India face the worst water crisis in its history, and 21 Indian cities will run out of groundwater by 2020, a new report from the NITI Aayog–a government think tank– said, highlighting the need for “urgent and improved” management of water resources.
Currently, many Indian states, including Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu, face water shortages, exacerbated by changing rainfall patterns, IndiaSpend reported on June 6, 2018.
The Economic Survey 2017-18 acknowledged India’s water crisis and explained the triggers, including rapid groundwater depletion, decline in average rainfall and increasing dry monsoon days, The Times Of India reported on June 21, 2018.
14 of 24 states score below 50% on water management, food security imperiled In 2015-16, 14 of the 24 states analysed scored below 50% on water management and have been classified as “low performers”.
“Water Index scores vary widely across states, but most states have achieved a score below 50% and could significantly improve their water resource management practices,” the report said.
“Given the combination of rapidly declining groundwater levels and limited policy action (as indicated by the low Index score), this is also likely to be a significant food security risk for the country going forward,” said the report.
Low-performing states show improvement Many water-scarce states have performed better in the Index, the report said.
Eight states gained 5 percentage points or more–despite the slow-moving nature of several indicators (such as irrigation potential utilised and area under rain-fed agriculture), said the report.
On groundwater augmentation, 10 of the 24 states scored below 50%, highlighting the worsening situation–54% of India’s groundwater wells are declining–said the report.
This underperformance–given that agriculture accounts for 80% of all water use–poses significant water and food security risks for the country.

* Only 20 per cent of the urban population has access to potable water.
GUWAHATI, June 24: The NITI Aayog has asked the Government of Assam to initiate measures for improving the quality of potable water in the rural areas.
Bracketting Assam with the ‘North-eastern and Himalayan States’ category, the Aayog in its CWMI performance report for the financial year 2016-17 pointed out the sectors where Assam needs to make significant improvements.
The report stated that in rural drinking water only 60 per cent of rural habitation have been fully covered, and there has been no improvement in water quality.
On the other hand with respect to the urban water sector, the report said that only 20 per cent of the urban population has access to potable water and added that no waste water is treated.
In North Eastern and Himalayan States, Tripura has been adjudged number one in 2016-17 followed by Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Assam.
NITI Aayog proposes to publish these ranks on an annual basis in future.
Of all States,ranging from 26 to 31, this low performance involves low score across almost all indicator themes.
The CWMI is an important tool to assess and improve the performance of States/Union Territories in efficient management of water resources.
The CWMI has been developed by NITI Aayog comprising nine broad sectors with 28 different indicators covering various aspects of ground water, restoration of water bodies, irrigation, farm practices, drinking water, policy and governance.

Puerto Rican officials claim that access to clean water on the island has been restored to more than 96 percent of residents, a sign that life in the U.S. territory is inching back to normal following the devastation from Hurricane Maria in September.
The storm knocked out water service to over half the residents that use the island’s utility provider Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA), according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The authority provides water to more than 97 percent of the island.
With no access to clean water in their own homes, many Puerto Rican residents were forced to resort to waterways, but even that wasn’t safe.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that more than a third of sewage treatment plants were unable to function after the hurricane.
At least 74 residents fell ill with leptospirosis, a serious bacterial infection contracted by consuming or wading in contaminated water.
Clean water, however, won’t be assured until the island has a secure power grid.
With constant electrical outages and faulty generators, water pumps can’t deliver water to residents’ homes in a timely manner, and operations are disrupted at treatment plants.
The island suffered a power outage as recently as April, seven months after the Hurricane first made landfall.
It was the second largest black-out on record worldwide.

In our study we assessed the water and sanitation facilities at primary schools in a rural town in Malawi to see how disability friendly they were.
Malawi has several policies that ensure that people with disabilities have access to water and sanitation.
This was particularly problematic for children who had physical impairments and needed to place their hands on the ground in order to access the pit latrine.
In addition, we found that some of the pit latrines were up to 114 metres away from the classrooms.
The latrine doors were less than 1 metre wide so wheelchairs could not access them.
National guidelines In our interviews with the pupils they raised cost effective solutions that could make the existing school infrastructure friendlier.
It also shows that special education teachers need to be trained on ways to make infrastructure at schools more disability friendly.
Malawi could look to countries like South Africa where a national guideline was developed in 2008 to allow people with disabilities to access toilets easier.
The situation in Malawi is likely to be consistent across other neighbouring countries.
Disability support UNICEF Malawi Malawian health Water access

This would have made it the first city in the world to run out of water.
Schools were closed for five days and people had to wait for over four days to get a little water.
It states that India is suffering from the worst water crisis in its history and millions of lives and livelihoods are under threat.
Situation in States The Water Index scores for FY16-17, which have been arrived from the data of several indicators — covering groundwater restoration, irrigation management, on-farm water use, rural and urban drinking water supply, water policy frameworks, etc — vary widely across States.
Several of the high and medium performers — Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana — are States that have suffered from severe droughts in recent years.
Food Security at Risk Most States have achieved less than 50% in the augmentation of groundwater resources, highlighting a growing national crisis — 54% of India’s groundwater wells are declining, and 21 major cities are expected to run out of groundwater as soon as 2020, affecting 100 million people.
States have also performed averagely on providing safe drinking water to rural areas.
With 800 million people, or 70% of the country’s population living in rural areas, this is one of our most critical service delivery challenges.
Moreover, India faces significant risks as the low performers on the Water Index are home to 50% of the country’s population and its agricultural baskets.
The poor performance of these States on the Index highlights a significant water management risk for the country, especially since these States account for 20-30% of India’s agricultural output.

It’s going to get worse, and it’s going to get worse in a big way.” — Steven Chapra, environmental engineering professor, Tufts University “When water bodies warm up earlier and stay warmer longer … you increase the number of incidents,” said Wayne Carmichael, a retired Wright State University professor specializing in the organisms.
Long linked to animal deaths, high doses of the toxins in humans can cause liver damage and attack the nervous system.
In the largest outbreaks, hundreds have been sickened by blooms in reservoirs and lakes, and officials in some areas now routinely close water bodies used for recreation and post warnings when blooms occur.
“It’s absolutely certain in my mind that warming temperatures are going to end up causing more of these algal blooms,” said Steven Chapra, an environmental engineering professor at Tufts University.
2016 Utah Bloom Sickened More Than 100 People In Utah, a 2016 algae bloom in a recreational-use lake sickened more than 100.
Officials only recently started carefully logging the blooms, but they seem to be becoming more intense, said Ben Holcomb, a biologist for Utah’s environmental agency.
“I don’t think any state is isolated.” In Lake Erie, a major bloom in 2014 caused authorities to warn against drinking tap water in Toledo, Ohio, for more than two days, cutting off the main water source for more than 400,000 people.
Officials in both states say they’ve largely been able to stop them from toxifying drinking water.
In Oregon, officials lifted Salem’s drinking water advisory after several days, but then had to re-issue the warning.
Officials also warned that dozens of other water supplies could be vulnerable, and indeed, when workers from the city of Cottage Grove inspected another reservoir, they found a bloom, according to a report by Oregon Public Broadcasting.

It appears we’re headed for a long summer with above-average temperatures and below-normal rainfall that would normally replenish Edwards Aquifer levels.
And by 2020, a ninth source will come online when Vista Ridge water begins its journey south to the Alamo City, providing us with 20 percent more water for the next half century and more.
SAWS has been able to accomplish this by developing regional partnerships that allow us to purchase excess water from other systems and investing in new technologies such as desalination and a practice called Aquifer Storage & Recovery, or ASR.
Once treated, the water tastes the same as Edwards Aquifer water and blends with the rest of the water in our system.
The plant can be expanded in the future to produce even more drinking water should we need it.
Located on the same campus as our desal plant, SAWS has stored away an underground lake of drinking water that could supply the city for nearly a year.
We accomplish this by taking excess water during rainy times and storing it in the Carrizo Aquifer to be used during times of drought.
In fact, SAWS pumped out nearly 17 billion gallons of stored Edwards Aquifer water during the record-breaking drought between 2011 and 2014, eliminating the need for harsher watering restrictions for San Antonio.
To meet the cutbacks, SAWS enacts watering restrictions to encourage conservation so we can manage our water supplies.
San Antonio is fortunate to be in this position when you consider the international city of Cape Town, South Africa, could run out of drinking water (dubbed “Day Zero”) sometime this year.

An announcement made by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) highlighted its support for an innovative technology that will improve access to quality drinking water in urban and remote areas of the Philippines through the use of hydropanels.
The ADB is collaborating with Zero Mass Water, Inc (ZMW) and the Philippine National Electrification Administration (NEA) on this new technology that produces drinking water from sunlight and air.
SOURCE Hydropanels is developed by the US-based ZMW.
The water flows into a reservoir where it is mineralised with calcium and magnesium for health and taste benefits.
Moreover, the panels are 98% recyclable and have a 15-year lifespan.
ADB has already installed a SOURCE Hyrdopanel array at its headquarters in Manila in 2017.
This is to reduce usage of bottled water at the same time serves as an opportunity to showcase the technology for possible implementation in different parts of the country.
ADB extended a grant worth $80,000 to NEA to purchase the solar hydropanels.
ZMW Founder and CEO Mr Cody Friesen said, “We are thrilled to partner with ADB and NEA to deploy SOURCE Hydropanels as an innovative solution to the many drinking water challenges in the Philippines.” He added, “The Philippines’ fragmented geography adds extra barriers for reliance on traditional water infrastructure, yet makes it ideal for our technology providing families, communities, and businesses with drinking water resilience in the form of a sustainable drinking water supply.” ZMW aims to make safe, high-quality drinking water available to people in developing countries through the use of SOURCE Hydropanels.
The company is partnering with its distributor, Green Heat, to deploy hydropanels across the Philippines.

Some residents of Grahamstown and other parts of the Makana Municipality have been without access to clean water for months.
This sparked outrage among residents and civil society organisations, which accuse the municipality of inefficiency and mismanagement.
The problem was first raised publicly by the social development and infrastructure development and technical services portfolio committees, which, on May 16 and 17, highlighted that high levels of E.coli – a bacterium indicating contamination by faeces or sewage that can cause a number of illnesses – were found in the water supply.
According to Flow‚ a Rhodes University student research initiative‚ there are two water treatment works in Makana – the James Kleynhans Water Treatment Plant‚ which supplies the poorer, eastern side of Grahamstown with water‚ and the Waainek Water Treatment Works‚ which provides water to the wealthier university-oriented side.
“Infrastructure and maintenance are a problem.” In 2015‚ the Makana Municipality hired Amatola Water to manage Makana’s unreliable water supply.
According to the Grahamstown Residents’ Association and officials‚ this left Makana without the skills or resources needed for water management operations.
So when chemicals needed for treatment were running out‚ which is estimated to have been about February this year‚ instead of alerting the minister for water affairs or the public as is standard procedure‚ officials revealed at the portfolio committee meetings that R41 000 worth of hydrochloride swimming pool tablets had been bought in an attempt to treat the water.
Months later‚ after independent tests were done in Grahamstown and the issues were raised at the portfolio committees meeting‚ the municipality was forced to address the issue of contamination.
Dali Mlenzana‚ the director of engineering and infrastructural services at the Makana Municipality‚ assured residents that the necessary chemicals had been delivered two weeks ago and were already in use.
However‚ he advised residents to continue boiling tap water for at least the next two weeks.

(WKEF/WRGT) – The Department of Health and Human Services released a draft report that examined the health effects of exposure to certain water contaminants Thursday.
The report examines the health effects of exposure to Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS) and Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA).
The chemicals have been reported in the groundwater at military installations across the country, including Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Representative Mike Turner (R – District 10) had written a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt calling for the public release of the study after it was reported that he was blocking it, and then to HHS Secretary Alex Azar to publicly release it after Pruitt said he would not block it.
"Today, the draft report of the study has been released to the public.
As I said to both Administrator Pruitt and Secretary Azar, this is a matter of public health and safety.
Based on this information, I encourage federal, state, and local environmental regulators to examine whether they are appropriately communicating the risks presented by and adequately addressing the presence of PFOS and PFOA in drinking water.
We must ensure agencies at all levels are using the most reliable data and best available science to ensure our drinking water remains safe," he said in a statement.
“We must ensure Ohio communities have access to the very best science when it comes to toxic chemicals,” Senator Sherrod Brown (D – OH) said.
“I’m encouraging Ohio experts and communities to weigh in as this report is finalized and urging these agencies to take those comments very seriously as they develop final recommended levels of PFAS chemicals.” “I am pleased that the administration has released this report because our communities deserve to have the best available information and science on the human health impacts of contaminants,” Senator Rob Portman (R – OH) said.