Expert Says Indians Will Soon Be Water Refugees Heading for Water-Rich Europe

Water scarcity is not the biggest problem in India. It is gross water mismanagement at every level and public and political ignorance and apathy. The summer this year was extraordinarily hot and our place was under severe water scarcity, but the rainy season hasn't even started and we've already got almost 6 months worth of rainfall for my city. The problem is most of that water is not allowed to go into the ground and recharge the groundwater since almost every single inch is cemented or tarred and it runs-off into the sea or evaporates back. There is sufficient rainfall to meet the needs of most regions on India but due to a large number of causes the water is not conserved or utilised properly.

Some of the causes are deforestation of hill slopes, large, ill-planned dams which are silting over, lack of water micro-management, storm-water drains instead of recharge wells, lack of rainwater harvesting, excessive consumption, encroachment of nearly every water-body, pollution of most of the remaining lakes and rivers etc. etc. It goes on and on. The point is India does get enough rainwater despite very hot summers, but human management sucks abysmally.

There was a report that the Syrian civil war started with droughts forcing whole regions to emigrate to Damascus and then unemployed farmers starting to march in the streets. I can't imagine what might happen if the same level of drought occur in South-east asia. War? Civil war? Revolution ? The nuclear weapons stored there makes this a danger for everyone on the planet

As populations increase and resource shortages of various types become severe, migration and even travel will be shut down. The IT infrastructure and AI will allow trade to continue without travel.

Europe’s a long way away compared to verdant South East Asia tho

India has 3x the population density of European Union. Surely the problem starts there.

The British left India with a pressurized, always-on water system. Through lack of maintenance, most of that water system is no longer pressurized--the water comes on intermittently. That leads to the common practice by water consumers of having a pump on their end to fill their local cistern.

Since the originally-British water system was not maintained, it now leaks. So, unlike a pressurized water system--where leaks cause water to LEAVE the system, a non-pressurized system--as Indians now have--combined with the aforementioned pumps, makes it so leaky pipes cause outside filth to ENTER the system. Combine that with the practice of co-locating sewer lines in the same trenches as water lines, means that when the water comes on and individual pumps kick in, causes sewage water to enter the water system and be pulled into people's cisterns. That's why any Indian household like this must use reverse osmosis to make their water potable.

All because the pressurized water system was allowed to go derelict.