As the world grapples with the escalating effects of climate change, the urgent need to rethink our approach to water management becomes ever more pressing

Whenever we face drought and heat waves we are reminded to take a relook at efficiency of water management. More than one-fourth of the global population, nearly 2.2 billion people do not have proper access to clean drinking water. United Nation’s (UN’s) goal in this regard is to provide clean drinking water and sanitation for all by 2030. UN’s coordination mechanism on water and sanitation (UN-Water) sets the theme every year. This year’s theme was “Leveraging Water for Peace”.Air and water are important to sustain life on Earth. The conflicts between the countries, between the states and within society arise when we have to share water for crop irrigation, household purposes, industrial uses and power generation.

The conflict gets often aggravated especially when the availability of water becomes scarce during the pinch period. Treaties between the countries have resolved the disputes. Different forums are also available for the resolution of conflicts at international and national levels.India has 25 major river basins with most rivers flowing across the states. There is the Interstate Water Dispute Act, of 1956 for resolving disputes in the use, control and distribution of river and river valleys. The disputes are continuing challenges to federal water governance in the country. To resolve the disputes, there are water dispute tribunals in India namely the Ravi and Beas Water Tribunal, Vansandhara water dispute tribunal, Mahadayi Water Dispute Tribunal, Mahanadi water dispute tribunal, Krishna water dispute tribunal and Cauvery dispute tribunal etc.

The sharing of water of the Cauvery River has been the source of serious conflict between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. In 2018, the tribunal awarded Karnataka to annually release 192 tmc of water in ten equal monthly instalments to Tamil Nadu. 2023-24 was El Nino (Spanish word meaning little boy) year and there has been a deficit in rainfall in the catchment of the river from July 2023 onwards. As a result, the reservoirs were half empty and it became difficult for Karnataka to follow the orders of the tribunal.

Two states started a blame game till early July 2024 when there were good rains in the Cauvery catchment in the latter part of July. As nature was kind, the dispute was resolved and the blame game stopped. The prolonged dispute between the states for sharing water is always traced back to destruction as well as poor maintenance of the catchment of the river and unfavourable weather conditions like El Nino.World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that El Nino, a climate pattern associated with the warming of the ocean surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean has impacted the monsoon causing below-normal rainfall last year, has gradually weakened.

This has been one of the five strongest El Nino on record but remained weaker than 1997-98 and 2015-16. “El Nino typically has the greatest impact on global climate in the second year of its development – in this instance 2024,” WMO said. This impact has led to above normal temperature in India till June 2024. WMO further added that there is a chance of La Nina (Spanish word meaning little girl) developing later in the year. La Nina is a climate pattern associated with periodic cooling off the ocean surface temperature and brings normal rains in the region. Western World, Canada and the US are experiencing heat wave conditions even in August this year.The underground water table receded during summer.

There has been a public hue and cry in many places in central and peninsular India to access potable water for household needs. The Government and Civic agencies are facing the challenge. Karnataka is one such state where there was an acute drinking water problem in the summer.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah directed the district administration to establish a helpline and control room to enable the public to register grievances and supply water in tankers to all affected areas. He also directed to tender the work of digging more bore wells to tap underground water for public emergencies. Bengaluru too faced a water shortage. Water supply to the city comes through the pipeline from the Cauvery River located 100 km away. The water has also to be pumped up at many intermediate locations to achieve an altitude of 1 km, where the city is. The arrangements have been made to supply water in tankers from adjoining towns.

Water supply to high-rise apartments was also reduced. Residents used disposable cutlery and wet wipes to ration their water consumption. It will generate more waste and agencies may have to step up the disposal. They have also banned vehicle washing and swimming pool activities.  Deepening of the bore wells is another environmental challenge. Every time the groundwater level recedes, we go for the deepening. Is it environmentally sustainable? Recharging the ground through rain harvesting structures has to be adhered to by each Government continuously.

Rivers originating from the Himalayas are snow-fed and satisfy the water needs of the people, especially in the northern belt of the country from west to east. Rivers in the central Indian landscape and peninsular India originate from forests.

Often big rivers originate from the same place and flow in different directions. Johila, Narvada and Son originate from Amarkanthak and flow in different directions. Five rivers namely Koyana, Krishna, Venna, Savitri and Gayatri originate from Mahabaleshwar near Pune. Several important rivers like Tungbhadra and Cauvery also originate from the Western Ghats. Apart from providing drinking water to several villages and towns, there are numerous irrigation and power projects located on these rivers.

Life is fully dependent on these rivers and except the Himalayan Rivers all others originate from forests. Let us be clear that water is not produced by forests, yet the rivers originate there. Forests are the mothers of rivers and are systems to conserve rainwater in the subsoil and the roots of the trees.

The river source provides a small volume of water trickling from the roots of each of the millions of trees on undulating hills around. As it forms the stream and the flow of water proceeds under gravity, many more such streams join to increase the volume of water. Sometimes bigger streams or even rivers also join to increase the volume of flowing water in the river. The water in the streams is nothing but rainwater. During the monsoon substantial quantity of water is absorbed by the earth charging the underground aquifers and some portion of it is retained in the subsoil and roots of the trees.

The roots hold the water like a sponge and continuously release it during warm weather, making the streams perennial. While traversing in the forests we come across several perennial streams even in summer months when there is no rainfall.Every stream has a catchment and if it is a forested catchment, the stream would be perennial in the non-rainy season, or else it would be a seasonal stream flowing on rainy days. Forests play a significant role in conserving water and making the streams perennial. Further, the streams flowing out of forested catchment would always carry cleaner water without even soil particles in it.

On the contrary, streams flowing through areas dominated by human activities would be muddy and mixed with chemicals and sewage. Further, the rainwater carries a lot of soil and the reservoirs get silted up losing their water holding capacity.

Reservoirs located closer to forested areas have a longer life. Maintenance engineers have a difficult time in de-silting reservoirs receiving water from human areas.  The rainfall pattern and distribution not only depends upon weather conditions and the direction of wind but also depends upon the density and distribution of forests on land.  The pledge we must take is to preserve and conserve natural forests. Forests also play a vital role in the maintenance of the water cycle. More than two years ago, on the sidelines of COP 26 at Glasgow, leaders holding 90% of forests on the planet had pledged to end deforestation by 2030.

Of course, India did not sign this pledge. Two more COP meetings have taken place since then, but the issue has not been reviewed by those who pledged. On the contrary, there are reports suggesting that natural forests are being lost at an alarming rate unprecedented warming has also taken its toll and forest fires have remained uncontrolled for months in the US, Canada, European countries, Russia, China, Brazil, and Australia. If we don’t save our forests, the perennial water streams will become seasonal.

(The writer is retired principal chief conservator of forests, Karnataka; views are personal)