INDIA -- It remains to be one of the countries that are currently dealing with a water crisis. It is a reminder that the problem of climate change is escalating into something that can be likened to a climate emergency. The pipes on Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, has run dry. The same is happening to 21 other key cities in India that the government is anticipating what they refer to as "Day Zero." This is the time when the municipal water supply sources are no longer able to meet the demands.
Chennai is a city that houses eight million residents. It has become dependent on the monsoon that strikes the city during fall to provide the city with at least half of the rainfall that they need to survive. Last year, the city had a recorded rainfall of only 55% of what it normally gets. It was early in December of last year that the last rainfall came, and the sky has been dry since then. The residents of Chennai has to go through 200 days without rain, and it has caused residents to suffer from the lack of a good water source.
As the seasons changed and winter turned to spring, the temperature also rose to as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit, the four water reservoirs in the area have turned into puddles of mud. For several months now, the wipes have been out of water. Weary women of the communities wait for the water tanker with their brightly colored water jugs. Sometimes, they have to do this in the middle of the night. Just last month, June 20, the summer monsoon came a few weeks delayed of its usual schedule and it arrived with disappointing light showers.
Such a water crisis is not limited to the people of India. In fact, it has become perennial and global that it has spread in several parts of the world, including Cape Town to Mexico City and even up to Brazil. A significant number of the world population is living within water scarcity, most of them live in an area where they are unable to meet their drinking and sanitation needs for water fully.
The middle and upper-middle-class people who live in Chennai pay twice as much to water tankers just so they could get their hands on for clean water. Some of them drill water wells twice as deep as what was needed 15 years ago. In the midst of this environmental crisis, the poor are affected disproportionately. Around the world, about 780,000 people fall victim to inadequate water sources both for consumption and sanitation.
The story of water shortage is not just about the environmental crisis in India, but it is much more global in scale. Solutions need to be localized in the area. Governments should be acting based on the needs of their constituents at the local level. To be able to survive this climate emergency, the government of Chennai must devise ways to increase water resources using sources that are within their means.
