World Water Day: Ground Water May Be Out Of Sight, But Must Not Be Out Of Mind

World Water Day is being celebrated since 1993 by different countries on March 22 every year after approval by United Nations general assembly with recommendation of the UN conference on Environment and development (UNCED) to raise awareness among the people on various global water issues like water crisis, focusing on all about importance of fresh water, its availability and crisis in coming days, judicious use of this scarce finite resource by adopting various conservation practices.

The 30th meeting of UN-Water was held at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome during December 2021. Over 50 delegates of UN-Water members and partners and 23 observers from government and other organizations attended the meeting. Majority of the members have decided to celebrate this year’s World Water Day with the theme ‘Ground Water: Making invisible visible’.

UN-Water is the United Nations’ inter-agency coordination mechanism for all freshwater-related matters, including sanitation. It provides the platform to address the cross-cutting nature of water and to maximize system-wide coordinated action and coherence. UN-Water’s role is to coordinate with all countries, so that the UN family ‘delivers as one’ in response to water related challenges can be sorted out.

The world water celebration activities are helpful to enhance knowledge exchange and collaboration, and to raise awareness about our most important hidden groundwater resources which is most precious for sustenance of life. These invisible ground water resources are extending over 8.5 million km3 in Precambrian cartons between 2 to 10 km depth by considering 72% of the earth’s surface area beneath previously mapped Precambrian rocks (Goodwin 1996, Sherwood Lollar 2014, et al), but its availability is not uniform at all places and all times.

About 74% of world’s freshwater is stocked below snow and frozen glaciers which cannot be extracted for our consumption, while 23% of freshwater is available inside earth as groundwater and remaining 3% on earth’s surface in rivers, springs, lakes and reservoirs as surface water.

As per UN estimate (2018), more than 2 billion people live in countries experiencing high water stress and the situation is likely to worsen as populations and demand for water grow multifold. With the existing climate change scenario expected by 2030, water scarcity in some arid and semi-arid places will displace between 24 million to 700 million people (UN-WWDR, 2009), which is due to increase in intensification of climate change effects.

Also climate change is projected to increase the number of water stress regions and exacerbate shortage of water in already water stressed regions. As per UN report (2020), in the early to mid-2010s, 1.9 billion people — that is, 27% of global population — lived in severely water-scarce areas. In 2050, it will increase to 2.7 to 3.2 billion people. By 2050, the number of people at risk of floods and subsequent drought will increase from its current level of 1.2 billion to 1.6 billion. This is also due to global warming and receiving erratic rainfall received in different regions.

Ground water is an invisible and invaluable resource and we all rely on it for different uses — reliable access to water underpins health, economic opportunities and security in every country, and ensuring global access to safe and adequate water for all to meet basic needs. It is found on the pores of soils and sediments, plus narrow fractures in bed rocks. Underground water reservoirs contain far more water than the capacity of all reservoirs and lakes. Ground water is the biggest reservoirs of fresh water that is readily available to human beings, plants and animals.

As per available statistics, 64% of ground water is used for irrigation to grow crops and it is an important component in many industrial processes. Approximately 99% of all liquid freshwater is in underground aquifers. All of us are well aware that water is a very important commodity for everybody — for your home and family life, livelihood, social and cultural practices, for all well beings and to balance the temperature of local environment.

Globally, invisible ground water resources are under increasing pressure due to use of ground water for irrigation, agriculture and other purposes, but its availability reduces due to global warming and climate change effects. Our response to this pressure is often not adequate, due to limited awareness on the importance of ground water resources.

In households, schools and workplace, it can mean health, hygiene, dignity and productivity. Similarly in natural places, water can mean peace, harmony and prosperity. Water is an indispensable natural resource required for sustenance of life by human beings, plants, animals and other creatures and it has significant role in the economy.

As per UN report (2020), climate change impacts are mostly felt through changing hydrological conditions, including changes in snow and ice dynamics. As per a WHO report, increasing temperature on the planet and more variable rainfall are expected to reduce water availability, crop yields in many tropical developing regions where food security is a great problem. Ground water supplies drinking water for about 51% of the US population and 99% of rural populations.

Apart from being the basic requirement for sustenance of life, water plays an important role in economic development of the society. Ground water is the main source for more than 85% of India’s rural domestic water requirement, 50% of urban water requirement and more than 50% of its irrigation requirement. United Nations has estimated that about 2.2 billion people are now living in different countries without access to safe water.

A core focus of World Water Day is to support the achievement of sustainable development goal 6 — water and sanitation for all by 2030. It sustains ecosystems, maintains the base flow of rivers and prevents land subsidence and sea water intrusion. Ground water is an important part of climate change adaption process and is the solution for people without access to safe water.

Despite these facts and figures, invisible ground water is out of sight and out of mind for most people. Human activities such as population, economic growth and climate variability are rapidly increasing the pressure on ground water resources. Serious depletion and pollution problems are reported in many parts of the world. So World Water Day on ground water would put a spotlight on this invisible resource, enhance knowledge exchange, collaboration and thereby increase the awareness of the importance of taking care of our scarce ground water resource.

Ground water resources sustainability is a complex concept incorporating multiple facets and subject to differences in interpretation, depending on the interpretation and the specific local conditions. Due to diversity and complexity of issues, it is often difficult to recognize the role of ground water and adequately incorporate it in a decision-making process by all countries. Understanding complementariness with other issues and using ground water experience gained elsewhere is not so easy.

Access to water is one of the pressing global issues of 21st century. At the same time, water availability and quality are also under growing stress from climate change, pollution, various human activities, energy scarcity, land use decisions and requirements of industry and minerals processing. As per UN, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas by 2025. The report of The Hindu Business Line dated November 3, 2020, on water crisis in near future predicted that hundreds of millions of people in cities across the globe could face water risks and 100 cities will witness a massive rise in water risks by 2050. It includes Beijing, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Mecca, Rio de Janeiro and many more with a total population of 350 million people.

Cities across the world have paid a high price in recent years due to worsening water risks for climate change impacts, that is, historic flood and drought. To break away from the current vicious loop of flooding and water scarcity, nature-based solutions like restoration of derelict urban watersheds and wetlands could offer solutions. By doing so, we can re-evolve and re-imagine what the future of the cities could be. Furthermore, current water consumption and nature-based solutions to conserve water will also help reduce water risks.

The report of MERCOM India dated November 9, 2020, says that the global population of water risk could rise from 17% in 2020 to 51% by 2050. All this will profoundly influence agricultural production and food security, ecology, biodiversity etc. According to report of Worldwide Fund (WWF), some 1.1 billion people worldwide now lack water and by 2050, 3.2 billion people worldwide presently living in potential water-scarce areas will suffer from water scarcity of at least one to two months in a year and this may increase from 33% to 58% of the total population by 2050.

According to UN report on the state of the world’s water, the global demand has increased six-fold over the past 100 years and it will continue to grow at the rate of 1% every year. By 2025, 1.8 billion people in the world will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity and 2/3rd of world’s population could be living in water-stressed conditions.

As per report of UN food and agriculture organisation, there will not be enough water in the world to quench thirst by 2040. South African city Cape Town and Chennai suffered severe water crisis in January 2018. Except India and South Africa, the other nine countries to be affected are – Brazil, Jordan, UAE, Egypt, Japan, Mexico, Iran, England and China. Many countries face a growing gap between the amount of water they can supply reliably to their consumers and the amount they need.

Assuming continued economic and population growth, by 2030 water supplies can satisfy only 60% of the global demand. Closing the gap by increasing supply through desalination, drilling of deep bore wells or transporting surface water will be extremely difficult and expensive. So, governments will need to manage demand either by raising price of water or by capping the amount of it that users can draw.

Ground Water Summit 2022, to be held on December 22, 2022, aims at to bring attention to ground water at the highest international level. The summit will use the UN world water development report 2022 as a base and sustainable development goal (SDG) 6.

Ground Water catalogue on ground water management and governance tools are being developed and will be introduced during the UN-ground water summit. The ground water catalogue will be accompanied by a set of international ground water events/case events considered to be exemplary practice. The publication will be made available in a Wiki-format, allowing for easy access and updates. The other events such as awareness to be given to school children on use of reusable water container instead of bottled water, turning off the faucet while brushing teeth or taking timed showers to conserve water. Similarly, world water day photo contest 2022 will be organised by the Lions Club of Seregno AID focussing on the theme of this year. Out of sight, under our feet it is available as a hidden treasure that ensures our lives. As climate change gets worse, ground water will become more and more critical, so we need to work together to sustainably manage the precious resources. Ground water may be out of sight, but it must not be out of mind.

We hope that by providing awareness throughout the world by celebrating the event, there will be positive impact and people will gradually realise its crisis and start using this scarce resource judiciously. Also various conservation practices such as ground water recharging and rain water harvesting will be popular if crisis is felt by people throughout the world.

Most water resources experts suggest an integrated approach which includes increasing the efficiency of distribution network, utilisation of waste water for non-potable needs. Similarly, nature-based solutions and enhancing efficiency of ground water aquifer system through artificial recharge, improving health of river basins, watersheds and wetlands to build resilience to water crisis are needed as these could tackle ground water scarcity.