Water Woes Research Articles

IMPLICATIONS OF ADOPTING WATER POLICY AND CASTE ON MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY: EVIDENCE FROM HOUSEHOLD-LEVEL DATA IN INDIA

This paper attempts to unravel the influence of caste on water poverty while examining the relationship between the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) and the modified water poverty index (MWPI). Additionally, considering the inevitable role of policies in combatting water woes, this paper analyses the impact of drinking water policies. The empirical results show that MWPI significantly impacts MPI, and caste significantly determines both MWPI and MPI. This study also found that drinking water policies significantly influence MWPI and indirectly impact MPI through MWPI.

A temporal and spatial assessment of water stress with water poverty index: A case study of Rajasthan

AbstractThis paper examines the evolution of Rajasthan's water poverty status and identifies key areas where intervention is needed to address the state's water woes. For this, a modified water poverty index (MWPI) has been constructed using data from the National Sample Survey (NSS). To understand the spatial and temporal change, MWPI has been computed for all 33 districts for 2012 and 2018. Although the state's overall water poverty status has improved over the given period, descriptive data analysis reveals a decline in the resource component of the index. A deterioration in the index value of some of the districts' access, capacity, and secondary sources is also a concern. Given the dwindling access to safe, sufficient, and reliable water sources and an increase in the burden of water‐related disease, the study recommends policy initiatives that urgently and explicitly address these issues.

Water Woes

Water Woes

Water woes: the institutional challenges in achieving SDG 6

BackgroundSustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 envisions a future where everyone has access to clean water and sanitation. Yet, as 2030 looms closer, the complexity of achieving this target becomes apparent, with issues far surpassing basic water infrastructure and utility challenges. The underlying problems lie in broader spheres such as governance, policymaking, and financing.Main bodyThe global landscape of water management is marked by complexities that transcend the operational troubles of water utilities. Financial sustainability is a monumental task. And while it is true that water utilities struggle with revenue generation, the broader picture reveals systemic challenges. The true cost of water provision often extends to ecosystem services such as watershed protection. Often, these services are not internalized in the revenue models of utilities but are typically subsidized by governments or simply not considered. Balancing affordability for users with cost recovery for service providers, however, is not just an arithmetic exercise. It is also a question of equitable policies. Non-revenue water (NRW), resulting from physical losses such as leaks, theft, and inaccurate [or lack of] metering, exacerbates existing financial strain. Annual NRW losses are estimated at an astonishing 126 billion cubic meters, costing roughly USD 39 billion. But at the most fundamental level of achieving SDG 6 is misgovernance. Effective water governance demands consistent policies, coherent collaboration among diverse stakeholders, and comprehensive strategies that cater to specific regional contexts. Current models often suffer from fragmented policies, inadequate public-private partnerships, and weak engagement mechanisms. A glaring gap exists between academic advancements in water management and their practical implementation in policymaking. Moreover, international cooperation, while vital, reveals an unequal landscape in knowledge exchange. Knowledge transfer is often skewed, favoring dominant nations while sidelining voices from the Global South. This emphasizes the need for an inclusive, equitable, and context-specific global cooperation model.ConclusionThe road to realizing SDG 6 is multifaceted, and while on-the-ground solutions are essential, the real success lies in addressing the foundational challenges. This requires innovative financial solutions, reimagining water governance structures, and ensuring all voices, especially from the Global South, are heard and integrated into global policies. As 2030 nears, it is the synergy of governance, finance, and technology that will ultimately make clean water and sanitation a reality for all.

Water woes and vulnerabilities: a case study of Bally-Jagachha block of Howrah District in West Bengal, India

ABSTRACT Water is one of the most contended resources on the planet. The need and the un-ubiquitous nature of the resource is a reality faced by the Bally-Jagachha block in Howrah, West Bengal. Here, the available water sources are tube-well and piped water, both having Water Quality Indices of more than 300 and 200, respectively. This indicates that drinking water is unpalatable, making people vulnerable to diseases. Additionally, as is evident through the Water Poverty map, inaccessibility is an expensive, debilitating problem, as people have to travel twice in 4–7 min to and from the water source to collect it and then again spend more to filter the same. The Ridit scores thus state that people are overcome by water woes in supply, availability, consumption, quality, demand, etc., but yet have no alternatives like rainwater harvesting (RWH), despite people’s acceptance to it. Thus this paper attempts to collate all the problems regarding water and suggest ways by which the Gram Panchayats here can safely implement RWH and resolve the situation for the future.

Leveraging Chennai’s Complex Governance Network for Addressing the City’s Water Woes

Chennai’s governance network plays a critical role in shaping the city’s waterscape. Through an urban political ecology (UPE) lens, this article investigates the intersection between water as part of nature and water as shaped by social context, with a focus on existing governance networks. Using a combination of social network analysis and thematic analysis, the article studies data gathered from in-depth semi-structured interviews, workshop discussions with stakeholders, and extensive literature and policy reviews. The analysis reveals a need to reconfigure the urban governance network and the relationships therein to work towards a sustainable future for Chennai’s water system. The article concludes by offering policy recommendations to leverage the strengths and weaknesses of the complex inter-agency relations that shape Chennai’s current waterscape.

Water Poverty Index and its changing trend in India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a picture of the water situation of the states of India and to identify key areas in which intervention is necessary for sustainable development and poverty elevation.Design/methodology/approachTo understand the trend and situation of water across the states, Water Poverty Index (WPI) has been constructed. WPI has been computed for the years 2012 and 2018 to get a picture of temporal change happening in the region. Further, descriptive statistics were used to show the required changes.FindingsJharkhand and Rajasthan continue to be the worst performer in both time periods. Water poverty was the least in the states of Goa and Chandigarh for both time periods. Although owing to improvement in access and capacity component, the water status of India as a whole improved from 2012 to 2018 but few states have witnessed a decline in their water situation mainly due to deterioration in the environment and resource components.Originality/valueThis paper adds to the relatively scarce literature on the water situation conducted for the states of India. The findings of the paper provide insights into the lacking areas responsible for the deterioration in water poverty status. The results can be utilized for framing proper policies to combat the water woes of the country.

Investigation of Heavy Metals Including Arsenic (As) Concentration in Underground Water of Agra City using Arsenic Hydride System by Atomic Absorption Spectrometer and also Application of Geo Spatial Technology

Water Plays a significant role in our life. It serves the purpose of various Human activities such as irrigation, electricity, generation, industrial production etc. Water requirement in Uttar Pradesh is continually on the rise. In India ground water is being used as raw or untreated water for 85% of the public Supply of water varies widely from region to region and country to country. The prime requirement for sustainable development of a region is its water quality especially underground water. To check groundwater and sort out the contaminated region is economically very significant for the development of the area...Currently the potable water woes are global problem. This paper focuses on the ground water contamination of Agra city. It was selected for its importance as a popular tourist destination worldwide. The large number of tourists coming here use its water, therefore it is imperative that its water quality be monitored regularly. The present study is of mid-monsoon season 2018. For these 15 samples were collected using handheld GPS from randomly selected stations from different wards having easy access for regular sampling. The drinking water in Agra city is assessed for the following 8 parameters namely, pH, conductance, total dissolved solids (TDS) and heavy metals like Cu, Cr, Zn, Pb and As. and it is found that the concentration of various parameters is not within the permissible limit of water quality prescribed by WHO and CPCB. A GIS database of the measured spatial and water quality data is developed using QGIS3.2 and ground water quality maps are also prepared which will be helpful in monitoring the ground water quality of the status of the study area.

Mr. Clover Goes to Washington: Land, Water, and Fraud in the Mono Basin, 1910-1945

The water woes of the Mono Basin of the Eastern Sierra region of California did not begin when Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power began to purchase water rights there in the early twentieth century. Robert Marks argues persuasively that James B. Clover's water schemes predated, and in a sense, opened the way for Los Angeles later to tap Sierran snowmelt and funnel it down to Southern California.

Addressing Social Inequality and Improper Water Distribution in Cities: A Case Study of Karachi, Pakistan

Inhabited by almost 20 million people, Karachi, also known as the “city of lights”, houses almost 60 percent of the industries in Pakistan and is considered as the financial and industrial center of the country. The city contributes almost 12–15 percent to the gross domestic product (GDP), showing its significance in Pakistan’s economy. Unfortunately, with the increase in population, the city is facing a serious shortage of water supply. The current allocation of water among the city’s districts is not equitable, which has caused water scarcity and even riots in some areas. Surface water and ground water are the two primary sources of water supply in the city. The water supply provided by Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) is approximately 650 million gallons per day (MGD) against a demand of 480–866 million gallons per day (MGD), resulting in a serious shortfall. Keeping a holistic view in mind, this paper focuses specifically on proposing measures to address the gap in proposing concrete solutions to manage Karachi’s increasing water woes. It also proposes a water allocation mechanism and uses Nash bargaining theory to address the inefficient and unequal water distribution. Results indicate that our suggested policies and water allocation mechanism have the potential to simultaneously resolve the supply–demand mismatch and water shortage problems of the city.

Looking to the Rockies for clues to water woes

Looking to the Rockies for clues to water woes

Materials collect water from the air

Every evening during the summer of 2020, Xingyi Zhou went up to the roof of her lab building at the University of Texas at Austin to check on two plastic boxes containing radish plants. Plants in one of the boxes languished, while those in the other flourished, even though both grew in sand that Zhou and her colleague Fei Zhao collected from an Austin park. The key difference was a ground-up slab of a hydrogel mixed in the sand of one of the boxes. The tiny grains of hydrogel absorbed moisture from the cool, humid night air. In the mornings, the hydrogel gradually warmed up under the heat of the sun and released the water it had absorbed overnight, generating a humid, healthy environment for the plants ( ACS Mater. Lett. 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acsmaterialslett.0c00439 ). Materials like this UT Austin hydrogel could someday help mitigate the world’s water woes. Four

The Chennai Water Crisis: Insufficient Rainwater or Suboptimal Harnessing of Runoff?

Chennai experienced acute water shortage during 2019 summer, and four years prior, an earlywinter deluge. Analysis of 116 years (1901–2016) of rainfall in Chennai Sub-basin shows a weak climate change signal: Winter monsoon rainfall, has slightly increased, especially in December. The much larger Cauvery basin to the south also exhibits a nondescript climate change signal in winter rainfall. Late summer (September) rainfall in the Cauvery Basin has, however, precipitously declined in recent years (1987–2016). We show that this decline, as well as the mid-20th century increase, are attributable to natural multidecadal climate variability (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation) – cautioning against cavalier attributions of recent-period trends and the Chennai Water Crisis to climate change. Analysis of runoff – the rainwater leftover after its hydrologic and atmospheric processing – shows that harnessing even half of the winter monsoon runoff in the Chennai Sub-basin can satiate the city’s water demand for about seven months; and without needing new reservoir facilities. The present analysis suggests that Chennai’s water woes arise not from insufficient rainwater, but from the suboptimal harnessing of related runoff.

Bundelkhand Water Woes: Paradigm Shift is Needed in the Strategy

The Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, India, is a parched region. Although long-term average annual rainfall of the region is quite sufficient, yet, on a short-term basis, the region is experiencing a sharp negative deviation in rainfall. The region was once a densely forested area and was considered a cloud formation zone. The present analysis shows that the deviation in rainfall correlates with forest cover and calls for a paradigm shift in the region’s water resources management strategy to solve the region’s water woes in the coming years. The alternative strategy which may change the scenario includes increasing forest cover to mitigate negative deviation in rainfall, implementing group schemes of drip and sprinkler irrigation on a large scale, searching the alternative source of water by developing the integrated facilities to retrieve, treat, store and transport wastewater, enacting comprehensive central water law, improving water efficiency through the Internet of Things, cloud and sensor-based network and large-scale renovation of traditional water bodies as water sanctuaries for groundwater replenishment may change the scenario.

Solar desalination: Cases, synthesis, and challenges

AbstractDesalination will become an increasingly important water resource to supply a growing world population that will face greater water scarcity in the coming decades. Desalination processes are energy‐intensive and currently rely on fossil fuels that contribute to global warming and exacerbate the planet's water woes. Solar power, as a low‐carbon energy resource, can reduce desalination's environmental footprint. However, there are many logistical considerations to take into account when planning solar desalination projects. This paper examines six of these issues, which include: (a) the spatial distribution of solar energy and saline water, (b) modeling tools to measure the financial feasibility of solar powered desalination plants, (c) community approval, (d) interconnection policies for solar desalination plants connected to the regional grid, (e) combining solar energy with other renewable energy sources, and (f) potential carbon savings from switching to solar energy. The paper will conduct its analysis through four key case studies in El Paso, Texas, Abilene, Texas, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Denmark, Australia. The paper concludes with a discussion on how improved solar technology will further the economic prospects of solar desalination and an analysis of brine disposal options that include siting seawater desalination operations in waters with high circulation and explaining how brine harvesting could lead to useful economic mineral products such as sodium, chlorine, potassium, and magnesium.This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water

Harnessing Technologies for Mitigating the Water Woes in the City of Bengaluru

Industrialization has caused most of the world's environmental problems like climate change, water security issues, biodiversity issues among others. Water-related issues like water scarcity, lack of water quality, water sanitation issues, lack of proper water resources management are some of them. Urbanization, population increase, pollution has led to an increase in water demand. Water being the elixir of life, is essential for the day-to-day living of an individual. The Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies like AI, IoT, Blockchain, Machine Learning have the capability of bringing solutions to these issues. The current study focuses on the water woes of Bengaluru, a fast-growing urban city, due to its migrating population. The woes are also due to the irresponsible behaviour of builders converting lakes into real estate infrastructure leading to clogged drains, excess sewage creation and flooding. A huge mismatch between demand and supply of water is created due to these issues. Before the city hits the Day Zero – no water day, it is significant to set up water infrastructure along with technology implementation which will help resolve this burning issue at the earliest.

Harnessing technology for mitigating water woes in the city of Bengaluru

Industrialization has caused most of the world’s environmental problems like climate change, water security issues, biodiversity issues among others. Water-related issues like water scarcity, lack of water quality, water sanitation issues, lack of proper water resources management are some of them. Urbanization, population increase, pollution has led to an increase in water demand. Water being the elixir of life, is essential for the day-to-day living of an individual. The Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies like AI, IoT, Blockchain, Machine Learning have the capability of bringing solutions to these issues. The current study focuses on the water woes of Bengaluru, a fast-growing urban city, due to its migrating population. The woes are also due to the irresponsible behaviour of builders converting lakes into real estate infrastructure leading to clogged drains, excess sewage creation and flooding. A huge mismatch between demand and supply of water is created due to these issues. Before the city hits the Day Zero – no water day, it is significant to set up water infrastructure along with technology implementation which will help resolve this burning issue at the earliest.

Assessing Demographic and Water Sensitivities Arising due to Urban Water Insecurity in Haldwani, Uttarakhand (India): a GIS-Based Spatial Analysis

Urban water security is a growing concern in fast urbanizing Indian cities. Increasing population, urbanization and changing climatic patterns have great impact on urban water systems, such as surface and underground water resources. Although water insecurity is faced by all, population with lower socio-economic strata tend to be worst affected by the water woes. In this regard, it is imperative to assess water insecurity as sensitivity of residents towards water supply and management in the city at sub-administrative levels. The paper, thus, attempts to assess the rising water insecurity in Haldwani, a medium-sized city located on the foothills of Uttarakhand Himalayas (India), in conjugation with demographic and institutional water supply from the available secondary data sets. Using statistical and GIS-based spatial analysis, the study attempts to evolve a water sensitivity scale at ward level, simultaneously identifying lower socio-economic wards in the city through demographic sensitivity. The result is the delineation of those wards and population that show high water insecurity at the city’s administrative level, thus aiding in further facilitation of equitable water management at the urban level. From the study, it is evident that marginal populations continue to face water stresses since they are highly dependent upon water and water supplied by the city is insufficient for their daily needs. These wards also show high demographic vulnerability with respect to low literacy and high unemployment rate. The city faces threats of climate change as well; decreasing precipitation as well as shifting hot months will further escalate the problem. A continuation of this trend will worsen the water security in the city making the marginal population most vulnerable to the foreseen risks. The paper, thus, elaborates a methodological approach to assess the municipal water supply along with demographic patterns to aid in equitable and climate-adaptive water management in the city.

COLUMNS

Liquid biopsies and its implications on Asia Making precision oncology a reality Water woes: Fast-approaching global water calamity

Snow-related water woes

Snow-related water woes