Pre-emptively Averting the Advent of Water Crisis using AI/ML

Abstract

With a diverse population that is three times the size of the United States but one-third the physical size, India has the second largest population in the world. Despite harbouring 18 percentage of the global population, India only accounts for 4 percentage of the world’s water resources. Although India has made improvements over the past decades to both the availability and quality of municipal drinking water systems, its large population has stressed planned water resources and rural areas are left out. India is also a major grain producer with a great need for water to support the commodity. As with all countries with large agricultural output, excess water consumption for food production depletes the overall water table. Also, regardless of improvements to drinking water, many other water sources are contaminated with both bio and chemical pollutants, and over 21 percentage of the country’s diseases are water-related. Other concern is that India may lack overall long term availability of replenishable water resources. India’s water crisis is often the result of a lack of government planning, limited business closure, industrial and human pollution, and government corruption. In addition, India’s water shortage is expected to increase as population growth is expected to rise to 1.6 billion by 2050. Niti Aayog estimates that around 100 Million Indians are expected to run out of water by 2030. To that end, global water scarcity is expected to become a leading cause of national political conflict in the future, and the prognosis for India is no different. In such scenario rain-water harvesting and desalination becomes inevitable. On a positive note, some areas of India are fortunate to have a relatively wet climate, even in the most arid regions. However, with no rain catchment programs in place, most of the water is displaced or dried up instead of used. In these areas, rain harvesting could be one solution for water collection. Collected water can be immediately used for agriculture, and with improved filtration practices to reduce water-borne pathogens, also quickly available for human consumption. Whatever the means, India needs solution. Children in 100 million homes in the country lack water, and one out of every two children are malnourished. Environmental justice needs to be restored to India so that families can raise their children with dignity, and providing water to communities is one such way to best ensure that chance. Hence the solution is “USWAD: Unified system for Sustainable Water management solutions using AI/ML (Deep Learning) and Data Analytics.” The details of this system are explained ahead in the report.