ARTICLE | Water Bodies & Cities
Healthy and free-flowing rivers are essential to meet the SDGs At a time when the world is facing unprecedented water crisis and is almost in a climate emergency, saving our rivers is of utmost importance. This month two global news about rivers attracted my attention. One, the Colorado River, for dying a slow death due to climate change; and two, 25 Cuban rivers for showing signs of good health due to years of sustainable farming. While the news of despair, of the Colorado River, represents the state of most of our rivers; the news of hope, of the Cuban rivers, is one among the few such good news we come across
W
e are dependent on the rivers for our freshwater supply, be it for drinking, sanitation, domestic, irrigation and several other needs. Besides these, there are several ecosystem services the rivers provide and without which it is almost impossible to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). About 844 million people in the world still lack even a basic water service. While that’s a huge challenge and a difficult task to be met by 2030, especially because the freshwater crisis in the world is growing by the day, another bigger challenge is also to progressively improving the quality of services to 2.1 billion people who lack water accessibility on premises available when needed and free from contamination (safely managed drinking water). The world is also tasked with going beyond household connections and providing access to quality water and sanitation services in schools, health-care facilities and other institutional settings. 2.3 billion people still lack basic sanitation services. Stressed rivers would not only reduce the chance of meeting the SDG targets but also increase the service gaps between the haves and have nots
40 March 2020 | www.urbanupdate.in
in a world where income inequality is growing at a highly worrying rate.
Colorado, the face of our stressed rivers
Coming to the Colorado River, a latest study has found that a regional temperature increase of 1.4 degrees Celsius over the last century has reduced the annual water flow in the river by more than 11 percent. At least 40 million people are dependent on this river and a dying Colorado may seriously jeopardise their water supplies for agriculture and other needs. Other snow-fed waterways in the world are facing similar fate. Another study had just recently flagged the concern of shrinking freshwater resources because of faster melting of glaciers of Asia’s high mountain ranges including the Himalayas. Data analysed show that the overall volume of meltwater rushing down the mountains each year from 2000 to 2016 was 1.6 times as much as it would have been if the system were in balance. According to experts, glaciers do store water for decades or even centuries before releasing the same into rivers. This helps water supply in the rivers even in drought years. However, studies have found that increasing temperatures are making glaciers melt faster than can be replaced by snowfall.
This could affect the water needs of about 221 million people each year by impacting the regional water security just within a few decades. The rain-fed rivers face similar fate. A study of Indian Peninsular rivers by researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology at Indore and Guwahati, that looked into the climate resilient abilities of 55 catchment areas of 17 rivers, has found that almost 60 percent of them cannot cope with the changing climate and may dry up soon. In a previous study, researchers from IIT Madras and IIT Bombay had found that some of the so called surplus river basins of the country are experiencing decrease in monsoon rainfall and hence may yield less water than expected. The decrease in water yield in recent periods in major surplus basins has been more than 10 per cent in the case of Mahanadi and West Flow River-I. In the case of other surplus basins, the decrease has been within 10 per cent, pointed out the researchers.
The rapidly depleting Colorado river, USA
