TATA INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

MA IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE CHANGE
ASSESSMENT-1

V. SAI KOUSHIK

SEMESTER: 3
Urban water management:

Problem statement: vulnerable to urban population which impacts day to day life.

As the world experienced the phases of development, many countries apart from these have got globalised
in this global village all the countries faced the outcome known as urbanization. Despite different
backgrounds people have got migration and settled in urban areas this led to concretization of the land
surface as everything is interlinked, the major problem of urbanization is its water management.

Among all the creatures on the earth, human is considered as the most intelligent and greedy. It is
because of the urge for change which made humans undergo many civilizations. Initially, human change
is not so strong to cope up with the nature. Humans took the help of nature to find solutions for his
needs. Later, the humans started to cope up with the nature on equal terms and these needs have
turned into comforts. But, from the past few centuries, humans have started to speed up the process of
change by overtaking the nature. This is the stage where human comforts have turned into greed. These
greedy creatures have seen many changes without caring about the further challenges.

Presently, the Mother Nature has started to retreat her pain to the humans. Humans have seen many
epitomes of success in the process of development in their materialistic world. They created a tangible
world to themselves and started to live under the strong concreted roof of comforts. But, they forgot
that they are actually surrounded entirely by the blanket of atmosphere. This atmosphere is getting
greatly exploited every second. Many non renewable sources got vanished because of the unwise acts of
human. But, this unwise behavior has turned to foolishness. Due to their foolishness, the renewable
sources have started to get scarce in many areas of the world. One such renewable resource is
DRINKING WATER.

Especially in the urban areas which are being considered as the heart of concrete world created by the
humans have this problem of drinking water in very threatening stage. Urban areas have all the material
comforts which the human needs. But the veins i.e., roads of the urban heart is being filled with
concrete and cement. On the other hand the air supply to this heart is so polluted and not letting the
dense rainfall in these areas. This total clumsy fuss is giving the urban heart attack to the humans.
During this whole process, Mother Nature is not in a position to aid the humans as its entire resources
have already got destroyed.

The humans who are considered as the intelligent have started to notice the problem of drinking water.
To avoid the problem to convert into havoc, they have started to mitigate the problem with few
strategies and policies. The entire plan is termed as the URBAN WATER MANAGEMENT. It is one such
word which is being heard very often but not followed very often. But the humans have to actually deal
this problem right from the grass root levels.
India being a developing nation has also been an active participant to go forward in the race of
development. Among the fastest growing metropolitan and cosmopolitan cities in the world, Indian
cities have a great score when it is compared to many developing and under developing nations. Despite
the main occupation of Indians is agriculture, there is very much vivid evident picture in the past 2
decades that many people have migrated to the cities in search of better life opportunities leaving their
hometowns and families behind. This over migration led to the increase in the density of population and
decrease in the resources. To avoid the congestion which is being affected by the migration, they started
to build the vertical constructions. These vertical skyscrapers do not allow the sunlight to completely
reach the surface and this is leading to urban heat trap. On the other hand, the rainfall though it is less,
due to the concretization of cities, the penetration is very negligible in nature. This leads to the urban
flooding which drowns off the low lying areas which affects the lives of many millions every year. Due to
less penetration the underground water table is in very devastating state. There has been many
incidents which should be an eye opener for us. But, the very recent Chennai floods issue remains as an
iconic alarming incident for the entire world fraternity.

Over the years we can see a drastic change in the monsoon seasons and the reservoirs are emptied because
of the decrease of the rain fall over the years which turned out the city into water crisis zone. The urban
flooding which occurred in the past didn’t help the people to store water in the reservoirs due to
mismanagement and it affected the city in the ongoing years. There are four reservoirs which have a
capacity to store 200 MLD water but sadly the effect of climate changes made no source to store water.
These reservoirs can store and supply water up to the next monsoon season. Then there was the period
started where the ground levels of water decreased and people started to suffer due to lack of water, the
requirement of water for the total population in Chennai was 830 MLD a day but it came downwards to
525 MLD per day because of the low rainfall. The crisis made Government to supply tankers in the areas
of the Chennai city and the private tankers made more cash through the supply of water. The public
tanker which costs Rs 700 to 800 per tank the private tankers charged cost around Rs 4000 to 5000 per
tanker, they looted much of the public money and made people to depend on tankers and made them
economically downfall. The storage in the reservoirs touched to zero level and the ground water levels are
so low that more people are extracted the water double the recharge of water in a year. Around 60% of
people have their own bore wells and made to over exploitation of water. As the change in the rainfall
made the surface water to zero the ground level water also has been decreased.

Rainfall (mm)
4000

2000

0
2015-16 2016-17
2017-18 Rainfall (mm)
2018-19
As the city continue to face water problems there should be some measures taken place as the project
focus in the increase of water and to do so there should be rain water storage process which will help the
people to use the rain water and it can also increase the ground water levels, so the problem can be solved
in a better way. The rain harvesting method was way back introduced by the former CM Jayalalitha Gaaru
in the year 2002 but it also did not stop the city to face water crisis this has happened due to the
mismanagement practices by the people and the Government also. The people mostly constructed illegal
buildings and also the excess usage of water made the ground water levels decrease and there was further
no more recharge in the ground level bodies. The proper implementation of better harvesting systems and
the proper maintenance and usage of water is need to start at the current period. There should be better
management practices which help the city to increase in the water levels.

Overuse and
Ground water
Water pollution mismanagement Climate change
over draft
of watr

Misuse

CAUSES

WATER CRISIS

EFFECTS

Drinage nd depletion of Societal

Malnutrition
sanitation water bodies impact

Improper
Hygiene

The cause and effect relationship of the problem stated can be explained by the above shown illustration.
The effect of the water crisis is in different ways due to the cause of ground pollution, ground water
excess distraction and over use and misusage of water is more effecting the people by not having any
source to the drinking water and sanitation, this also resulted in unhygienic lifestyle and improper
environment imbalances. There was a huge societal impact by the water crisis and also migration of more
people to the Chennai city led to more usage of water this has also created a impact in the water resources
to depleted. As the Government introduced the methods of water harvesting but the proper management is
not taken place at times where the heavy rainfall season people did not stored any water and the reservoirs
are emptied because of the mismanagement taken place over there. If the project focus on those areas for
better water harvesting methods that will be helpful for the city water storage capacities to increase and
can have more water resources available in the city. The unavailability of water make more health
problems and that might lead to nutrition problems and the day to day life will be affected. The outskirts
of the city is also affected due to depleted water resources and that should be also taken into consideration
and effective management practices must be done so that the problem can be resolved within the due time
and will be much more helpful to the people in the city. This has a larger impact on the future because of
the decrease in the water resources will make the lives unsustainable in the following days the livelihoods
of the people are in dangerous situation and the problem can rise more if not the measures are not
implemented properly.

Gap Analysis
Which are the
other actors How many What are the
What is the
(NGOs, What people are actors’ current
quality of their
institutions, geographic reached? what project
strategies,
private sector, areas do these kinds of people strategies,
approaches or
government, etc.) actors cover? and subgroups approaches or
activities?
that address this are reached? activities?
problem?
Government City Entire Rain Not that
population harvesting effective
methods
Rain centre pvt City Entire Water Effective
sector populaton conservation
strategies
Ngos related to Outskirts and Entire Proper Effective
water the city population management
conservation of water
bodies
4
Other institutions city Entire Control of Can do better
population usage of water
Situations get harder in coming days because of the unavailability of water and may tend people to buy
water from other sources for a higher rates, the same caused to Chennai in the year 2018-19 and the
transportation of water from other cities through tankers and even by the railways this has shown how the
problem is getting major and worsened day by day. The proper interventions should take place and more
harvesting methods should be taken into consideration and must make use of the available water
resources at a better level, excess usage may lead to the uncontrolled water substances and may decrease
in the water sources in the coming days. The Government and the other NGO’s must work hard and
should intervene into the community by making more people to involve in the issue and must make use of
the community participation at a better level which will helpful to overcome the problem in a quick
session.

CONCLUSION:

The policies and strategies which are being framed by the government are just to mitigate the problem.
Humans being the intelligent creatures may mitigate the problem. But humans should act wise rather
intelligent. If we act wisely, it must be totally taken off from grass root levels. It can be possible only
when the humans start giving the past glory and reverence to the Mother Nature and act accordingly as
the nature asks us to do. In fact we are the part of our nature, it is our responsibility. The tall buildings
and glossy lifestyle is not real change which is actually required now. The real change occurs when every
individual act wisely with utmost dedication by accepting our mistakes. This cannot happen with single
hand, we all should treat with great endeavors hand in hand and should set an example to the world
nations. Every Indian should think wise and strive hard to put in practice and should make our Indian
flag flutter high in the sky
This has been the exact scenario in the Chennai city when the water crisis happened in the year 2018-19.

REFERENCES:

https://www.deccanherald.com/liveblog/when-the-taps-run-dry-chennais-water-crisis-749807.html#7

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/water/chennai-water-crisis-a-wake-up-call-for-indian-cities-
66024

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/how-chennai-lost-its-water-a-story-that-should-worry-you-
1555096-2019-06-24

https://www.aninews.in/news/national/general-news/chennai-city-based-ngo-organises-protest-to-
highlight-water-crisis20190630184122/

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/water/india-needs-to-conserve-waterbodies-and-value-them-
65998