World Water Day
2014: Holistic actions needed
SKT Nasar
The UN World
Water Day 2014 with the theme ‘Water and Energy’ has been celebrated on 22
March 2014 as a part of International Decade for Action ‘Water for life
2005-2015’. Nations have been talking for long but many of the countries sulk when
it comes to fair action. Only piecemeal programmes for patchwork are not
enough. The challenges are extraordinary that require holistic actions now.
Cyclic existence
of everything is an established principle valid for all aspects from God
Particle to Multiverse. These cycles overlap and are intricately
interlaced. Damage or snapping off of
the natural chains of cycles causes severe distortions, even disasters. Until functional
cycles are invented de novo, the only
option left to humanity is to repair the damages to re-establish the snapped
chains. So is it with liquid water on madre
terra.
Life on
earth cannot exist without water. The universal right to life indeed includes
the right to liquid water. It is a massive task to provide physically,
chemically and biologically clean water to quench the thirst of over seven
billion peoples as of now; and demands are growing exponentially. Industries
and urbanised landscapes require billions of gallons of clean water per day to
ultimately gush out contaminated effluents. Intensive and extensive agriculture,
in addition, require enormous amounts of clean water for irrigation. Erratic
rainfalls or over-irrigation causes flash flooding that drains out top soil contaminating
already silted water bodies. Agrochemicals of modern agriculture are washed out
causing environmental pollution. Mammoth drawls of ground water for irrigation
and other purposes disseminate polluting compounds such as arsenic otherwise
sequestered in deep aquifers. These waters, thrown centrifugally off course their
natural cycles, are not reinstated to natural states. This phenomenon sets off water-related
disasters.
Distribution
of water for all needs from source to destination involves high energy costs.
Cleaning of water for consumption by humans, agriculture, livestock, and
industry involves additional costs in terms of energy. Unfortunately, the
stakeholders, both producers and consumers, of these processes are apathetic to
recycling the abused water.
Water is
used to produce hydroelectric energy. Large dams for harnessing hydro-power
have shown potential for catastrophe of varied intensity. The hydro-energy is used
for providing water to all and also for decontamination of water. Fossil,
nuclear and renewable energy is consumed in addition to hydroelectricity to
meet escalating demands. Nuclear energy has shown the capacity for tragedies. Each
nation state should, by intention, laws, programmes and strict execution, make
it compulsory for each stakeholder to conserve water, reduce its consumption, and
to restore used water to its natural state at well-researched low energy costs.
All industries, including bottled water and cold-drink industries should be
made to comply.
The principle
of ‘Polluter Must Pay’ needs to be modified to ‘Polluters Must Restore and
Compensate Damage’. Moist agriculture rather than flooding- or wet-agriculture
should become the order of the day. Polluting industry and agriculture must be
discouraged. A palpable shift to using renewable forms of energy which is
costlier in the present-day economy needs to be made compulsory.
Water
and energy have become inseparable. While World Water Day is more or less of an
annual ritual, the real challenge is to make each day, 24x7, the
water-&-energy day a habit for every inhabitant of planet earth. Global
zero-tolerance common-goal policy and action programmes should be: ‘Sustain
water; Slash energy’.
S.K.T.
Nasar
Former
Director (Research)
Bidhan
Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya
(= BC
Agricultural University)
West
Bengal, INDIA
E-mail:
sktnasar (at) hotmail.com
