The date, 12 April 2018 should be reckoned as momentous in modern hydrological history. Labelled as “Day Zero” in South Africa, it went down as the proposed doomsday for Cape Town, when water levels of the major dams supplying water were predicted to fall below 13.5%. Allegedly stated to be the result of severe drought conditions and institutional failures, “Day Zero” remains a reminder to modern human civilisation that nature works in its own inimitable ways — it is for societies to adapt to the environmental changes. In the face of this looming doomsday, Cape Town could avert the “judgment day” through demand management and insitutional interventions. South Africa, traditionally suffering from chronic water scarcity like the MENA nations, has historially shown the resolve to address water poverty with some of the best prevailing practices for decades.
On the contrary, such a situation prevailing in an Indian city was hardly expected. This is because South Asia, on the whole, is perceived as water rich with great civilisations thriving besides its river basins. Yet, the case of present-day Chennai stands as a glaring example of how a high-growth urban centre’s economy can be stranded in the face of resource crisis. The case of Chennai should not be taken as an aberration. Things are generally getting bad for the developing world that is encountering high rates of urbanisation.
South Asia, on the whole, is perceived as water rich with great civilisations thriving besides its river basins. Yet, the case of present-day Chennai stands as a glaring example of how a high-growth urban centre’s economy can be stranded in the face of resource crisis. The case of Chennai should not be taken as an aberration. Things are generally getting bad for the developing world that is encountering high rates of urbanisation.
Many have attributed the water scarcity in Chennai to the vanishing wetlands due to unbridled construction spree resulting in a substantial land-use change. At the very outset, it needs to be understood that the groundwater recharge capacity of peninsular India is substantially lower than the Gangetic plains. The former is substantially rocky in nature, with low permeability of the landmass, thereby inhibiting groundwater recharge from meteorological and hydrological sources. The most trouncing denunciation of unbridled construction activity resulting in land-use change came in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in the aftermath of the 2015 floods that revealed the shrinkage of the areas under the water bodies by 2,389 acres between 1979 and 2016. Such large-scale land-use change dried out a critical source of water supply for the city, led to a decline in the flood sinking capacity of the ecosystem, and cut off the groundwater recharge sources in an otherwise near-unpermeable soil structure.
The problem also lies with the institutional structures of governance of the urban water bodies in Chennai. There is a clear lack of a monolithic structure that can take an integrated approach to managing the city’s water bodies. Various aspects of management, e.g. water supply, infringements, watershed rejuvenation, pollution control are being taken up by multiple agencies. With lack of coordination between the agencies, the fragmented approach to water management becomes inimical to the globally changing paradigms of water governance that strongly prescribe integrated water resource management at all levels. On the other hand, this has led to the “tragedy of the commons” through a convoluted interpretation: every agency attempts to shift the blame and responsibilities on others, without showing any real intention of addressing the core problem.
At academic and policy circles, many have advocated changes in governance structures, some have advocated urban demand management through water rationing that has already been in vogue in Cape Town (and in a modified way followed in Chennai) as also through other means, while many have talked of revival of the urban wetlands or micro-level interventions like rainwater harvesting, etc. However, there has hardly been a recent account that talks of the critical intersectoral re-allocation aspect of water, moving the
fluid mosaic from agriculture to urban sectors. More than 85% of water is being used by agriculture in south Asia. The extensive subsidisation of power and irrigation water, as also the extension of irrigation facilities, and increasing support prices and consequent market prices of water consuming crops like paddy, wheat, and sugarcane have led to excessive exploitation and at times reprehensible wastage of water in the agricultural sector. Essentially, a large part of the water crisis is caused by the agricultural sector which is the “pampered child” of the government. This importance of sectoral re-allocation was acknowledged emphatically when the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment on the contested Cauvery water allocation on 16 February 2018, reduced the allocation to the Cauvery Waters for Tamil Nadu from the amount allocated by the Tribunal (CWT) Award in 2007, for use by the burgeoning city of Bengaluru.
The problem also lies with the institutional structures of governance of the urban water bodies in Chennai. There is a clear lack of a monolithic structure that can take an integrated approach to managing the city’s water bodies. Various aspects of management, e.g. water supply, infringements, watershed rejuvenation, pollution control are being taken up by multiple agencies.
Such sectoral re-allocation by enforcing adequate demand management in agriculture needs to be the basis of water governance in India, and can actually help in averting situations like the ones prevailing in Chennai. A recent co-authored paper of mine published in
Frontiers in Environmental Science shows that in the upper Ganges, farm incomes increase with agricultural water demand management practices through crop diversification (shifting from wheat/rice to Jowar or generally to millets) and enhanced water-use efficiency and yield enhancement through better soil management. This leaves the scope for keeping water instream for basin ecosystem needs, as also for meeting the needs of the urban sector. However, the farmers tend to shift acreage in response to price signals, and therefore there is a need for support prices of drier crops to be made more lucrative so as to compete with rice and wheat.
Further, urban demand management needs to be followed through pricing of water preferably covering the operations and maintenance costs that will also reflect on the scarcity rent of the diminishing resource. Above all, from an ecosystemic perspective, management of surface and groundwaters cannot be separated, as has been followed in India with two different institutions (namely, Central Water Commission, and Central Groundwater board, and their state level counterparts) governing them. There needs to be an acknowledgement of the critical ecosystem services of groundwater recharge by surface sources like wetlands, ponds, and other hydro-meteorological sources, and vice-versa. A compelling argument in this regard in setting up the National Water Commission integrating both functions, dismantling the existing fragmented institutional structure that has been made by a report chaired by Dr. Mihir Shah in 2016. However, the report, unfortunately, seems to be collecting dust. Unless we think of these changes, we are destined to reach the doomsday where urban water wars will be fought — a horror story that is becoming increasingly probable with cases of Chennai or Cape Town coming to surface.
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