Desalination

The Water Future Conference in Bangalore last week, saw many from the scientific community, academia, research, civil society and the media come together to discuss the state of water resources across the world and in India, as well as future pathways and scenarios, and different technological and institutional solutions to accelerate the implementation of the water SDGs and the 2030 Agenda targets, leaving no one behind.

Farmers anxious as government stops water supply from the Sardar Sarovar dam for irrigation

One of the major causes of deterioration of water quality is the increase in overall salinity. Total hardness and the presence of materials like fluoride, nitrate, iron, arsenic, and toxic metal ions determine salinity levels in groundwater. With the demand for groundwater growing rapidly, its exploitation is also accelerating which causes depletion. Depletion of groundwater changes the flow (both direction and velocity) of the groundwater which may cause the inflow of polluted water into the freshwater aquifer from surrounding areas.

Solawata, a small village in Jaipur district is barely 10 kilometers away from Sambhar, India's largest saline lake which is a major centre of salt production that produces about two lakh tonnes of salt a year. On our way to the village from Sambhar, we see caravans packed with bright coloured camel saddles parked on the road. In sharp contrast, the villages on the way look dry and dreary with their bleak infertile lands.

After a gap of 67 years, the Indian Prime Minister made an official visit to Israel this year. While the world debated the reasons for this shift in India’s policy, possibly the best explanation came in the form of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “mic gaffe”.

Decades of skating over environmental concerns have clearly cost us dear. The folly of pursuing better crop yields using chemical fertilisers in an indiscriminate manner has been surfacing lately. “Decades of agricultural abuse using fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides have taken its toll on us. We have been shooting ourselves in the foot by doing it,” says Raman Tyagi, director of Neer Foundation, a Meerut-based nonprofit working on water and agriculture.