
Twenty-one cities in India will run out of groundwater by 2020 - pitchups
https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/indias-water-crisis-bengaluru-delhi-chennai-hyderabad-among-21-cities-to-run-out-of-groundwater-by-2020-4590221.html
======
abhshkdz
More context on this:
[https://twitter.com/jslaternyc/status/1144483586042548225](https://twitter.com/jslaternyc/status/1144483586042548225)

~~~
ecmascript
why do people tweet like this? It is impossible to follow. Like.. just write
an article or a blog post instead. :/

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Because people don't click on links on twitter as often as they bother to read
a tweet thread.

But also, I actually like this form of communication. By the nature of the
medium (one thought per tweet), you are forced to discard all superfluous
details. Instead each tweet/thought must be a strong point. This is compared
to a blog, where the only thing holding you back from adding fluff is your own
intellectual discipline.

Can you explain why you find this impossible/discipline to follow?

~~~
ecmascript
Well, not all discourse needs to happen on twitter.

Sure, it is nice when there is something you can actually convey in just a few
sentences but I have a hard time reading this.

It is hard to follow because my reading gets interrupted, and I need to focus
on where I am instead of what information I am receiving. I donno. I just
think it's hard and it's very annoying so I'm rather inclined to stop reading
because honestly I don't care enough to make the hassle worth it.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
A tweet thread is also often meant to be chewed upon. Because minimal details
are provided with the expectation that the reader will be able to fill in some
of the obvious blanks with a little thought. So I usually read these threads a
tweet at a time, wondering on the implications of each statement (a lot of
times I can't think of any).

But whatever works for you.

~~~
ecmascript
I rarely read tweet threads, mainly because I am rarely on twitter but also
because there is often little reason to. Most of the threads is simply just
angry people who disagree or people that agree and want to spread the word.

------
jdonaldson
I always thought watersheds were a great way of defining state-level regions.
They're more stable than boundaries set by rivers, and are more natural than
arbitrary lines of latitude/longitude. In the (near) future, there's going to
be a lot of hand wringing over who has what rights to which water. The only
way to completely solve it is to have one region be in control of the entire
course of the water's flow.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/19/m...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/11/19/map-
the-united-states-of-watersheds/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0f5a35bcd78c)

Granted, redrawing the map based on watershed doesn't solve India's problem.
But, it sounds like that in the future their drinking water is going to come
from careful management of groundwater, which will require a lot of state
level agreements. Right now, I'm not optimistic those agreements will happen
smoothly.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Watersheds may be a little too large to work well as administrative regions.

~~~
chii
or go all in, and establish a world government. I think a single governing
body is the only true way forward for humanity, if humanity is to move beyond
earth and be a space faring civilization.

~~~
FerretFred
Talking of space faring .. according to
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Space_Research_Organi...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Space_Research_Organisation),
the Indian Space Research Organisation budget of 11,538.26 crore (US$1.7
billion)(2019–20 est.) would buy a lot of water infrastructure, but that's
obviously not as exciting as going to Space..

~~~
yrro
All the infrastructure you can built won't solve the fundamental problem:
humans are taking water out of the ground faster than it can be replenished,
and there are more of them taking more and more water each year. Eventually
the train will plow through the buffers...

------
modi15
There have been a flurry of alarmists posts like these but somehow I cant wrap
my head around how will we run out of water. I stay in Bangalore and some
people do have the problem of water - but for the most part it doesnt seem to
be an issue of 'lack' of water perse but mostly distribution issues.

Bangalore has been having intermittent rains throughout the summers and even
though few people use them now, but if situation gets dire almost everyone
should be able to setup a rain water harvesting system and get by.

India is also installing solar at a rapid pace and the cost of electricity is
going down. The next level solution could be just to use sea water that India
is surrounded by, and use some of that solar power to filter this water.

Somehow I dont get all this alarmist news. Maybe im missing something.

~~~
rishav_sharan
Let me give the PoV from Hyderabad. Hyderabad gets water from mainly 3
sources;

1\. Musi river water/Manjeera 2\. the Large lakes like Hussain/Osmania Sagar
etc. 3\. ground water/borewells

My apartment society in Gachibowli area, just ran of water for a few days back
in June. The borewell just couldnt get the water. There is no lake around us.

Getting the river water connection would be around Rs.15_00_0000. To add to
the issues, the gov is not giving out new river water connections without a
longdrawn process and the river water itself is too low to sustain all the
existing connection.

Right now several apartment societies with 3000+ apartments in them are coming
up in my immediate neighbourhood. So next year, we can expect the borewell
water to be over way before june (early may?). We will certainly don't have
river water connection by then. So, we will be dependent on water takers for a
few months. this year the tankers are charging 8k (from 2k last year) for each
refill. next year, the price would be over 20k for each refill.

Rain water harvesting doesnt works greatly in areas like ours which only get a
few months of rain. Where will you keep the harvested water for the next 8-9
months? How do you maintain the quality of this stagnant water? So, most
likely people would end up using it and the hope would be that an equivalent
amount of ground water will be spared. It really doesnt works out in practice.
People don't ration the water usage and will not until it gets dire. Also rain
harvesting infra will take years to set up. Desalinating water is not much
help as transporting the water is a logistical issue. So yes, while there are
possible solutions, they will take a lot of political will to execute and will
certainly take more than a few years to bear fruit. The situation, till then
will be bad.

The water in all lakes is incredibly low. The lakes are also extremely dirty
([http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2018/oct/07...](http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2018/oct/07/pollution-
level-high-in-hussain-sagar-tspcb-1882240.html)) The water is already
contaminated by industrial waste.

2020 is going to be bad for us in Hyderabad. Not Chennai level bad. but we
will get there in the next few years. And what i do know of Bangalore form my
other friends who live there, its pretty bad there already. A lot of large
societies are dependent on tanker waters despite Bangalore having much more
rainfall than Hyderabad.

All in all, I think this level of alarm is not just necessary, it should have
come a decade ago, when it would have been easier to circumvent. Hyderabad's
population will cross 12MM by 2030. Now, whatever approach we end up taking,
its gonna be costly, hard to execute and will take a lot of time. And will
probably will not be enough.

EDIT: I am wildly off on the Hyderabad population growth. The existing census
data is from 2011. Apparently we crossed 12MM in 2019.
[https://indiapopulation2019.com/population-of-
hyderabad-2019...](https://indiapopulation2019.com/population-of-
hyderabad-2019.html) If correct, this is over the population of major mega
cities like NY, LA etc.

~~~
chewz
> Right now several apartment societies with 3000+ apartments in them are
> coming up in my immediate neighbourhood. So next year, we can expect the
> borewell water to be over way before june (early may?).

Do you mean that a permit had been given to developement project without
providing adequate water supply first? And it will depend on borewells?

> Rain water harvesting doesnt works greatly in areas like ours which only get
> a few months of rain. Where will you keep the harvested water for the next
> 8-9 months?

Some desert cities in Palestine had a rain once in a three years. Still tanks
provided adequate amounts of water.

Seems like India ain't lacking in water resources but in governance.

~~~
rishav_sharan
Governance and public apathy are always a big issue in India. And with the
sheer speed of growth, it would be a struggle for even a gov with the
political will to make meaningful changes.

Regarding you question on giving permits without providing adequate water
supply, that's how it is in Indian metropolitans.

------
baybal2
Same issue in Pakistan, it's a very watery place in comparison to say, Europe
or Southern USA, but you have hard time finding a place with reliable tap
water:

1\. Water theft from utilities

2\. Gigantic and wasteful usage of water in agriculture

3\. Leaky pipes and contamination from sewage

4\. Utilities are just starting to recover from decades of extreme
mismanagement

5\. Tanker mafia of course doing its worst to keep all of above going

------
martincollignon
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\- [https://www.tmrow.com/](https://www.tmrow.com/)

------
ForFreedom
I think the govt must stop factories, soda factories, mineral water companies
taking ground water ASAP.

~~~
benj111
How many litres of water does it take to make a litre of mineral water?

How does that compare with a kg of lettuce, or tomatoes, or beef?

Bottled water has its problems, water use isnt really one of them.

~~~
invalidusernam3
> How many litres of water does it take to make a litre of mineral water?

Interesting question, I found this article[1] which says:

\- for North American companies, it takes 1.39 liters to make one liter of
water

\- That's less than the global averages of a liter of soda, which requires
2.02 liters of water

\- A liter of beer, meanwhile, needs 4 liters of water, wine demands 4.74
liters. Hard alcohol, it turns out, is the greediest, guzzling 34.55 liters of
water for every liter

[1]
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/10/28/241419373/ho...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/10/28/241419373/how-
much-water-actually-goes-into-making-a-bottle-of-water)

~~~
benj111
I don't think that includes the plastic bottle.

[https://naturalsociety.com/study-analyzes-wastefulness-
bottl...](https://naturalsociety.com/study-analyzes-wastefulness-bottled-
water/)

Veg still tends to be worse though.

------
carboy
India does not have a water issue, they have a population issue, but it’s
really hard to mange the population, so natural resources are being consumed
beyond sustainability.

This problem is not confined to India, it’s a problem with humanity. Nature is
working on a correction.

~~~
bobosha
I beg to differ, India's population density is comparable to many Western
European countries. They a problem of population distribution. Like many
developing nations, populations cluster in large cities leading to pressures
on resources.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> India's population density is comparable to many Western European countries.

I went down worldpopulationreview.com's list; I'll post my list annotated with
country size as a reply to this comment.

Findings:

India, the country, is #28. It has essentially equal population density to the
Netherlands (#29, in Europe!), while being a modest 87 times larger. Belgium
(#33) has only slightly less density, and India is merely 102 times bigger.

The next European country down is England at #50. It's much closer to the size
of India -- 8% as large -- and has two-thirds the density.

Pakistan is #55; it's about four times the size of England with comparable
density.

#59 is Germany; it's less than half the size of Pakistan with comparable
density. Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, who you might have thought would have
super-high density, are equal to Germany. (Monaco and Vatican City really do
have super-high density.)

The only other country-sized European countries in the top 70 are Switzerland
and Italy, #68 and #69. They have half the density of India. Italy is a tenth
of India's size. Switzerland is slightly larger than the Netherlands.

Bangladesh, by the way, is #12, with more than double the density of India (in
about 1/20 of the space).

So I can't agree that India's population density is comparable to "many
Western European countries". It's comparable to a couple of diminutive
European countries. Equal density over 100 times the area is not what you
would expect; it's something very unusual about India.

In fact, we can just compare the regions directly. Europe has 743 million
people in 10 million square kilometers of land for an average density of 74.3
people per square km. India (including Pakistan and Bangladesh) has 1740
million people in 4 million square km, for an average density of over 400
people per square km (roughly equal to the density of India the country, which
makes sense), about 6 times the figure for Europe.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Areas are taken from Wikipedia, with water area removed where Wikipedia lists
water area. This list is the full top 30 "countries" plus whoever I thought
was of interest down to #70. Many areas are rounded.

    
    
         1. Macau               30 square km
         2. Monaco               2.2
         3. Singapore          720
         4. Hong Kong        1,070
         5. Gibraltar            6.7
         6. Bahrain            778
         7. Vatican City         0.44
         8. Maldives           298
         9. Malta              316
        10. Sint Maarten        37
        11. Bermuda             39
        12. Bangladesh     138,000
        13. Palestine        5,800
        14. Saint-Martin        53
        15. Mayotte            374
        16. Barbados           439
        17. Lebanon         10,300
        18. Taiwan          36,000
        19. Mauritius        2,000
        20. Aruba              179
        21. San Marino          61
        22. South Korea    100,000
        23. Nauru               21
        24. Saint Barthelemy    25
        25. Rwanda          25,000
        26. Comoros          1,659
        27. Tuvalu              26
        28. India        2,970,000
        29. Netherlands     34,000
        30. Israel          21,000
        33. Belgium         29,000
        37. Japan          365,000
        47. Vietnam        310,000
        50. United Kingdom 239,000
        55. Pakistan       860,000
        59. Germany        357,000
        68. Switzerland     40,000
        69. Italy          294,000

------
gingabriska
When you cover large swarth of land with concert the rain water goes on the
roof and on the road goes to gutter and makes it way to sevege. In absence, of
this it is drawn underground and refills underground water.

When people were building these concert jungles, they didn't keep in mind
where the water comes from and how exactly it's refilled and what we can do to
replenish the capacity lost due to our development projects.

------
gingabriska
Is there a way to limit the size of these big cities?

What if they start requiring a domestic visa process to let in the people from
other states?

Everyone wants a life of high standards of living which cities provide along
with employment.

If we do not limit the number of people who can get in, it will naturally
result in whole population of India moving into these cities.

This will result in people making wherever they live better instead of just
moving to a better city.

~~~
gridlockd
The way it's generally balanced out is exploding property prices and an
unlivable mess of traffic and perhaps pollution.

However, people are willing to endure a lot if living standards are generally
low.

~~~
gingabriska
Mumbai has high real estate price like but it doesn't stop people below the
poverty line from coming to Mumbai and living in slums.

------
peterbraden
They’ve already run out in some, and truck in water. Those with money are able
to pay for fresh water.

------
ptah
I've see a number of documentaries about indians that have used permaculture
to turn desert into food producing forests. maybe they need to apply their
knowledge in cities?

------
fredgrott
SA is closer getting more than 35% of drinking water via desalinating sea
water

------
DyslexicAtheist
how much is Coca-Cola[1][2] to blame for this. Afaik it has been the center of
criticism in India for over a decade now:

 _Coca-Cola operates 58 water-intensive bottling plants in India. In the
southern Indian village of Plachimada in Kerala state, for example, persistent
droughts have dried up groundwater and local wells, forcing many residents to
rely on water supplies trucked in daily by the government._

[1] [https://www.thoughtco.com/coca-cola-groundwater-depletion-
in...](https://www.thoughtco.com/coca-cola-groundwater-depletion-in-
india-1204204)

[2] [https://waronwant.org/media/coca-cola-drinking-world-
dry](https://waronwant.org/media/coca-cola-drinking-world-dry)

~~~
PeterisP
I'll assume that every ounce of bottled water or soft drink replaces water
that people would have drank anyway, and possibly with more efficiency - a
larger percentage of the (expensive) bottled water gets used on the
unalienable human need to drink than if the same water was piped to houses and
used for both drinking and washing.

The plants may be blamed for _transferring_ water scarcity from places where
the drinks are bought and drunk to the places where the bottling plants are
operated, but not for _creating_ water scarcity.

