Save water on Earth, not eye it on the moon

One hears that man has found 600 million metric tones of ice on the moon. An instrument on Chandrayaan has apparently found more than 40 craters with water ice, the size of the craters ranging between two and 15 km in diameter.

As per the scientists, this is one of the greatest spatial finds thus far as water ice would be able to serve as a natural resource for astronauts on future lunar missions. Alternatively, they add, this ice could be melted into drinking water or separated into oxygen and hydrogen to provide breathing air and rocket fuel for launching interplanetary missions from the moon. Finally, any moon colony that has been waiting in the pipeline for long years would find fructification with this essential natural resource.

In contrast, planet Earth has approximately 1.3 billion cubic km of water, meaning that a sphere with all of that water in it would have a diameter of 1354 km. Out of this, only 2.59 per cent is the total fresh water our planet has, out of which less than 1 per cent (or about 0.007 per cent of all water on Earth) is accessible for direct human use.

So, it will be ironical if scientists will now spend billions of dollars to trace water in space when a much more intense research on how to save water on our planet is what is needed today.

According to a recent World Bank report, by 2020 most of the big Indian cities will run dry, completely and irreversibly dry. As an example, Delhi has been reeling for years now. Of the 27 Asian cities with a population of over 10 lakh, the national Capital and Chennai have been ranked as worst performing metropolitan cities in terms of water availability per day, while Mumbai is the second worst performer and Kolkata the fourth worst.

According to one report in Nature magazine, the water table in Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana and Delhi is dropping by 17.7 + 4.5 cubic km annually. During the August 2002-October 2008 study period, the groundwater loss was 109 cubic km. This corresponds to twice the volume of India’s largest surface water reservoir.

What India, and the world at large needs now, is a total blue revolution. The water scarcity has become so big that a complete reversal of scenario would be wishful thinking.

However, there is so much one can do at the personal level to make a start. Take the case of Delhi. It has been over a decade now that the Government passed the rain water harvesting project for the Capital. All buildings and residential areas now need to install water harvesting apparatus but that’s just on paper.

No one, not the common man, not the Government (over 50 per cent of all water projects fail and less than five per cent of projects are visited, and far less than one per cent have any longer-term monitoring), not the local bodies and not even the residential welfare organisations have made any attempt to save or store water through harvesting. Last year, the rains were good but it looked so criminal that gallons and gallons of water pushed its way into drains all over the city and fell into the dead Yamuna when it could have been harvested and used to raise the dismal groundwater table that has in many areas hit the contamination level.

Being environmentally conscious is not a mass Indian trait though there are communities like the Bishnois who have long been worshipping and saving the flora and fauna of their regions. However, in places like Delhi there is a total lack of caring for natural resources. No wonder then that the baoris Delhi had in all corners have vanished.

Come to think of it, natural water supplies became the first casualty of modernisation. Take the case of Himachal Pradesh. You may be amazed to know that natural hill water supply is bountiful in this State. Till very recently, people in the hill villages used to consume only natural water from the streams and the caves. Not only is this water rich in minerals but also tastes like sugar. It is clean, hygienic and healthy.

But then came taps and man being naturally destructive forgot all about this springs and storages. Today, if you take a drive along the sinewy heights of this beautiful State, you will see many abandoned water areas. Nobody comes here anymore. They lie unattended and in ruins, dried up valuable water resources which should have been treated, nurtured and protected like heritage.

The point here is that no amount of scientific research can deal with human apathy to environment, in this case water. The human mind needs to be trained to respect what it has. Hence, an intense environment curriculum in schools is a must. The subject should not be a sidekick in studies but something as important as, say, mathematics. This needs to be embellished by parental training too as wasting water is endemic to the urban population.

Consumers may argue that as per statistics 85 per cent of water is used for agriculture, 10 per cent for industry and only five per cent for domestic use. But saving, rather conserving, this five per cent that would make a big difference — maybe not now but in the future. Or we will kill for water, as gruesomely as we today kill for money and property.

Published March 7, 2010, Sunday Pioneer; http://www.dailypioneer.com/240309/Save-water-on-Earth-not-eye-it-on-the-moon.html