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India’s daunting challenge: There’s water everywhere, and nowhere
- product50 6y agoHow do I read this article? Looks like it is behind a paywall.
- Grakel 6y agoWould love to read about this in a more digestible format. This kind of journalism is going the way of the dodo.
- baud147258 6y agoThe author (Paul Salopek) is walking from East Africa to South America, writing shorter articles along the way. The project is called out of eden walk and there is a rss feed you can subscribe to: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk/feeds/articles/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk...
- dirtyid 6y ago> In total, some 600 million people—roughly half India’s population—live without enough clean water. I think India is projected to add 350M more ppl by 2050. The challenge is certainly daunting.
- eveningcoffee 6y agoLets not forget that they had about 300M people in 1950. It would be 5 times population growth in a century. This is historically unheard of and it is no wonder that it is causing such problems.
- oblio 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_England England. Population in 1800: 7.7 million. Population in 1900: 30 million. So not quite 5x, but almost 4x, not that far off. I'm pretty sure there are many other examples of nations undergoing a huge population boom as they industrialize.
- ido 6y agoMandatory Palestine (roughly Israel + Palestinian Territories today) had a population of ~750k in 1920 [0]. The population of Israel today is ~9m [1] and of the Palestinian territories another ~5m [2]. It would have probably still been a massive increase even without the migration of Jews into what is now Israel, as there are ~13m [3] Palestinians world-wide today and most of them live in the middle east (PT, Israel & refugees in neighboring countries). You can see similar albeit less extreme growth in neighboring countries (e.g. Egypt went from ~13m to ~100m in the same period). Like Oblio I would guess this is common for countries who were unindustrialized in 1920 as they have seen massive reduction in child mortality & massive increase in food supplies due to advances in modern medicine & agriculture in the last 100 years. EDIT: I tried to phrase this comment with good intentions as neutrally as possible, but seeing as how this is a sensitive topic please let me know if I got something wrong. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine#Demographi... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians
- krakatau1 6y agoMaybe it was 5x. In that period millions of English went to colonies.
- vppstuart 6y agoGetting these problems fixed will be money well spent. Trying to go to the moon is not an example of that.
- a-ve 6y agoGetting your Govt to fix all the US' crumbling infrastructure will be money well spent. Spending a crap load of money on your military is not an example of that.
- mc32 6y agoThere is waste surely --but if we don't "police" then people complain the US isn't keeping the peace and they let dictators do as they wish. People want it both ways, they want the US to stabilize the world but they also want the US to keep out of other countries' business.
- zapdrive 6y agoTrust me, nobody wants you to police the whole world. UN was formed for that very reason. US has over the years weakened UN to expand its own reach. So please get the hell out of everywhere and let UN handle.
- reducesuffering 6y agoUN is toothless without the US. Alas, US populace is tired of being chastised for spending massively and making mistakes on Pax Americana[0]. So, the US will increasingly isolate and won’t have the will to stand up to Russia and China aggression, which they are aware of and increasingly taking advantage of in the last decade. UK, France, and India aren’t formidable; not that they’d be willing. As you wish, we’ll find out how effective the UN’s deterrence is in the next decade. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana
- GeneralMayhem 6y ago
- wobbly_bush 6y ago> “Where is all of this excess water?” Raghu Chundawat, a leading Indian conservationist, asks me sourly in nearby Panna National Park, a sanctuary for endangered tigers. “The government won’t share its flow data. I don’t think even they know what the impacts will be.” In a quick Google search I was able to find this - http://www.mppcb.nic.in/pdf/594-English.pdf http://www.mppcb.nic.in/pdf/594-English.pdf. I'm not an expert on this topic, but seems like there is some amount of flow data. This is just one example of what's wrong with the article. It feels more like a travel blog than a well researched article.
- hugh-avherald 6y agoThat link (from 8 years ago) doesn't contradict the claim that the government won't share its flow data and doesn't know the what the impacts will be.
- wobbly_bush 6y agoCan you elaborate on how the report doesn't answer those questions? Raghu Chundawat is asking the question about the Ken-Betwa project and this report is exactly about that project. The fact that the report was out 8 years ago and Raghu Chundawat still says there is no data is surprising.
- baud147258 6y agoWell, the author has been walking through the area, so the travel blog feel isn't too far off the mark
- rramadass 6y agoAfter having read the article i can say that the headline is a misnomer. It is more of a travelogue than about the water crisis. But an interesting read nevertheless.
- vishnugupta 6y agoIt's indeed a travelogue, a fascinating one at that, into its 7th year [1]. The water story is a sub-plot. [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk/ https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk...
- known 6y agoDue to lack of will and wisdom; Since 80% people are poor https://archive.vn/bS2fL https://archive.vn/bS2fL in India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses is very effective in India;
- known 6y agoI think solar power based lift irrigation projects will solve water woes in India
- newyankee 6y agoThere are many infrastructure projects that can help a little bit. However historically land acquisition has been very difficult (unlike say China) which meant projects kept on extending. A lot of it is also because of corruption that the system enabled. However it is improving much faster now. In terms of water security a low hanging fruit is agricultural policy, however due to the politically tricky thing it is , it is not an easy solution. There are 10s of different problems when it comes to issues such as resolving water and it is not due to lack of will. A classic example in my state is that rich farmers (< 5%) hoard all the resources (land, water, free energy and subsidies) cultivating cash rich crops and poor farmers have to survive on subsistence. Average land holdings are very small and in my state agri output is directly proportional to amount of water you have access to, either by being close to a water body or some groundwater.
- blueblisters 6y agoBy some reports, India is the largest exporter of water in the world [1]. Almost 100 billion cubic meters, 4 times more than the total household consumption is exported in the form of water intensive crops (mostly rice and cotton). This pales in comparison to the total agricultural consumption, probably 10-15x more. There are solutions to this, of course, but they're politically difficult to implement. Edit: The total water consumption is closer to 700 billion cubic meters. My guess for agricultural consumption were off by a factor of 2x. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-06/india-is-the-world-s-biggest-exporter-of-water-despite-shortages https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-06/india-...
- distant_hat 6y agoThis. Many of the most water short areas grow water intensive crops and have droughts. Another thing is bureaucrats love droughts, you get extra money from the center for relief and it is a huge opportunity for corruption. There was even a book written on it called Everybody Loves a Good Drought, by P. Sainath, about his research findings of poverty in the rural districts of India.
- sandoooo 6y agoGiven a complex economic situation pitting the green revolution and the need to feed a billion people versus the sustainability of local ecology and scarce groundwater resources, the article offers this pithy insight: >Given enough time, water defeats almost anything. Stone. Iron. Bone. Rivers saw through the stratigraphy of time itself. Yet patriarchy endures. I had to read though half the article to get to this. You're all welcome.
- vishnugupta 6y agoA highly recommended talk on the relevant topic by P Sainath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-l2LvA2dSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-l2LvA2dSI . I can't think of anyone who has researched and understands rural India better than Sainath. He spends ~200+ days per year touring rural India; he has done this over last 20+ years. His articles are quite revealing. If you want to understand rural India then I highly recommend these two sources: 1. https://ruralindiaonline.org https://ruralindiaonline.org 2. Book, "Everybody Loves a Good Drought": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Loves_a_Good_Drought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Loves_a_Good_Drought
- known 6y agoElections != Democracy; India is Feudalism masquerading as Democracy