Water Management Issues in Indian Cities: Case Study of Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India

Abstract

Abstract: Urban development has a substantial role for depleting and polluting surface water sources along with contamination of ground water sources. It creates several uncertain circumstances due to reduction in quantity of water and this land become barren on surfaces. As a result, people started to encroach it, which further impact on water bodies in undesirable way. These water bodies are anguish due to continuous pollution and change the way of treatment of urban water bodies, even government also converted these water bodies and rivers in to drain and area for dumping garbage. These are also miss used by local communities for many purposes like open defecations, occasionally these are used for immersion of idol due to lack of facilities and other reasons too. Besides all of these Industrial effluents, run off from nearest agricultural fields, refuse from sewage and other domestic wastes provide a nice platform for eutrophication. (http://spaenvis.nic.in/index1.aspx?) Now everyone is worried about the potential water scarcity in the face of increasing, mainly population-driven, water demands, and its consequences on our energy and food production. The Over 900 recognized professionals conducted a survey for under the heading “Global Risk Perception Survey”, it is directed by the World Economic Forum. They found that reports that the highest level of common impact over the next 10 years will be from water crises. (http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_2015_Report15). So, this paper is an attempt to see challenges in Indian fast-growing cities and how we can manage water resource those are engulfed by rapid urbanization. Principally focused on the depleted source and characterize their conditions. Keywords: Urban Water Bodies, Water management, Water Crisis, Urbanization, Globalization, Indian Cities, Gwalior.