Abstract:
Water is the life-blood of communities and the prime determinant of the sustainability of urban region. Settlements have always located themselves in the proximity of easily accessible water resources in the past. The reduction in availability of this resource in the past has led to decline of major civilizations in the past.
High rate of growth of urban population has resulted in demand for expanded supply of good quality water. In future wars may be fought over water rather than petrol or politics. The trials and tribulations of people facing an up-hill struggle for water envisages harrowing future when not a single drop of water will be available if the present crisis is not resolved.
It is strange that two- third of the surface of earth is covered with water and yet it's inhabitants are thirsty. But the fact is only 2.5% of this is fresh water and is stored in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland and as Fossil Ground Water. Only 0.26% of this is accessible and obtained from reservoirs like lakes, rivers and streams. This means that out of a huge presence of water on the earth only 0.007% is available on sustainable basis and is actually renewable.
India may have entered the 21' century as a nuclear power. It might become a crucial cog in the affluent wheel of globalization in the new millennium. But it will be a bitter irony if large masses of people are denied basic water, to drink, to cultivate their land and to quench the thirst of their cattle. The water crisis has reached threatening proportions in the country.
