Examining India’s Groundwater Quality Management

Abstract

In a refrain familiar the world over, hastening to provide for growing populations and economies can often woefully outpace consideration of environmental impact. Unfortunately, the tune is often sung until oversight becomes a health risk if not crisis. That the tapping of Indian (and Bangladeshi) groundwaters for drinking and irrigation has led to widespread arsenic poisoning is a notorious example. In this special policy issue, Chakraborti et al. review the decades of policies that have caused India to reconsider its water resource management practices, especially as its green and economic revolutions race ahead.

Reviving the Ganges water machine: potential and challenges to meet increasing water demand in the Ganges River Basin

“…Increased pumping-recharge-pumping cycle associated with the GWM has the potential to increase or decrease groundwater contamination. On the one hand, increased return flows from the irrigation, domestic and industrial sectors could contribute to contaminating the shallow groundwater aquifers with nitrates, ammonium, phosphates, heavy metals, bacteria and salinity (Chakraborti et al 2011;Rajmohan and Prathapar 2014). Decreasing groundwater levels due to excessive pumping in the non-monsoon period could increase the inward flow from nearby surface water bodies.…”

Asia’s Wicked Environmental Problems

“…Utilization of this resource facilitates irrigated agriculture in areas far from rivers; groundwater was a key component of the "green revolution" that occurred from the mid 1960s (Briscoe and Malik 2005). In regions where surface water is available but unsafe for drinking or farming-over 70% of India's surface water resources are polluted by human waste or toxic chemicals, rendering many of them unfit for consumption (GoI 2009)-groundwater has often been seen as a safe alternative (Chakraborti et al 2011). Water supply infrastructure in urban areas is commonly poor and unreliable, therefore rendering well drilling the most economical means of obtaining household water (World Bank 2010); the local government estimates that 40% of the water transmitted through Delhi's mains system is lost through leakages (GoNCTD 2010, p. 58).…”

“…The state of groundwater quality in India is a major health issue from both a contemporary and long-term perspective (Chakraborti et al 2011). As wells are drilled deeper in pursuit of the falling water table, the water which is extracted frequently displays higher levels of arsenic, fluoride and other harmful chemicals.…”

“…As wells are drilled deeper in pursuit of the falling water table, the water which is extracted frequently displays higher levels of arsenic, fluoride and other harmful chemicals. The attendant health effects have been well documented throughout India (e.g., Mandal et al 1996, Chakraborti et al 2011, particularly in poorer rural communities where there is no alternative for drinking water. Geological contamination is often compounded by the broader hydrological effects of a falling water table.…”

“…Geological contamination is often compounded by the broader hydrological effects of a falling water table. Over-depletion of a freshwater aquifer can induce leakage from a contaminated external source (Konikow and Kendy 2005), such as saline water in coastal areas or surface water polluted by sewage, agricultural fertilizers, or industry (see Ramesh et al 1995, Chakraborti et al 2011 for examples in India). It follows that depletion of groundwater is not simply a case of drawing down a replenishable resource, but one of lasting and proximate degradation.…”