Water Resources in India is vast and a country with vast territory. The western part of the country and the eastern half of the highest population densities. The southern part and the eastern most states are among the most densely populated countries in the world. In order to meet the increasing development needs of the people of India, water resources are being utilized with increased confidence.
Water is a very crucial cross-cutting problem, which is of equal importance when India is to make strides on development-related challenges, such as food security, fast urbanization, sustainable rural development, adaptation to climatic change, equitable allocation of environmental resources, effective and economical use of water, and hydropower utilization. All these factors are interlinked and contribute largely to water scarcity. The population growth is one of the main drivers behind increasing water scarcity. The rapid urbanization and economic development have led to the construction of many new settlements. These settlements along with farming have resulted in extensive groundwater pumping and other related activities. These activities have converted available water sources into poor quality and polluted water sources.
This has resulted in many water resources getting polluted and depleted. In addition, the rapid growth and development in the state of Gujarat in northern India have resulted in the pollution of groundwater resources. Groundwater is considered to be the major source for domestic purposes, such as drinking and bathing, irrigation, and agriculture. Besides, agricultural lands are classified as wetlands. They are very vulnerable to flood and drought, thus they require constant irrigation to keep them alive.
The demand for reliable and affordable drinking water is increasing day by day. A substantial share of this requirement has been supplied by the large dams built in the last few decades. However, the large-scale canal projects have failed to fulfill the demand because of the increasing threats posed by climate change. Drought and climatic changes have resulted in shrinking of the river basins and increased evaporation. As a result, more than a quarter of the water resources have been lost since 1970s.
There are many agencies responsible for providing efficient irrigation and drinking water to the people. There are also numerous projects, which are implemented to conserve and develop water resources in the country. Some of these projects include constructing of new reservoirs, reclamation of land to plant trees and reclamation of water bodies. These projects have been implemented to meet the growing requirements of the population. However, despite of all the above projects, the population growth is still increasing and the water supply is also declining.
There are two types of water resources in India surface water and groundwater. The surface water resources are used by the residents of urban regions and are mainly obtained through rivers and lakes. On the contrary, groundwater resources are found below the surface and are obtained through natural process. According to various researches and studies, groundwater is the major reservoir of the country and holds huge quantity of water. This reservoir is being progressively used for various purposes such as housing, agricultural lands and many more.
There are several reasons due to which the groundwater is being used widely in the country. Since India enjoys a great abundance of rain it is used for drinking water supplies as well as irrigation. In addition, per capita water storage capacity of the country is very high, as evident from the fact that about 98% of the total population of India uses groundwater for drinking water supplies. Irrigation can be done easily and naturally by using a single machine. It has been proved by recent researches that climate change is one of the greatest threats to groundwater that has been faced in the recent years.
Climate change has led to rise in temperatures and decreases in the rainfall that adversely affect the water use. Rapid urbanization and development in the country have also increased the demand for water use. Due to these two issues farmers in various parts of the country have found the need to expand their use of irrigation water. This has resulted in a tremendous growth in the demand for water use as well as for the construction of new cities in the country.