Water Scarcity

Through these three papers, the authors argue that the solutions to the global water crisis do not lie in investing more and more money into the water sector or in the introduction of better technology. Nor is the introduction of the private sector and the reduction in the role of the government going to help. Rather, the time has come to introduce changes at the basic or the fundamental level in the way in which the water sector functions.

There is an urgent need to bring about reforms in governance by moving towards decentralisation and democratisation, leading to  involvement of people from all the sections of the society, who know and understand that they are responsible for the system and its functioning, as well as by introducing principles of equity and social justice. The papers demonstrate the successful implementation of this approach by describing the experience of Tamil Nadu at democratising water management through introduction of reforms at the level of governance, through involvement of the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD).Read More

This document  by the Central Pollution and Control Board (CPCB) describes the findings of a study that evaluated water treatment plants located across the country, for prevailing raw water quality, water treatment technologies, operational practices, chemical consumption and rejects management.

The report is subdivided into the following chapters:Read More

• Introduction
• Water quality and its consumption
• Water treatment technologies
• Effects of fluoride and arsenic and removal techniques
• Operation and maintainance of water treatment plants
• Water quality control and assessment
• Results and discussion
  

This report by the Ministry of Rural Development is divided into the following sections:

Chapter I: Introduction

Chapter II:Status of implementation of the recommendations made by the Committee

Chapter III: General AnalysisRead More

• Expenditure by the Department of Drinking Water Supply from 2007-08
• Share of the budgetary allocation of the Department to the GDP
• Non-plan expenditure
• Performance during the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12)
• Preparedness for Twelfth (2012-17) Plan
  

This paper published in the journal Current Science presents the findings of a study has been taken up to quantify the possible impacts of the climate change on the water resources of Indian river systems within the constraints of the uncertainty of climate change predictions. The study uses the PRECIS daily weather data to determine the spatio-temporal water availability in the river systems.

A distributed hydrological model, namely SWAT has been used to simulate all the river basins of the country. The analysis has been performed to evaluate the severity of droughts and floods and thus identify the vulnerable hotspots that may require attention in view of the climate change in various parts of the country

Impacts of climate change and climate variability on the water resources are likely to affect irrigated agriculture, installed power capacity, environmental flows in the dry season and higher flows during the wet season, thereby causing severe droughts and floods in urban and rural areas. Climate change impacts on water resources which are addressed and analysed in the present study include impacts on annual and inter-annual water availability as well as extreme events of droughts and floods. Read More