India’s Water Crisis — Solutions and Techniques from

across the world to prevent catastrophe

India — Our civilization grew around the Indus and Ganges for thousands of years and is still struggling for portable
water management. Our cities and towns have subsequently grown without effective planning for water distribution,
preservation, recycling and sensible consumption.

Accessible Fresh Water across the Earth

As you can see in the above picture, 97.5% of the total earth`s water is salt water and only 2.5% is fresh water. Out of
that 2.5% fresh water, 2% is locked in polar ice caps and glaciers and only 0.5% fresh water is left which is used for
drinking, agriculture, industries etc.

Factors causing water crisis

India’s water problem is being caused by several factors — increase in population, reduced rainfall, encroachment of
water bodies, poor handling of industrial waste water, exploitation of natural resources, change in food consumption
pattern etc. have all come together to deplete the amount of water available. Let us see how the change in food
consumption increases the demand for water:

Amount of water used to produce meat is more than wheat and rice. Meat consumption is expected to double by 2050
and it will increase the demand for water by 40%.

Solutions and Techniques from across the world

We need to look for new paradigms to obtain usable water from various sources coupled with technology.

Israel
Today, Israel is the most efficient to handle water crisis by adopting innovative technologies, dedicating its greater
resources and social consciousness to the water crisis.

Drip Irrigation — Growing crops even in the dessert

70% of the total available fresh water is used by agriculture. So its time to revolutionize the farming method to use
less water and Israel is creating wonders in this area.

Drip irrigation, an Israel invention in the area of irrigation process is the modern technique which is a type of micro-
irrigation that has the potential to save water and nutrients by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants,
either from above the soil surface or buried below the surface. The goal is to place water directly into the root zone
and minimize evaporation. Drip irrigation systems distribute water through a network of valves, pipes, tubing and
emitters.

Water efficiency and crop yields combine to save more than 70% of the water required for any given crop when using
drip irrigation than the conservative irrigation method.

Israel’s drip and micro-irrigation solutions rapidly spread worldwide. Just one recent example of how this method has
impacted food supply in foreign countries is Tipa, literally “Drop,” an Israeli-developed kit that has allowed 700
farming families in Senegal to reap crops three times a year instead of just once, even on infertile land.
Tipa is “a simple drip irrigation system that uses gravity when there is no water supply or water pressure coming to
rural areas,”

Waste water recycling

In many countries waste water is not treated at all, polluting rivers and oceans. Whereas in Israel, nearly 85% of the
sewage water is recycled and reused for agriculture.

Extracting water from the air

Water-Gen Ltd., an Israeli company whose technology captures humidity in order to make drinking water out of air.

Water Gen — An Israeli company

Their machine sucks the vapor from the air converts it to drinking water. Their target is to extract water from the air
with minimum energy.

Desalination — the process of removing salt from sea water

Israel, one of the driest countries on the earth with 60% dessert now makes more freshwater than it needs.
650 million cubic meters of sea water were desalinated in Israel in 2015

Even in India we have Desalination units but it is energy intensive. People say that energy consumption is more for
desalination plant. Israelis have come up with a great solution to overcome energy consumption problem. They have
come up with Solar Desalination process which cuts energy costs by 90%
The Indo-Israel water project partnership — is to find way to get highest yield of crop with actually less water than
ever used before in India. Israel is helping more than 150 countries in the world with their technology and practices
to overcome water crisis.
Peru

Fog Catcher
It is an invention which traps water drops from fog. In desert areas like the Peruvian coast there is a lack of water and
rain, but there is a lot of fog occurrence, mainly in the top of hills.

 They capture the micro droplets suspended in the air.

 They get trapped in the mesh .

 The little water drops caught by this mesh are collected by PVC gutters and flow through an organic filter into
a tank.
They get approximately 200 to 400 liters of water a day from each net. In Lima, 60 fog nets are installed and it
provides free water to 250 families.
The water collected is mainly used for small scale farming. It is not drinking water-yet but there are plans to start
treating it.

United States

Solar Powered Water

SunToWater Technologies ,LLC, Dallas, has invented an award winning solar -powered water generation
technology ,SunToWater, that creates clean, drinkable water out of air using nothing but salt and solar power.

Residential Water Generator and Commercial Water Generator

It uses a three-stage process to create a dependable source of drinking water that is cost-effective and
environmentally safe. The process begins with a unit that is about the size of an air conditioner, positioned outside of
a building or on its roof.

Once activated, small, efficient fans blow air over a natural salt-based element that absorbs water molecules from the
air. Solar heat then bakes the liquid out of the salt, and the humid air is then condensed and collected into a storage
tank and re-mineralized and exposed to ultraviolet light to eliminate any bacteria. The result is clean, fresh water that
is certified for consumption by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Other solutions to overcome India’s water crisis

For a country like India which has abundant water resources but polluted due to various factors should follow the
below simple solutions to overcome the crisis before implementing the technological solutions.

 Rain water harvesting

 Restoring and maintaining our water bodies

 Growing tress

 Mandatory Water recycling in all the apartments, industries and textiles.

 Reusing the waste water from RO. During RO purification process nearly 70% water gets wasted. We can
store and reuse it.

 Creating social awareness among the people about effective usage of water.

 Revolutionize the agriculture practice .

How can these modern techniques solve India’s water problem?

 India’s traditional irrigation method involves more water consumption. Drip irrigation which is already in
practice in India needs to be practiced efficiently across the country which will reduce the water usage in
agriculture. Lot of revolutionary methods has to be implemented in Indian agriculture to overcome the water
crisis.

 Waste water recycle to save our water bodies — As we know, most of our water bodies are polluted because of
waste water released by textile and industries which in turn got mixed up and resulted in polluting the water
bodies. Like Israel, India should also take necessary steps to recycle the waste water and reuse for agriculture
and industrial activities.

 Extracting water from air and fog are the futuristic technologies. Indian government should invest in these
technologies which can be implemented in suitable areas. For eg: extracting water from fog can be done in
Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Assam etc.

 We have seen states like Tamil Nadu, worst hit by drought during this summer. Many parts of TN has sea and
setting up desalination plants like Israel’s solar powered desalination plants will help in overcoming the water

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crisis