When Chennai needed rescue trains laden with water during its recent water crisis we sat up and took notice. But public memory is short and we tend to quickly turn such crisis to a topic of mere reference in ‘chai pe charcha’. But there are nations who are taking note – especially the ones who are in dire straits with a perennially short supply of freshwater. To Israel, for example, water is part of its security issue. To Australia, during its millennium drought (1997-2009), it meant searching for a price solution to the water crisis. The Australian solution is now being referred to as a model to follow globally.

Let us now turn to a few facts. According to environmental assessments, by 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in water-scarce areas. More importantly, by that time two-third of the world population will live in water-stressed areas. And according to NASA, we are depleting freshwater faster than the ability of nature to replenish it.

Scientists, therefore, are turning to ways of processing seawater into freshwater supplies given the fact that 97.5 per cent of the water available on the earth is accounted for by the seas and currently unfit for human consumption. But that again will have an environmental impact as it would require a bump in the energy consumption. Anything that we do to raise our energy consumption will add to the carbon footprint that in turn will lead to enhanced global warming.

The civilization is already caught in a vicious cycle of the environmental crisis of destructive proportion. Take, for example, the fact that glaciers and ice caps are depositories of global freshwater supply. Sixty-eight per cent of the global freshwater comes from the ice caps and glaciers. Due to global warming, they are melting fast depleting the freshwater reservoir of the world.

If we take into account agriculture, source of our food supply, that accounts for seventy per cent freshwater consumption we can see a disaster unfolding. Most of the water used by agriculture is pumped either from underground or from irrigation facilities sourced from rivers by interfering with their natural flow. That, in turn, interferes with the underground natural way of water recharge.

In India, the Ganga basin’s ability to recharge is depleting fast due to the increasing need for irrigation with the Ganga an important source of Agri water needs. Add to that an increase in population leading to higher demand for food and consequently increased demand for energy to pump water and the entire disaster dynamics become clear.

The issue at stake here is for us to realize that nature doesn’t work in isolation. While rains are needed for us to survive, the excessive and irregular occurrence of events like floods works negatively. Incessant floods destroy topsoil and reduce the earth’s ability to sponge water and recharge aquifers robbing us of freshwater supply. Greater carbon footprint is creating global warming that in turn is melting the glaciers and ice caps – our repository of freshwater.

Think of going through a day without water and then imagine earth dry of freshwater supply – it sounds ominous. Doesn’t it? Therefore the time has come for us to think seriously about survival. If we don’t take notice even now, we will sign the death sentence of our entire race!