Day: July 15, 2019

Five articles that help you understand different aspects of water in India.

1. “Asia’s water resources are largely transnational, making inter-country cooperation and collaboration essential. Yet the vast majority of the 57 transnational river basins in continental Asia have no water-sharing arrangement or any other cooperative mechanism. This troubling reality has to be seen in the context of the strained political relations in several Asian sub-regions.”
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   First, the big picture. This article helps you understand India’s issues with water from a transnational, Asian perspective. The author of this book, by the way, has written an entire book about water and how it might (in his view, probably will) lead to conflict in the region. You might think, by the way, that the article isn’t about India – oh, but it is.
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2. “The much-awaited train transporting water from Vellore to Chennai was flagged off on Friday morning from Jolarpet station. The water, transported in 50 bogie wagons, is expected to reach the city at around 2 p.m.A senior official of the Southern Railway said the water wagon would by arriving at Villivakkam where State Ministers would be present to receive the train.”
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   Reading this article prompted me to compile today’s list. There really isn’t that much more to say!
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3. “So-called virtual water exports – the molecules of H20 embedded in exported goods, alongside those rendered unusable by the production of those goods – amount to a net 95.4 billion cubic meters a year, according to data collected by the Water Footprint Network, a group that encourages thriftier usage. This makes India a bigger exporter of water than far better-endowed countries such as Brazil, Russia, the U.S. and Canada, and represents nearly four times the 25 billion cubic meters consumed by India’s households and industrial enterprises.”
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   Not pricing water, as Nitin Pai spoke about in last week’s collection, is a really, really bad idea. This article explains some of the implications. Incentives matter!
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4. “Based on estimates from the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in 2017, provision of piped drinking water for all households required close to Rs. 500,000 crores. Even if states are expected to put in around half of what is required, the per annum allocation requirement for a 4-year period will be over 60,000 crores, to cover hardware, human resources, water quality infrastructure, operations and maintenance costs, citizen’s engagement, and special arrangements for quality affected as well as other marginalised populations, according to Raman.”
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   So what is the government planning on doing about this?
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5. “RWH can be done in homes, apartments, societies, schools, institutions, commercial premises and any other space as long as there is a catchment area in the form of a roof or open space to capture the rain.Domestic rainwater harvesting is a relatively simpler affair, where even a rain barrel can serve as a storage unit for rooftop RWH. Individual homes have successfully implemented this easy and eco-friendly method of augmenting household-level water availability. Farmers also have implemented RWH to transform a barren piece of land into a self sustainable, lush green farm.”
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   OK… so what can I, as an indivdual do about it?