 "Illustration by Binay Sinha")
The recent Supreme Court judgment on the Cauvery waters dispute has provoked this reflection on water governance.
Freshwater is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in India. At Independence, our per capita annual water availability was over 5,000 cubic metres (cu m). This has now fallen to around 1,500 cu m, a level that is below the global norm defining water-stress. This is a national average and many parts are below the 1,000 cu m global norm for water scarcity.
Water is also a threatened resource. First is the threat from ecologically unsustainable over-exploitation — groundwater in 20 per cent of our development blocks is in a critical or over-exploited state and river flow downstream of the 4,000-plus large dams we have built since Independence is well below the level required to maintain river health in many stretches. Second is the threat from pollution. The bulk of the urban domestic and industrial waste water that we send to our rivers and lakes is untreated and each litre of this waste pollutes 5-8 litres of clean water. Third is the long-term threat from climate change.
All the water that we use comes from precipitation and 50 per cent of this falls in just two months of the year. That, and the annual variability of the monsoon, means that floods and droughts are common and systematic arrangements for managing these and evening out water availability over the year are essential.
Managing water scarcity requires efficiency in use, responsibility in effluent disposal, and cooperation by users in sustainable and equitable management of shared resources. Efficiency requires pricing reforms, but they will be difficult to secure, given the present mess. Enforcing responsibility for pollution management on large industrial users and urban authorities is possible. We could, for instance, insist that the fresh water requirements of these large users can only be met from the rivers and lakes into which they emit their effluents.
The big challenge is the need for arrangements that secure cooperation amongst users. Water governance today reflects the political and administrative geography of the country — the legal authority rests mainly with state governments and to a lesser extent with local bodies. However, the geography of the hydrological system, defined by watersheds, aquifers and river basins, cuts across these jurisdictions. Bringing together users in a cooperative arrangement requires water governance at these hydrological levels.
Freshwater is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in India. At Independence, our per capita annual water availability was over 5,000 cubic metres (cu m). This has now fallen to around 1,500 cu m, a level that is below the global norm defining water-stress. This is a national average and many parts are below the 1,000 cu m global norm for water scarcity.
Water is also a threatened resource. First is the threat from ecologically unsustainable over-exploitation — groundwater in 20 per cent of our development blocks is in a critical or over-exploited state and river flow downstream of the 4,000-plus large dams we have built since Independence is well below the level required to maintain river health in many stretches. Second is the threat from pollution. The bulk of the urban domestic and industrial waste water that we send to our rivers and lakes is untreated and each litre of this waste pollutes 5-8 litres of clean water. Third is the long-term threat from climate change.
All the water that we use comes from precipitation and 50 per cent of this falls in just two months of the year. That, and the annual variability of the monsoon, means that floods and droughts are common and systematic arrangements for managing these and evening out water availability over the year are essential.
Managing water scarcity requires efficiency in use, responsibility in effluent disposal, and cooperation by users in sustainable and equitable management of shared resources. Efficiency requires pricing reforms, but they will be difficult to secure, given the present mess. Enforcing responsibility for pollution management on large industrial users and urban authorities is possible. We could, for instance, insist that the fresh water requirements of these large users can only be met from the rivers and lakes into which they emit their effluents.
The big challenge is the need for arrangements that secure cooperation amongst users. Water governance today reflects the political and administrative geography of the country — the legal authority rests mainly with state governments and to a lesser extent with local bodies. However, the geography of the hydrological system, defined by watersheds, aquifers and river basins, cuts across these jurisdictions. Bringing together users in a cooperative arrangement requires water governance at these hydrological levels.
Illustration by Binay Sinha
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