
Is India facing its worst-ever water crisis? - akbarnama
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35888535
======
pigpaws
While no one can deny the effects of changing climate, why has no one brought
up the piss-poor management of the water they DO have? The river is used for
drinking, as an open toilet AND as a 'burial' ground and people seem confused
as to why it doesn't support the life it once did - and people mention it as
an AFTERTHOUGHT.

ah - we don't want to insult their culture, now do we?

Come on. If you're going to address the problem, at least be honest about the
WHOLE thing instead of hiding behind climate change - as if it were the ONLY
issue. If they were serous about it, then they'd be implementing/encouraging
water catchment systems at the local level, homes, etc...

~~~
rrrazdan
No one is confused about the death of the river. The problem is clearly with
Indian people itself, including me.

There is a lot going on at the ground level and there is a lot more that
should be done.

I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is all
attributable to poverty. You cannot expect "rational" behaviour from people
fighting for their next meal? As average incomes grow, people are going to
care about other things and you can already see the shoots of this in India.

~~~
phkahler
>> I used to be as exasperated as you, but I have come to peace that this is
all attributable to poverty.

I think it's all due to overpopulation - which it can be argued is a result of
poverty too. As long as the world refuses to address exponential population
growth, we will continue to run into resource shortages on this finite planet.

~~~
jensen123
The population of India has an average IQ of 81. Compare that with China,
which has an average IQ of 100. I guess this is why China instituted the (very
smart) one-child-per-family policy whereas India has done nothing.

[http://www.rlynn.co.uk/uploads/pdfs/Intelligence%20and%20the...](http://www.rlynn.co.uk/uploads/pdfs/Intelligence%20and%20the%20Wealth%20and%20Poverty%20of%20Nations.pdf)

~~~
rrrazdan
Well IQ is directly related to nutrition. So lets see how that plays out.

Also Indian population density is less than the Netherlands. So its not all
about over population.

India is also inching towards lower birth rates with southern states already
below 2.1 .

------
gexla
> "The river has very little water these days. It is also running out of fish.
> Tube wells in our village have run out of water," he says. "There's too much
> of uncertainty. People in our villages have moved to the cities to look for
> work."

Maybe this is what we need. More people move into cities rather than
exploiting these critical resources at every stretch with little to no
management. To go further, maybe we should be creating sanctuaries in these
areas so that maybe wildlife (like fish) could make a comeback.

Pie in the sky probably. Maybe creates other issues. Maybe not feasible. China
has cleared large numbers of people for projects though. There is little
resources for a project which doesn't make money or is not a source of
national pride (like the largest dam in the world), but I imagine the value of
water is dramatically increasing.

We don't think much about this sort of thing in Western nations. I'm a U.S.
citizen living in the Philippines. I'm pretty sure the only living things in
the river going through the city I live in is tadpoles and bugs. What isn't
killed by pollution is taken for food (though I'm not sure anyone catches
anything in this river.)

All along the banks of the river is squatter areas. They use the river for
laundry, bathing, drinking, etc. When there is a flood, these areas get taken
out and have to rebuild.

In Manila, the river banks looked like the city dump from back home.

We are also going through a rough time with water. The lack of rain has caused
the price of everything which relies on water (food) to increase. This causes
further problems for people living in poverty here. Global climate change is a
likely cause.

At some point, these nations may view water as a critical national resource
and take action to protect it.

------
lossolo
It reminds me end of The Big Short, about what Michael Burry does now (for
those that don't know it's one of the guys that predicted 2008 financial
crisis a long time before it happened)

"The small investing he still does is all focused on one commodity: water"

------
SixSigma
When I was living in Goa there are multiple housing estates built without
water provision, often reported in the newspapers. Corruption is rife so
nothing ever happens to illegal builders.

This is a place where the environment minister said asbestosis was a western
propaganda story and people should keep using asbestos.

~~~
puranjay
The city of Gurgaon didn't even have a municipal corporation or water until a
few years ago, despite boasting a population touching 3M+

All the water was drawn from the ground by pumps. And now that water is
expected to run out in 5 years.

~~~
rrrazdan
Gurgaon city population is around a million. Hard to believe but it is true.

------
lifebeyondfife
A friend of mine was involved in this documentary about a similar situation
going on in neighbouring Nepal:
[https://vimeo.com/115894458](https://vimeo.com/115894458). Interesting and
sad to see the human side of how unreliable access to such a basic human need,
affects life.

~~~
oceankid
Thanks for sharing!

------
tw04
And here in the US we're allowing fracking to pollute our deep water wells
because "it's not financially viable to use that water for drinking anyway".

Let's pretend that it will NEVER be financially viable because it isn't right
now!

------
piyushpr134
I think this is just flavour of the month FAD that media is making
fashionable. Mind you, I am not saying there is no water shortage. There is
acute water shortage in some parts of the country. India has faced two back to
back deficient monsoon rain condition years (Last year was due to el nino).

However, this is not something which is a permanent situation. On 1st June,
Monsoon would break ground in Kerala. It should cover all of India by July. By
all forecasts so far, monsoon should be normal this year. At that time, rain
and water deficiency would be wiped off.

~~~
i_feel_great
"However, this is not something which is a permanent situation..."

The monsoon is not permanent either.

------
known
And Indian regime is giving just 18% credit to farmers;
[http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/may/18/psu-banks-
fail...](http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/may/18/psu-banks-fail-to-meet-
farm-lending-target.htm)

------
pattisapu
Not long ago, India was known as a land with lush rainforests.

By some counts Sanskrit has over a hundred words for water.

~~~
anonymfus
Do words for snow count as words for water?

~~~
shoo
Give it a few more decades, maybe so.

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danmaz74
The article doesn't contain a lot of hard data, but if this is a long-term
consequence of the climate change instead of some unrelated temporary
fluctuation, it's really worrying if you think about the size of the
population affected.

~~~
Scarblac
It's also about aquifers running out, wells have to be dug ever deeper, then
they run out too, etc.

It's also about massive corruption, companies not following water regulations.

And it's also about regions that used to be very forested but now are all
concrete, which leads to less rain falling there.

There are often threads on the /r/india subreddit, this one was a few days
ago:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/4c8ecf/india_is_dyin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/4c8ecf/india_is_dying_of_thirst_can_we_please_talk_about/)

------
avip
Yet another reason to relocate to Kerala.

~~~
ocean3
Visited some relatives in Kerala. It seems municipality are pumping sea water.
Pipe water is salty.

------
workusername
I'm not going to read the article because the question as a title suggests to
me that the journalist could have done more research.

That aside, this reminds me of the UK which regularly has floods in winter,
and droughts in summer. Now if we have too much water in one season, and too
little water in another, surely it's not too hard to figure out a common
solution to both. I call it a "dam". Are there reasons the UK doesn't do this?
Too much focus on trains?

~~~
noir_lord
> surely it's not too hard to figure out a common solution to both

If only we had expert engineers on civil projects, civil engineers if you will
to look at this stuff eh.

1) We don't have that many rivers that would suit having a dam put in.

2) We are very densely populated, daming a river would require moving large
numbers of people (time consuming, costly and likely to end up in court).

3) The areas most effected by drought are the south-east, they also get _way_
less rainfall in summer and winter than the north-west which floods a lot
more.

[http://www.coolgeography.co.uk/GCSE/Year11/Weather,Climate/R...](http://www.coolgeography.co.uk/GCSE/Year11/Weather,Climate/Rainfall%20types/Uk%20precipitation.jpeg)

4) Population pressure on water is vastly higher in the south east than in the
North and south west.

5) Assuming you could dam the rivers and have a water reserve the most
sensible place to do it would be the north-west, you then have to get the
water hundreds and hundreds of miles down into the south east (which has been
proposed but moving water is expensive relative to it's commodity cost, a 1m
cube of water ways exactly 1 tonne).

6) The UK idea of a drought is very different to what most regions would call
a drought, only in the absolutely worst years do we go beyond a host pipe ban
and even then only for a few weeks.

7) Given the population density and the difficulty of moving vast quantities
of water you'd need to put the dams in near to the densest population since
the human impact of a damn is proportional to the population density that's
not great

8) Dams cause widespread ecological change (sometimes a net benefit sometimes
not).

