Only zero tolerance policies pertaining to pollution and climate change can retrieve our rivers from doom. But do the authorities have the will to see this through? Only time will tell
There is certainly something seriously going wrong with our fresh water bodies, not only in India but also across the world. Is it global warming, or climate change, or failing rains? Or a combination of all these? The scientific and the environmental experts are getting hard pressed to find the exact reason and hopefully the solution for the same. In the meanwhile, the once flourishing rivers in parts of the world are rapidly turning into dry river beds comprising of nothing but sand and quickly falling prey to land sharks and real estate mafia.
In India, the 1990s saw a flurry of hydel projects being approved and built of various capacities; these projects successfully dammed the rivers emanating from the Himalayas at various points, leading to electricity generation no doubt, but eventually causing the rivers downstream to quickly dry up and adversely affected millions of people and agriculture, which was dependent on the natural flow of the river.
Is this a India-specific phenomena? Apparently not. It would be of interest to note that of all places, Europe is, as we speak, flummoxed by drying up of their rivers. Water levels in Western Europe and Germany’s most important river, the Rhine, is at record low levels currently. More shockingly the water levels in this river is fast approaching zero at several spots. This occurrence is due to a recent drought, which is being blamed on climate change. Needless to say that the development has affected freight supplies, as the river is one of the most important transport routes in the region.
German media reports quoted Germany’s Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration as saying that about half of Germany’s river ferries had stopped running, and river cruise ships were having to transport their passengers by bus for parts of their journey. The reports also noted that thousands of fish in the Swiss section of the river had died because of the heat and low oxygen levels. The most important effect of this has been on supplies of freight. Roughly 80 per cent of the 223 million tonnes of cargo is transported by ship in Germany each year travels the Rhine, which links the country’s industrial heartland to Belgium, the Netherlands and the North Sea.
As a consequence of the river drying up, petrol stations in the region that rely on tankers to deliver fuel from refineries in the Netherlands have run out of supplies. A number of inland ports are now idle, and millions of tonnes of goods are being transported by rail or road. Media reports have speculated that drying of the Rhine could may be due to climate change. The river’s flow relies not just on annual rainfall, but also on long-term water reserves in the Alps. Melting snow and glaciers, as well as Lake Constance, the source of the Rhine, feed the upper parts of the river. These reserves are substantially lower today due to climate change. And in more bad news, other major rivers on the continent, such as the Danube and the Elbe are also drying up in parts.
Similar to the Rhine, the Ganges is an important river of India and is exceedingly suffering the same fate. The Ganges serves as the source of drinking water for almost 500 million people. It flows all the way from 3,000m above sea level in the Himalayan Mountains to the Bay of Bengal, and is one of the most revered and sacred water bodies. Despite this, it is also under increasing threat from climate change, industrial pollution and unhygienic rituals and waste disposal engendered by its legend. In fact, it was ranked as the fifth most polluted river worldwide.
The Ganges already sustains nearly half a billion people and according to the International Water Resource Management Institute (IWRMI), the demand for fresh drinking water will only increase. It projects the demand will rise roughly by one-third in the coming 15 years, meaning that the Indians will rely on the river more than ever. However, a recent study surveying 925 rivers worldwide found that climate change posed a serious threat to many of the world’s running water sources. Due to its geographical location, the Ganges was found to be particularly at risk, along with Africa’s Niger River and the Chinese Yellow River.
Climate change is poised to affect the Ganges in another, more direct way. Water pollution in Asia has long been a subject of concern, and the Ganges is one of the harder hit bodies of water from the effects of the industrial boom in the continent. A report from the World Bank estimates that around 20 per cent of the contaminants in the river come from industrial emissions, and roughly one billion gallons of untreated sewage enters its waterways on a daily basis. Clearly, the situation is a concerning one. Add to this, the deeply religious significance of the river does little to help cleanup efforts. The Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a non-profit NGO from New Delhi, conducted a survey of 500 people and interviewed 150 more to find out how attitudes to the river affected its cleanliness.
A large number of respondents to the survey felt that the religious value of the Ganga was non-negotiable. The respondents to the survey even suggested that the scale of traditional rituals such as corpse immersions in the Ganga were so low that they did not really upset the ecological balance or biodiversity of the river and that immersion of dead bodies in the river had in no way been found to hinder water management initiatives in the Ganga. The mythological idea of the Ganga is sadly more valued than the river itself.
If this trajectory of destruction continues, our pious and sacred rivers will be staring at becoming dry riverbeds of tomorrow. Only zero tolerance policies pertaining to pollution and climate change can retrieve our rivers from doom. But do the authorities have the will to see this through? Only time will tell.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)