H
aving grown up in India, I remember how monsoons brought relief
from scorching heat and produced lush greenery and lots of bugs. But as
a visitor to India last August, I saw water scarcity woven into the fabric
of day-to-day life and puzzled over those capricious rains. How can
the same sort of monsoons be linked to both floods and droughts, not only across
the country but even within a state? In Maharashtra, India’s largest state economy,
drought and flooding coexist within 150 miles. This phenomenon is adding to rural
India’s agricultural crisis. Meanwhile, in megacities such as Delhi, people queue up
to collect just one bucket of water, business school graduates quit their jobs to market
rainwater harvesting systems, and the government cracks down on the water mafia.
India isn’t alone. Middle East countries such as Qatar and Israel are highly
water-stressed, as are other countries, such as Chile and Botswana. Cities around
the world, including São Paulo, Cape Town, Beijing, London, and Miami,
are also struggling with water shortages. India does, however, stand out for its
peculiarity; it gets upward of 1,000 millimeters (39 inches) of average annual
rainfall, more than double the amount of almost any other water-stressed country.
The magnitude of India’s crisis is also mind-boggling. According to estimates
published by the government’s think tank, NITI Aayog, 600 million Indians are
facing acute water scarcity, and 200,000 people in India die every year because
they lack access to clean water.
What’s behind India’s water emergency? NITI Aayog’s 2019 report points out
that most states are mismanaging their water resources, adding credence to the
view that human-caused factors have a lot to do with India’s water crisis. That’s
a sobering thought — but also good news. A problem caused by or worsened by
humans can potentially be solved by humans.
It ’s a l s o t r u e t h a t a n i n e f fi c i e n t a g r i c u l t u r a l s e c t o r, m a d e u p o f m i l l i o n s o f s m a l l
farms, is consuming more than 80 percent of India’s water resources. Farming
uses up a lot of water globally. But thinking of the water crisis as just a farming
issue would be a mistake. In high-income countries, industrial activity accounts
for 59 percent of water use. That means that if emerging economies such as India
continue to become more industrialized and pursue their development needs in a
business-as-usual way, water shortages might worsen, because both industry and
farming would need water.es
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