Chennai, India's sixth biggest city, has a water crisis
earther.gizmodo.com
earther.gizmodo.com
1. Water crisis is bad but a good fraction of people (most of the upper and middle class) are getting by through exploitation of ground water. My guess would be half of the city still has usable ground water accessible through bore wells including where I live. However these Wells going dry is a common occurence. Someone is digging a deeper well every day in my street alone (no exaggeration). Heck, my house with 4 tenants is already exhausting it's 5th borewell. The day these Wells collectively stop giving water is when things are going to get very interesting.
2. The government here doesn't really consider water as an utility it's actually responsible for. All the articles you see are mostly talking about drinking water. The pipe system in the city is barely capable of only providing drinking water to most people even if most of the water sources are full. It is everyone's assumption that if you need more than a few tens of liters per day per person for things like showers that's completely on you, not the government. This is not going to change anytime soon. The entire plumbing system is riddled with leaks everywhere and no metering. People have also built systems to abuse this plumbing (by using motors) so unless we get a sudden abundance of water this system cannot provide the water the city needs.
3. Most importantly, if ground water runs out, the city really doesn't have any alternative for water in any developed country sense. No usable River for hundreds of miles and every river that CAN provide water originates in a different state and none of them are prepared to share their resources.
4. Chennai the city alone has more people than most Scandinavian countries. The desalination plants are not going to provide more than a few tens of liters per head even if their capacity multiplies by ten.
5. While there's always blame on people here for wasting water, I'd argue that it's outrageous. Even the worst offenders don't waste that much water compared to any Western standards. My household is definitely in the lower quartiles of how much water we use but I estimate we use at best 50-70 liters of water per head per day including everything. Even if I don't want to think like this, I subconsciously think twice before using the toilet (maybe if I hold it for a while I can go one less time?). People here should not be blamed for abusing water, water should be a basic necessity for our lives.
6. Just three years back this city literally drowned in a flood that was far worse than what happened in Houston.
Maybe they’re right? If there’s not enough water for everyone to use it like it falls from the sky then maybe we need to rethink how we use water?
Why?
Yes personal data protection it's a good thing to think about, maybe not the highest prio problem though.
We call it Sandy with special offers. If you'd like to pay extra you can get a special-offer-free experience. If you don't like the idea of any data collection you can just buy a cat litter box and have your own Sandy (without the added features).
Don't see how this is an issue.
Do you really see the 'climate change era' providing robust enough infrastructure that we'll still be kitted out with smartphones?
Seems to me yes people can have mobile phones, and still no water. Have a look at this comment by someone who apparently lives? has lived? in the relevant areas:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20260143
> A good part of people seem destitute, yet they have good mobile phones.
Inexpensive mobile phonoes aren't that expensive and where I live also the beggars have phones. To me seems realistic with a future where everyone is conneted with a phone, and at the same time starving and being ill because of polluted water (or no water).
We already see metals being harvested from infrastructure. I expect that to get worse -- and worse faster in more impoverished areas. It seems to me that the remaining hospitable climes will face increasing pressures on their resources, and the luxury of nearly-free electricity powering smartphones will be fleeting.
At the same time, shipping phones to far away places where there is a "shortage" of phones, and selling them there, is going to be more profitable, per shipment, than shipping water to that same place.
And one needs just a few shipments of phones, for everyone to have a phone. One ships just 0.1 kg phone per person, once. Compared to 10 or 100 kg water per person and day.
With that in mind, I'm thinking phones will continue to be prevalent, in comparison to water, in areas where there's a drought.
Your toilet startup has a website?
(Websearching a bit, seems normal toilet water usage is 30 - 100 liter water a day, sounds like a lot to me.)
Let me guess, there are bacteria in it's water which are too hard to filter out/kill?
One district collector (Irayanbu) tried to fight the sand mafia but he was transferred soon after.
Assuming you’re talking 70L per day, the worst case using desalination is about 20$ per year. So, at that useage level water is not really a long term issue.
It’s a corruption and distribution issue.
Also I think what constitutes wasting water is context dependent. For instance the amount of wasted food that is a problem is a feast vs a famine is very different.
I think what you are saying that you don't hold it, but that you are thinking on those lines.
However, please don't do that, as it is not good for health.
I don't know how well [1] explains it, but at least makes one aware.
[1] https://www.geisinger.org/health-and-wellness/wellness-artic...
edit: added context
There's also an effort to clean it that has gotten no where due to, well, corruption and negligence of the officials.
Madras isn't the only city on the brink, every major metro in India is at risk but like the proverbial frog in boiling water, the law makers are asleep at the wheel. Or, may be, they are simply disconnected from reality as they can personally afford solutions to problems (owing to their vast resources) that most of the population can't.
The authorities don't police anything (the locals literally argue with the police, and carry on what they are doing even if the police tells them they can't do it), the only time you need the authorities to get something you have to bribe them (a small amount in westerns standards, but still...).
People don't care about their surroundings like they do in Europe. Your just throw garbage in the ground (also because the bins are mostly non existent). You have buildings from the 80's without plumbing (in some of them they are added after, outside the building).
There is chaos in any activity (traffic is just surreal).
A good part of people seem destitute, yet they have good mobile phones.
Your have 3 people doing the job of 1 in a lot of places. Example: In a restaurant there is someone getting your orders, someone putting the table and getting the orders to the table, and then someone that stays around serving you... literally putting the food on your dish, not just when they bring the food, but there, checking whenever your plate is empty and then filling it (you know, like your grandmother in a southern European country does). Outside bathrooms in a restaurant, there is someone just there to keep them clean, permanently. Yet the bathrooms are not clean at all.
All in all, India just defies your (at least mine) logic. I am worried about what will happen when it stops growing in the 10s% like it has been growing until now.
1) save rain water, harvest them properly 2) ration water , basic needs are free, like x litres per family but over use is charged 3) link rivers
On top of all this , make people aware that water is not something you can waste just like that ..
Ignorance is not bliss
I'm not an expert on this one, but my gut feel is that linking rivers will probably greatly change and likely destroy ecosystems. This idea has been floating round in India from the time I was in my teens or a bit later, and there has been both support and opposition to it from various groups. IMO, at least the wildlife - both flora and fauna, not to mention micro-organisms, will drastically change (and some of them will likely be heavily affected), due to the sudden physical and chemical changes (like differing levels of dissolved salts and other chemicals, silt, salinity or freshness), of some rivers versus others, when they are linked together.
A better idea is probably much more intensive and extensive rain water harvesting, building thousands more ponds and "tanks" (term here for larger ponds) for water collection, water usage reduction (where it makes sense), water conservation, and majorly, afforestation.
For afforestation (and preventing or reducing deforestation, first), it is well known that forests increase rainfall and also moderate and buffer its dispersal once it is on/in the earth, and reduce/slow down its discharge from the ecosystem, thereby proving more water throughout the year, even in dry seasons.
See the book The Forest and The Sea by Marston Bates [1].
I had read it as a teenager. A very good exposition of the many interacting factors in natural systems like forests and seas, symbiosis, and all the benefits they provide for humans.
[1]:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marston_Bates
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marston-Bates
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/177375.Marston_Bates
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1481687.The_Forest_and_t...
https://textbookhistory.com/marston-bates%E2%80%99-moment-of...
From above link:
[ "Though Rachel Carson is usually credited for raising the public’s awareness of ecology, as Marion Clawson noted, it was Marston Bates’ 1960 book, The Forest and the Sea, not Silent Spring, that made “ecology a household word.” ]
https://www.amazon.com/Forest-Sea-Marston-Bates/dp/B000P0D61...
The Indian government, NGOs and corporates could look to countries like Israel (which seem to have done wonders in the desert with drip irrigation and many other techniques - I've only heard a bit about it, some from my grandfather, who was a scientist in the field, and visited there), to solve the water issues and also improve resource usage / conservation and also better and more agriculture production, all at the same time.
Sorry, I meant "providing", not "proving".
Politician's themselves profiting of sand mining from rivers, not taking any action to prevent pollution of lakes even though some of them have caught fire(the infamous Bellandur lake), allowing encroachment of water ways etc. Any one of this should have caused people to vote out those in power or raise voice against the bureaucracy. But no, it will not happen - why? My guess is people will continue to vote on religious and cast lines. People will be divided based on any difference they can find between them and will never fight together for what matters. Absolute horrible of a shit show it is....
who is buying all this sand?
I don't understand why governments don't focus on this
It is time people take up and support initiatives like this, in addition to looking for government driven programs.
Both get devastating floods, and have very high waterflow rivers, but people in cities can't do a thing about having no tap water.
That was big news 10 years ago
2. Rainwater harvesting should be mandated for every house in district & state capitals.
That might cause an ecological disaster on par with what I described here in this thread:
I feel pretty stupid now.
Most people have no idea of what is in the offing w.r.t. fresh water reserves. In fact many of the wealthiest on the planet have already brought up land containing fresh water reserves as a hedge against the future.
I mean if it's easy as you make it appear, you might as well supply water and beat those tankers on the prices.