and connecting channels should be protected and tourism and fishing encouraged in urban lakes by providing necessary and sustainable infrastructure.

"Celebrate lake festivals. This is especially required for historic waterbodies like those in Delhi," she suggests.

She also feels a Jal Survekshan survey should be rolled out covering water supply, rainwater-harvesting capacity, percentage of sewage treated and reused, leaks and non-revenue water across municipalities.

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