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[Closed] A devastating water crisis in India

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(@lovendures)
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10 million people in Chennai, India and nearly out of water as the lake and reservoirs are dry.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/06/25/734534821/no-drips-no-drops-a-city-of-10-million-is-running-out-of-water


   
(@michele-b)
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Thank you, Lovendures,  for as heartbreaking as this is and no doubt will continue to br, i's important we realize, remember,  and hold these suffering people and all who live in such dire straights in our hearts, thoughts and prayers every single day. ?


   
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(@jeanne-mayell)
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Thank you, Lovendures, for posting this event.  The article said that the city had a rooftop rain recapture system that was not kept up. But even if it were kept up, I wonder how it will go over time.   I also just read that they are expecting light to medium rain today and tomorrow.  Hoping and praying for them all.  

I threw cards on it and the cards looked very positive.  Maybe rain is coming.  And also, I'm hoping this shortage will force new programs to go in place and put more pressure on the global community to stop burning fossil fuels.  

Also, as climate change ramps up, the global community may come up with better ways to transport water the way we have transported fuel.  Someone here saw pipelines across North America carrying water in the future.  

Climate change does not mean less water.  It means water stays in vapor form much longer, then comes down upon us with a vengeance.  I wonder if we will be able to transport the water.  Perhaps that's beyond technology and/or political boundaries.


   
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(@coyote)
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Genghis Khan's impression of India eight centuries ago was that it was a land where "the water is bad and the heat makes men sick." It might come from antiquity, but that quote basically sums up the predicament the entire Indian subcontinent (India plus Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) is facing in the age of anthropogenic global warming. Somewhere between 70 to 80% of the region's water resources come from the increasingly fickle monsoon rains, and as the climate warms, more of that precipitation that does reach the ground will be lost to evaporation. Then of course the Himalayan glaciers are melting, which will in turn shrink the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra river systems, upon which something like 700 million people depend. 

So the NPR article rightly notes that Chennai's water shortage is not localized. I remember the flurry of news articles that were written last summer when India's water crisis came into focus, and NPR is just confirming what many people were saying a year ago; that that within a few years several dozen major cities in India will have depleted their groundwater supplies, and that by 2030, India's water resources will be reduced by half. So yes, modernizing and upgrading municipal water systems in large cities like Chennai (many of which haven't been properly maintained in decades) is necessary, and rainwater recapture can work as a supplement. Perhaps solar powered vapor condensation units could help as a more affordable, democratic alternative to centralized pipelines or expensive truck convoys.

Overall, though, I'm worried about India and its neighbors. Jeanne, your cards may only be calling for short term relief in the immediate surroundings of Chennai. There's still the rest of an already hot, water insecure subcontinent to consider, though, and all signs seem to indicate that things there will get dire rather quickly.

 


   
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(@jeanne-mayell)
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Thanks, Coyote.  You are right.  I think my cards were positive because they will be okay for now.  I have a close relative who works for a Chennai company and he’s heard nothing from any of his colleagues that there’s a problem.  My website developers are in Delhi and they don’t mention any issues.  

But it is hard to imagine how these cities will manage the coming decade.  I get the sense that this is the part of the world that will become the front line of the climate crisis as it unfolds although it’s going to hit everyone everywhere.  

 


   
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