Around the world, cities are facing huge water-related risks that are aggravated by climate change, rapid urbanisation and outdated infrastructure resulting in flooding, water scarcity and rehabilitation costs on a scale that overwhelm the capacities of cities. The city of Cape Town in South Africa, Shimla in India are a few examples where the taps went dry due to mismanagement and paucity of water.

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There definitely exists a co-relation between the agro-climatic conditions of a region and the strategy of water management practices.

• Many Indian cities, including Delhi and Bangalore, face a water crisis, especially that of freshwater.
• A World Bank study puts the plight of the country in perspective: 163 million Indians lack access to safe drinking water; 210 million Indians lack access to improved sanitation; 21% of communicable diseases are linked to unsafe water.
• Cities or regions are geographically well placed in terms of their resources, but due to existing water management practices, our cities suffer. E.g.: enormous concretisation in the name of urbanisation

Challenges that are faced in conservation and management of water resource:

• Legal and institutional framework
  • The government finance for well digging and pump installation with capital subsidies, massive rural electrification and pervasive energy subsidies all have enabled this process to aggravate.
  • Zero marginal cost of pumping and lack of restriction on volume of water resulted in inefficient and unsustainable use of the resource.
  • Lack of adequate planning, crumbling infrastructure, indiscriminate drilling of borewells, large-scale consumption of water, and a false sense of entitlement in using water carelessly are causing water shortages.
  • No status report or data available to showcase the enforcement of law to implement RWH
  • Lack of coordination between state and nonstate stakeholders
  • Majorly RWH systems are implemented by individual users/owners
  • Technical knowhow of RWH structures and technologies is minimal
• Policy lacunae:
  • Existing rules on groundwater access that give landowners the right to pump on their land
  • Subsidies on electricity are thought to play a central role in the Indian groundwater crisis. The vast majority of groundwater pumps are unmetered, and if charged, are billed at a flat, non-volumetric, and highly subsidized tariff.
  • In the north western parts of India and southern peninsula, the early and rapid rural electrification, free or subsidised power to the farm sector, large productive farmers and attractive procurement prices for major cereals led to intensive use of groundwater.
• Urbanization:
  • India’s huge groundwater-dependent population, uncertain climate-reliant recharge processes and indiscriminate land use changes with urbanization are among the many factors that have rendered the Indian groundwater scenario to become a global paradigm for water scarcity, for both quantity and quality.
  • Cities like Bengaluru are losing its capacity to recharge groundwater as the number of water bodies like lakes has reduced by 79%
  • Commercial establishments like shopping malls, hotels, hospitals and high-rise apartments are using borewells in large number to meet the demand for the occupants.
• Social aspect
  • Documentation of best management practices of RWH systems is absent
  • Lack of research on importance and use of RWH for non-potable purposes.
  • Negligible community involvement/engagement for implementing RWH systems
  • Resistance among people to use harvested rainwater as an alternate source of water
• Infrastructural aspect
  • Availability of funds is a concern in practising RWH
  • No alternative provision for water supply augmentation
  • Lack of adequate storm water management infrastructures

Way forward:

• Strong leadership and coordination among state and non-state stakeholders would be necessary for a successful wide-ranging RWH implementation project.
• In addition, a coordinated educational programme will have to be conducted to dispel myths about stored water and to create the required skills base.
• The statutes and bylaws regarding water would also have to be reviewed to avoid legal impediments.
• The multi-layer institutional model requires substantial initial investment and effective communication between organisations, water users and governments should be looked into.
• An approach like RWH isn’t just a viable alternative to current practices, it also aligns with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, which include clean water, sanitation and sustainable cities, with community involvement.
• Ecologically safe engineering marvels of water conservation have existed in India for nearly 1,500 years, including traditional systems of water harvesting, such as the bawari, jhalara, nadi, tanka, and khadin. This can be rejuvenated and replicated.
• They continue to remain viable and cost-effective alternatives for replenishing depleted groundwater aquifers. With government support, they could be revived, upgraded and productively combined with modern rainwater-saving techniques such as anicuts, percolation tanks, injection wells and subsurface barriers.

Conclusion:

The need of the hour is to go back to the use of traditional approach and adopt sustainable, cost effective, low maintenance practices. Depending on the agro-climatic region the strategy may be different but the idea is the same — catch water where it falls.

Case study: Rwanda, a sovereign (and landlocked) country in central Africa with a varied geography covering roughly 25,000 square kilometre of land and 1,400 sq km of water. Rwanda receives average annual precipitation of 1,200 millimetre (mm), and the rainfall ranges from as low as 800 mm in Eastern Province to about 2,000 mm in high altitude of north and west. Thus, there is ample scope to practice rainwater harvesting (RWH).

Looking at the urban trend, the country has one of the highest population densities in Africa (483 people/sq km). As per the 2012 census, Rwanda had approximately 12 million citizens and an annual population growth of 2.6 per cent. Around 19.4 per cent of the total inhabitants live in urban areas.

Its capital, Kigali, is a major urban centre with 76 per cent of the population categorised as “urban”. At the same time, Rwanda is also among the countries having the lowest per capita water availability (670 cubic metres per capita per year) and storage capacity in Africa. Besides inadequate per-capita availability, floods accompanied with soil erosion are a common issue in the country.

Bawaris are unique stepwells that were once a part of the ancient networks of water storage in the cities of Rajasthan. The little rain that the region received would be diverted to man-made tanks through canals built on the hilly outskirts of cities. The water would then percolate into the ground, raising the water table and recharging a deep and intricate network of aquifers.

In Himachal Pradesh, kuhls(surface water channels) have been used since ancient times to carry glacial waters from rivers and streams into valley fields. These kuhls need to be desilted and fortified to prevent them from breaking during torrential rainfall.

Another effective traditional water management system is bamboo drip irrigation, practiced in the tribal pockets of the Khasi and Jaintia hills of Meghalaya. In this, a network of bamboo pipes of varying diameters, lengths and positioning is used to harvest water from hill springs or streams. This can be adopted on a larger scale wherever possible.

Nagaland’s Zabo is also a great way of collecting run-off in community tanks/ponds. Rainwater that falls on forested hilltops is led by channels that deposit it in pond-like structures created on the terraced hillsides. The channels also pass through cattle yards, collecting the dung and urine of animals, before ultimately meandering into fields at the foot of the hill.