With increasing water needs, will China dehydrate India?

China—and not Pakistan—is a bigger threat to India simply because it does not have enough water.
Unlike India, which has 9.56% of its surface area covered with water, China has just 2.8%. This did not matter in the past. China’s land mass is so huge that, despite its larger population, it has one-sixth the density of people per km compared with India.

But water consumption increases exponentially with industrialization. Power plants, chemical factories, mining, steel and urban sanitation require huge quantities of water. Hence, China’s water needs have increased dramatically.

That could be one reason why annexing Tibet was crucial to China’s plans. It now controls 1,700km of the Yarlung Zangbo river, the Tibetan part of the Brahmaputra. The remaining 2,900km of the river winds into India through Arunachal Pradesh, and then, through Bangladesh. That, say experts, could be one more reason behind China eyeing parts of Arunachal Pradesh.

More worrisome is the fact that China has already completed feasibility studies for a major hydropower dam at the Tsongpo gorge to generate at least 40,000MW a year, more than twice the output of Three Gorges hydroelectric project. Construction is expected to start this year and the residual waters are expected to be diverted to China’s lands. It would starve India and Bangladesh of their share of the river’s waters.

Moreover, with Left parties winning Nepal’s elections, and China’s proposal last week for no-visa travel between Nepal and China, there are fears that the waters which flow into the Ganga (primarily Kosi), too, may get diverted, because many of India’s northern rivers begin in Nepal. That could parch northern India.

At risk will be India’s agriculture and hydroelectric dams on these rivers. It could revive the saying that the next wars will be fought for water, not land.

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Source: LiveMint.com

India: Deepening water crisis

If we don’t change our lifestyle and careless attitude towards Mother Nature, India will certainly experience severe water stress by 2020.- Satish Kumar Singh

Water catastrophe is now common phenomenon in every nook and corner of India. Day by day its graveness is mounting. Even people are killing one another on the issue of water. As a result, Concept of linking rivers is in limelight now a days. In this connection, a project of bringing water of Narmada at Bhopal is now in full swing. In fact, the upper lake in the heart of Bhopal is about to dry. On account of this, the problem of water availability in the Capital is deepening by the day. As per water supply authorities, lake’s water is not enough to meet out water requirement of Bhoplites even up to April, 2009.

Similar situation is prevailing almost all over India. The underground water level is going downward every year. There is no scope of water recharge, because we are misusing and wasting water every day. The perception of conservation of water is not materializing in the minds of the general people.
Consequently, the farmers are not able to irrigate their fields. In this year, all rivers of Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh have dried up even in mid winter season. Summer season is still ahead. What will happen? We can presume it easily.

If we don’t change our lifestyle and careless attitude towards Mother Nature, India will certainly experience severe water stress by 2020. As per a research paper which has recently presented at a national symposium; India is anticipated to perceptive relentless water strain by 2020 with the per capita accessibility of water predictable to be less than 1,000 cubic meters.

Indian water scenario was a matter of grave concern, as 85 per cent of water was used for agriculture, 10 per cent for industry and five per cent for domestic use.

Being a developing nation with a huge population on the negative side of the poverty line, economic water scarcity (limited access to fresh water due to lower affordability) assumed equal, if not, greater importance as that of physical water scarcity.

According to a World Bank study, of the 27 Asian cities with population of over 10 lakh, Chennai and Delhi were ranked as the most horrible performing metropolitan cities in terms of water accessibility per day, at the same time as Mumbai was ranked as second most terrible performer and Kolkata fourth.
Grave water scarcity had previously led to a number of conflicts across the country, with 90 per cent of India’s province served by inter-state rivers.

The line up over river Cauvery between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, Godavari between Maharashtra and Karnataka, Narmada between Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat are some of the quarrels which are still creating problems on a regular basis.

The conflicts are being acrimoniously fought at all levels, having attendance very high financial ecological expenditure. Atmosphere revolutionize projections showed India’s water problems were only expected to deteriorate and with more precipitation estimated to fall in fewer days and the fast melting of glaciers, particularly in the Western Himalayas, India would need to gear up to embark upon growing frequency of droughts and floods.

Global fresh water supplies were incessantly stressed out by increasing demands from an ever increasing population and its greater stress towards cleanliness, hygiene, food and industrial needs.
Despite the fact that the world’s population tripled in the 20th century, the make use  of renewable water resources has grown six-fold and within next 50 years, the world population would increase by another 40 to 50 per cent.

As per this report, a billion people in the world do not have access to safe water, which was approximately one sixth of the world’s population. On the subject of 1.8 million people die every year as a result of diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation, which amounted to around 5,000 deaths a day.

The straightforward proceed of washing hands with soap and water can diminish diarrhoea cases by over 40 per cent, since water-related infection was the subsequent main killer of children worldwide, following sharp respiratory infections like tuberculosis.

However, water crisis is the biggest dilemma of today. So many other problems are linked with it. It is high time for everybody to ponder over this issue and resort to corrective measures. In that way only, existence of human beings will remain intact in future too.

Source: Central Chronicle