“They died because of the water problem, nothing else,” said Devi, 40, as she recalled how a brawl over a water tanker carrying clean drinking water in March killed her two relatives and finally prompted the government to drill a tubewell.
It is alright for bathing and washing the dishes.” Water pollution is a major challenge, the report said, with nearly 70 percent of India’s water contaminated, impacting three in four Indians and contributing to 20 percent of the country’s disease burden.
Yet only one-third of its wastewater is currently treated, meaning raw sewage flows into rivers, lakes and ponds – and eventually gets into the groundwater.
“Our surface water is contaminated, our groundwater is contaminated.
See, everywhere water is being contaminated because we are not managing our solid waste properly,” said the report’s author Avinash Mishra.
You fall ill because you don’t have access to safe drinking water, because your water is contaminated.” “The burden of not having access to safe drinking water, that burden is greatest on the poor and the price is paid by them.” FROTHY LAKES AND RIVERS Crippling water problems could shave 6 percent off India’s gross domestic product, according to the report by the government think-tank, Niti Aayog.
To tackle this crisis, which is predicted to get worse, the government has urged states – responsible for supplying clean water to residents – to prioritise treating waste water to bridge the supply and demand gap and to save lives.
Currently, only 70 percent of India’s states treat less than half of their wastewater.
The Yamuna river that flows through New Delhi can be seen covered under a thick, detergent-like foam on some days.
That does not stop 10-year-old Gauri, who lives in a nearby slum, from jumping in every day.

It took the deaths of her husband and son to force authorities to supply it to the slum she calls home.
But earlier … the water used to be rusty, we could not even wash our hands or feet with that kind of water," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Delhi.
Water pollution is a major challenge, the report said, with nearly 70 percent of India’s water contaminated, impacting three in four Indians and contributing to 20 per cent of the country’s disease burden.
"Our surface water is contaminated, our groundwater is contaminated.
See, everywhere water is being contaminated because we are not managing our solid waste properly," said the report’s author Avinash Mishra.
You fall ill because you don’t have access to safe drinking water, because your water is contaminated."
"The burden of not having access to safe drinking water, that burden is greatest on the poor and the price is paid by them."
Crippling water problems could shave 6 per cent off India’s gross domestic product, according to the report by the government think-tank, Niti Aayog.
To tackle this crisis, which is predicted to get worse, the government has urged states – responsible for supplying clean water to residents – to prioritise treating waste water to bridge the supply and demand gap and to save lives.
Currently, only 70 per cent of India’s states treat less than half of their wastewater.

LONDON, June 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – With dusty desert sprawled across the region, Middle Eastern and north African nations must prepare better for drought as water shortages look set to worsen, the United Nations said on Friday.
Over the past 40 years, droughts have become longer and more frequent in the region, where fresh water resources are among the world’s lowest, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
That will likely worsen due to climate change, it added.
“We need to perceive and manage droughts differently, and shift from emergency response to more proactive policy and long-term planning to reduce risks and build greater resilience,” Rene Castro, deputy head at FAO’s climate office, said in a statement.
The report recommended growing crops that need less water, using more water-efficient irrigation systems, or lowering the amount of livestock to prevent over-grazing.
Some villages in southwest Morocco on the edge of the Sahara desert have also been using a fog collection project to turn mist into water to tackle water shortages.
Swelling populations and food demands, combined with even scarcer water and land resources, could lead to a doubling of food prices and trigger civil unrest in some developing countries, the United Nations has said.
Water scarcity already affects more than 40 percent of the world’s population, according to the U.N.’s 2018 World Water Development Report.
(Reporting by Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian issues, conflicts, land and property rights, modern slavery and human trafficking, gender equality, climate change and resilience.
Visit news.trust.org to see more stories)

ISLAMABAD, June 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Pakistan’s water crisis has become increasingly visible in recent months: levels in the largest dams are low; parched irrigation canals mean farmers in the south planted less cotton; and the commercial capital Karachi has long queues at hydrants.
In March, IRSA said the dams had, for the first time in 15 years, reached the “dead level”: the point at which their water cannot be drained by gravity, and can only be pumped out.
“We will go down to 500 cubic metres per person per year.” The impact of climate change will cut that another 20 percent, he said, to 400 cubic metres.
The policy, which was delayed more than a decade, covers an array of water-related issues: from the impact of climate change to hydropower, from transboundary water-sharing to irrigated and rain-fed agriculture, and from drinking water to sanitation.
Amir said its 41 pages have 33 objectives, and that makes it hard to convert it into an action plan.
But in practice such high-level councils rarely meet.
Given that most of the Indus water is used in agriculture, he said, the policy should focus on that.
Pakistan must improve how efficiently water is used in all sectors, the GCISC’s Banuri told the CSCCC meeting.
Poor water use is a key part of the problem, agreed Hammad Naqi Khan, who heads WWF-Pakistan, an environmental non-profit.
That will be something for the next government to consider.

by Jared Ferrie | @jaredferrie | Thomson Reuters Foundation Tuesday, 29 May 2018 13:57 GMT May 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Millions of Afghans face hunger after a drought decimated crops in the war-ravaged country, U.N. officials said on Tuesday, calling for an extra $115 million to help families buy food.
Some rivers and water points have totally dried up, and the last wheat harvest has been "completely lost", according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
"Six months down the road, millions of people could be in a situation of untenable hunger without knowing where their next meal will come from," said Toby Lanzer, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan.
Already, the drought has forced 21,000 people to leave their homes and settle on the outskirts of the western city of Herat, said OCHA.
"People prefer cash, which allows them to buy what they need most," he said.
The U.N. is revising its humanitarian appeal for 2018 because of the drought, and says it needs an extra $115 million to help 1.4 million of the hardest-hit people.
The drought has also hurt nomadic herders known as Kuchis, as pasturelands have dried up in some areas, including the northeastern provinces of Badakhshan and Kunduz.
Prices for sheep have fallen by as much as 40 percent, but many Kuchis are selling them out of desperation, according to OCHA’s report.
"In Helmand, village elders reportedly need to obtain special approval from the armed groups controlling their districts to access markets in areas under government control," said the bulletin.
The cost of wheat shot up by 50 percent and produce prices quadrupled in Kandahar City when roads were temporarily closed in April due to fighting, it said.

NEW YORK, May 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Thirsty Middle Eastern and North African countries could tap into their solar-energy potential to cope with fresh water scarcity, according to resource experts.
Water could be saved by switching to renewable solar energy from fossil fuel electricity generation that uses up water, said the World Resources Institute (WRI).
The findings show moving to clean energy has benefits aside from cutting planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, said Tianyi Luo, a senior WRI manager.
Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan ranked among the top countries, measured by lack of freshwater and solar energy potential, that could benefit from such a switch, the WRI said.
Put another way, powering one 60-watt incandescent light bulb for 12 hours over one a year can consume 3,000 to 6,000 gallons of water, according to the U.S.-based Virginia Water Resources Research Center.
Solar panels, meanwhile, require little or no water to install and maintain.
Yemen, an impoverished nation in the grip of civil war, topped the WRI ranking in terms of water scarcity and how much potential electricity solar farms could produce.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, ranked third.
The project is expected to have the capacity to produce up to 200 gigawatts by 2030.
(Reporting by Sebastien Malo @sebastienmalo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst

But in India, “Day Zero” has come and gone for residents in many parts of the country, where taps failed long ago and people have turned instead to digging wells or buying water.
An expanding population, growing demand for water from agriculture and industry, and poor management of water supplies have sent India’s groundwater to ever lower levels.
That reality, combined with rising temperatures, threatens worsening scarcity, experts say.
Nearly 163 million people among India’s population of 1.3 billion – or more than one in 10 – lack access to clean water close to their home, according to a 2018 WaterAid report.
India is entangled in water disputes with its eastern and western neighbors – Bangladesh and Pakistan – which accuse it of monopolizing water flows moving downstream toward them.
To the north and northeast, however, India fears a loss of water to upstream China, which plans a series of dams over the Tsangpo river, called the Brahmaputra as it flows into eastern India.
While India’s trans-boundary rivers are governed by treaties on how water should be shared, disputes are increasing as water shortages stoke tensions.
Bengaluru, once known as the “city of lakes”, now relies heavily on groundwater, which is not being naturally replenished and cannot sustain the growing population, said Sushmita Sengupta at CSE.
“These will, in turn, increase tensions between states and countries over water.
Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience.

But in India, “Day Zero” has come and gone for residents in many parts of the country, where taps failed long ago and people have turned instead to digging wells or buying water.
An expanding population, growing demand for water from agriculture and industry, and poor management of water supplies have sent India’s groundwater to ever lower levels.
That reality, combined with rising temperatures, threatens worsening scarcity, experts say.
That is the most of any country in the world, according to the UK-based charity, which aims to provide clean water and better hygeiene to people without them.
India is entangled in water disputes with its eastern and western neighbours – Bangladesh and Pakistan – which accuse it of monopolising water flows moving downstream toward them.
To the north and northeast, however, India fears a loss of water to upstream China, which plans a series of dams over the Tsangpo river, called the Brahmaputra as it flows into eastern India.
While India’s trans-boundary rivers are governed by treaties on how water should be shared, disputes are increasing as water shortages stoke tensions.
Apart from in Bhutan and Nepal, South Asia’s per capita water availability is already below the world average.
“These will, in turn, increase tensions between states and countries over water.
Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience.

It appears citizens are largely heeding the call to “beat Day Zero”, the date reservoirs are expected to have shrunk so low authorities will have to shut off taps in the city’s homes, forcing people to line-up for water at 200 collection points.
At the start of February, the city asked residents to use only 50 litres or less each per day, and provided an online water calculator to help people work out how to do that.
The coastal city of about 4 million people has now cut its consumption to 526 million litres per day, about half the more than 1 billion litres used two years ago, Neilson noted.
“If we continue to work as a team to lower our consumption to 450 million litres per day, as required, we will become known as one of the most resilient cities in the world,” he said.
“It is going be a part of what we term the new normal,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that other municipalities in South Africa would need to conserve water too.
Councilor Limberg said water was a basic human right, and local government had a responsibility “to ensure access”.
He and others said the central government had been too slow to declare the water situation in the Western Cape a national disaster – a move it finally made on Tuesday.
“The political squabbling has resulted in paralysis of responses and planning to deal with the water crisis,” said Mavhinga of Human Rights Watch.
“There is knowledge in South Africa on the ground level, but it comes down to politicians who have to put the stamp of approval on these things,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation after visiting Cape Town.
Councilor Limberg said Cape Town had suffered from unreliable weather, which was out of line with predictions by the South African meteorological services and related to global warming.

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Drought-stricken Cape Town could run out of water as soon as April, but South Africa is not alone in its struggle as ever more world cities battle acute water shortages. Water scarcity already affects more than 40 percent of the world’s population and is expected to rise due to global warming, with one in four people projected to face chronic or recurring shortages by 2050, according to the United Nations. Already hosting more than half the world’s people, cities are at the forefront of the problem, as population growth increases pressure on reserves, which are already stretched by too little rain and too much waste. Following are some of the crisis cities: SAO PAULO The reservoir supplying Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and a metropolitan region of 20 million people, nearly dried up in 2015, as the country faced its worst drought in 80 years, depriving many residents of water for 12 hours a day. The city was criticized by U.N. experts for losing 31 percent of its treated water to leaks and theft, compared to an average of…