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India
has a serious problem with its groundwater. Can it act?
Among
the barrage of threats to human survival – economic crises, terrorism,
inequality – perhaps the most urgent but least prioritized lies underfoot:
groundwater. The World Economic Forum ranks water
crises the world’s third greatest risk by impact, and extreme weather the
top risk by likelihood. According to a 2016 study, aquifer
depletion in agricultural regions could threaten nearly half the world’s
food sources and deny 1.8 billion people reliable access to water by 2050.
The same study projects that aquifers in India’s Upper Ganges basin may be
depleted within 25 years. This alarming vulnerability calls for immediate
policy action from national and local governments. India, despite its
history of weak national- and state-level water policies, has an
opportunity to be a global exemplar.
Mounting
Evidence of Crisis
Statistics
about India’s groundwater depletion are depressing. The array of problems
cuts across urban and rural areas, and the scale is nationwide. According
to a 2016 report by the Indian parliamentary committee on restructuring the
Central Water Commission and the Central Ground Water Board, “the growing
dependence on groundwater has taken the form of unsustainable
over-extraction, which is lowering the water table and adversely impacting
drinking water security.” India extracts more groundwater than any other
country in the world. India accounts for 25 percent of
the world’s extracted groundwater, more than the next two countries, China
and the United States, combined.
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India’s
groundwater depletion is a national crisis. More than half of wells show
declining groundwater levels. Declining surface water availability is
further prompting desperate and agitated farmers
to increase groundwater extraction. The challenge is particularly acute in
northwestern India, where baseline water stress is
extremely high. If current trends continue northern India may
face steadily declining agricultural outputs and severe shortages of
potable water.” Parts of Delhi consistently suffer serious water shortages
every summer. The crisis, however, is not isolated to the north. A recent
decade-long study of wells in Maharashtra, a west-central state, found
that 70 percent show
a decline in groundwater levels.
In
addition to scarce supply, water quality is a serious threat. India’s
groundwater reserves are not only overexploited and 60 percent vulnerable,
but also contaminated. The parliamentary report stated that deep-level
groundwater is contaminated by sewage, fluoride, arsenic, and uranium.
Incidence of arsenic contamination, as measured by number of affected
habitations, doubled between
2013 and 2016. In early 2017, the Union Minister for Water Resources River
Development and Ganga Rejuvenation stated that the need to raise awareness
about arsenic contamination
is urgent. In one West Bengal village,
residents have been drinking arsenic-contaminated water unwittingly for two
decades. All 200 wells are affected and NGOs are intervening to provide
villagers with affordable water.
Exacerbating
factors
Groundwater
is under constant threat from both agricultural and urban uses. Declining
rates of natural replenishment are threatening the sustainability of
aquifers in the Indo-Gangetic Basin, which constitute one of Asia’s most
densely populated and agriculturally productive regions.
In
the early 1980s, groundwater overtook surface water as the primary source
for irrigation. It now serves more than 60 percent of
India’s net irrigated area compared to 30 percent for surface water. The
Indus Basin, which accounts for a significant share of India’s population
and food production, was declared in a 2015 NASA study to be the
second most overstressed aquifer in the world.
At
the same time, urban groundwater is threatened by untreated effluent and a
dearth of sewage treatment facilities. According to India’s 2011 census,
only one third of
urban residents have access to piped sewage infrastructure. Given the
increasing importance of cities in the Indian economy, this crisis has the
potential to impact not only public health but also further economic development.
This threat is especially urgent with growth water-intensive industries
like thermal power and mining, particularly as poor treatment of industrial
waste has created concentrated areas of contamination throughout India. For
example, Gujarat, well known
as an economic beacon, suffers high levels of industrial pollution
affecting water bodies and aquifers.
Although
estimated time horizons vary, United Nations estimates that India will
become the world’s most populous country in 2024. With rapid population
growth, increased demands for food and energy and consistent poor
management, water stress is worsening in regions where groundwater is
already overdrawn. While air pollution has drawn recent attention due in
part to stunning visual evidence circulated
in the global media, the invisible crisis underground has been mostly
ignored even though it is likely to have an equally calamitous impact.
There have been no meaningful public outcries or effective policy
interventions.
Policy
Interventions: From Evidence to Action
Fortunately,
there are many policy options for addressing groundwater depletion.
Unfortunately, political will seems lacking. According to ANU’s Quentin
Grafton, the global water crisis “is
not just a water problem; it is a people problem.” This implicates not only
individual consumption behaviors but also the priorities of politicians and
planners. Assuming Indian policymakers are willing to heed overwhelming
evidence, a good place to start will be data. Reports by the World Bank and
satellite-generated maps from NASA may capture global headlines, but more
granular evidence linking local groundwater depletion to declining public
health and welfare is needed. Agencies at both the national and local
levels should cooperate by monitoring the same variables, committing to the
same frequency and robustness of data collection, and sharing the results
even if they generate competitive pressure or embarrassment. Water is a
greater public concern than individual political image. This approach is
possible with proper incentives from federal government.
As
data begins to provide a more comprehensive view of the groundwater crisis,
a reasonable assumption could be that more government policy attention and
resources will be devoted to mitigation efforts. There are several areas
for such intervention. First, unplanned and rapidly expanding urban areas
contribute to steadily declining groundwater levels. Urban development
boundaries can curtail sprawl encroachment on sensitive wetlands and
agricultural areas, while permeable pavement and other “sponge city”
measures can increase rainwater absorption and minimize the shock effect of
flash floods. Second, Indian cities have haltingly adopted rainwater
harvesting programs. Scaling up such efforts through implementable policy
frameworks and additional incentives can significantly improve water
availability. Cities like Singapore provide
examples of how harvesting and catchment planning can be done effectively.
Third,
existing delivery infrastructure must be improved to more efficiently
manage the water that is extracted. Delhi’s water system currently loses 40
percent of supply through leakages and thefts. This needs to be reduced to
single-digit. Good maintenance should be neither politically nor
technically complicated.
Finally,
treatment and reuse of wastewater practices and processes must be
significantly improved. Much groundwater contamination is a product of
untreated wastewater discharged into urban water bodies. Thus, more
intensive treatment measures are essential. Additionally, Indian cities
should more aggressively adopt wastewater reuse programs, including
purification systems that enable water to be cycled back for agricultural,
industrial, and even household use. The latter will depend on public trust
of government actions, largely absent in India.
These
measures, in addition to conservation awareness campaigns and innovative technologies can
arrest continued groundwater loss and possibly reverse it. They would also
boost the quality and supply reliability of urban water, reducing
incentives for households to install private water pumps which
exacerbate groundwater depletion. Until now, many local initiatives have
proven insufficient. They
have lacked sustained political backing, foresight, and coordinated
guidance from the federal government. Elevating the groundwater crisis to
the national policy agenda is essential, and the federal government must
oversee a system that is at once distributed, standardized and robustly
monitored. National un-governability of water can no longer be a cop-out.
India’s social, environmental and economic future will pivot on water.
Politicians and public must respond.
Asit
K. Biswas is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of
Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Kris Hartley is a Research Affiliate at
the Center for New Structural Economics at Peking University, and a
Nonresident Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. REUTERS/Brijesh
Singh.
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