Water Sustainability

TEAM ABCD
 Challenges – Water Sustainability
Sustain: to continue without lessening, to nourish, to allow to flourish.

Key Challenges:

1. Climate Change! - “Over the last three years we have had some of the hottest, wettest and driest seasons on record instead of our usual kind and gentle
climate.”

2. Policies • Climate Change Bill - The hot water we use at home in baths, showers, washing machines and dishwashers (not including central heating) emits
about 30 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.

3. Population increase Industrialization Urbanization - (i) Less precipitation (ii) Absence of Barriers (a) Rain drops checked by leaves of tree (b) Water slowly
descends through twigs & trunk (c) Humus – acts as reservoir (d) Tiny creatures – helps percolation

Important Facts –
 About half of India is facing drinking water crisis as monsoon got delayed and arrived without a brimming bucket
 A Niti Aayog report released last year predicts Day Zero for 21 Indian cities by next year
 The government has created a new Jal Shakti ministry to deal with drinking water crisis
India is the biggest user of groundwater. It extracts more groundwater than China and the US the next two biggest pullers of groundwater - combined.
Groundwater meets more than half of total requirement of clean water in the country. In 2015, the standing committee on water resources found that groundwater
forms the largest share of India’s agriculture and drinking water supply. About 89 per cent of groundwater extracted in India is used for irrigation making it the
highest category user in the country. Household use comes second with 9 per cent share of the extracted groundwater followed by industry that uses only two per
cent of it.Overall, 50 per cent of urban water requirement and 85 per cent of rural domestic water need are fulfilled by groundwater.
Solution
Mumbai could save water through its mandatory rainwater harvesting rule – but no one seems to care

To achieve management of water resources that serves society and benefits the environment at reasonable cost.To realise the potential public health benefit of low
cost, high quality drinking water by improving access, awareness and perception. To design future water regulation that is better at promoting customer service,
environmental protection and economic development.

Rain Water Harvesting RWH- process of collecting, conveying & storing water from rainfall in an area – for beneficial use. Storage – in tanks, reservoirs,
underground storage- groundwater Hydrological Cycle. RWH - yield copious amounts of water. For an average rainfall of 1,000mm, approximately four million
litres of rainwater can be collected in a year in an acre of land (4,047 m2), post-evaporation. As RWH - neither energy-intensive nor labour-intensive .It can be a
cost-effective alternative to other water- accruing methods.

With the water table falling rapidly, & concrete surfaces and landfill dumps taking the place of water bodies, RWH is the most reliable solution for augmenting
groundwater level to attain self-sufficiency. t is compulsory for new buildings in Mumbai to collect and store rainwater, but the municipal corporation has done
little to enforce this rule in 12 years. There is no clear data available on how many new building constructions have rainwater harvesting facilities. But if most
residents went looking around in their own neighbourhoods, they would be hard pressed to find one. 

Hence, We want the new buildings to have this. Rainwater harvesting in buildings involves collecting rainwater on roofs and other open surfaces and directing it to
large underground tanks or aquifers for storage and reuse. Collected rainwater can also be used for groundwater recharging. Storing rainwater in tanks is a more
viable form of rainwater harvesting in Mumbai, but there is little information about the success of its implementation in the city’s new buildings. Having rainwater
harvesting systems in place in a building does not automatically mean that residents of the building or housing society are actually using the stored water.