WATER: THE LOOMING FRONTIER

(Mains GS3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.)

Context:

• While world is still in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is airborne, world has forgotten that another such blight could well come from contaminated water.
• NITI Ayog and Water Aid, amongst others, have found that over 70% of India’s surface and groundwater is contaminated by human and other waste and is likely to carry viruses. 

Anthropogenic causes:

• Indiscriminate human activity is often the reason for environmental degradation and pandemics.
• The practice of keeping animals locked together for mass production of meat produces an artificial environment that can birth mutations in erstwhile dormant viruses.
• Earlier, in the wild, animals were far away from human habitats.
• The viruses they harboured remained isolated.
• But today’s practices can spawn viruses that can easily transfer to the human population.

A source of virus:

• Once the virus has found its way into the human population, it is bound to proliferate in wastewater.
• For example, in England, Wales and Scotland, several wastewater samples were tested and were found to carry traces of SARS-CoV-2.
• Remnants of the virus have also been detected in raw sewage across Sydney.
• Research at the University of Stirling in Scotland indicates that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can spread through sewage water.
• But such water is often discharged into water bodies in India.
• This is an alarming prospect for us as river water or lake water, which carries human waste, sewage, and toxic waste, can be a very generous host for viruses of different kinds and we do not know where and how they can mutate and strike.
• Some water-transmitted viral pathogens are astrovirus, hepatitis A and norovirus.
• Unlike in the developed world, a huge section of the population in India uses polluted water from sources like rivers, lakes, or groundwater for drinking.

Dilemma of technology:

• The government has announced a ₹3 lakh crore ‘Nal se Jal’ scheme to provide drinking water connections to every rural household by 2024.
• Since most of the water sources are contaminated, the only way to purify water is through reverse osmosis (RO).
• But though RO removes contaminants, it also takes out all the healthy minerals and nutrients required by the human body.
• This is an unhealthy and exorbitantly priced proposition.
• To neutralise the virus, we would need at least an ultraviolet aquaguard treatment. While this won’t take out chemical contaminants, it is also costly.

Conserve fresh water:

• No technological substitute for living natural resources like pristine natural water and soil.
• This means that we must conserve and use our natural living resources.
• The water beneath our forests is as good as natural spring water.
• We must safeguard it for our own lives and for future generations.
• We have destroyed our natural living resources in our rush for development
• Our development model is always focused on artificial infrastrusture, building highways, industrial plants, high-rise structures.
• In building infrastructure, we kill our natural resources.
• As a result, we are running out of natural infrastructure at an alarming pace.
• Let’s not forget that developed countries have stable landscapes and populations whereas India has a growing population, which means there will be growing consumption.

The freshwater sources:

• There are two unpolluted fresh water sources left in the country.
• The first is the water lying below our forests; the second is the aquifers that lie below the floodplains of rivers.
• Both these sources provide natural underground storage and are renewable – the rains provide natural recharge year after year and it is this recharge which can be used to water our cities and towns.
• The aquifers underlying forests can provide healthy mineral water purely for drinking purposes.
• Since a person drinks only 2-3 litres of water a day, the mineral water requirement is modest.
• Such a scheme can provide quality natural mineral water, comparable to Himalyan mineral water at ₹2 a litre, 20 times less than the market price.
• The river floodplains are a great source of water for cities.
• The Yamuna floodplains in Delhi already use such a scheme to provide water to a million people each year.

Conclusion:

• It is important to remember that these evolutionary resources, once lost, will be lost forever.
• Thus, Forests and floodplains will be declared as water sanctuaries.
• It is time we understood this is natural infrastructure bequeathed to us by nature. If we don’t realise this, it will only be our loss.