World Water Day: Coping with Water Scarcity

Ankush Khanna With depleting water resources and its increasing demand for the purposes of drinking, irrigation, industrial use, power generation et al, water has become an extremely precious but equally scarce resource. No doubt then, the theme for this year’s World Day for Water, which falls on March 22, is ‘Coping with Water Scarcity’.Water per se is not scarce. 71% or 1.4 billion cubic kilometers of the earth’s surface is covered by water. But the major proportion of this water is in the form of oceans having salt water and is not of much use to us unless it undergoes the process of desalination.But that’s not the only reason of its scarcity. The unequal distribution of water, it’s misuse and over exploitation due to rise in population, as well as lack of management on the part of respective governments has made the problem severe. According to a report, over 1.5 million people in China are facing serious water shortage. The same is true for many other areas of the world, especially poor and developing nations. Our own country is no exception with millions of people facing acute water shortage. Global warming, which has become an ugly reality of the modern day world, has added to the problem. A NASA report recently said that global warming would worsen droughts in water-strapped parts of the world. Not only that, it would also lead to more rains in several other parts. According to the report, rainfall could decrease further in areas such as the south-western US, Mexico, parts of North Africa, the Mid-East and Australia and it may increase across the western Pacific, along the equator and in Southeast Asia.