Often Parched, India Struggles to Tap the Monsoon

[YankeyMCC]

This 3rd and last installment of the NYT Series "Thirsty Giant" seems to focus more on management problems but it is still relevant I think and since I posted the first two I thought I'd see it through for the third.



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India’s average annual rainfall rate hovers at an abundant 46 inches, as much as Ireland’s. Yet growing water scarcity threatens both farms and cities. With the population hitting 1.1 billion, the amount of water available to each Indian is roughly the same as the amount available to the average Sudanese, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
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India is likely to become even more vulnerable, environmentalists warn. Global climate change threatens to make weather patterns even more erratic. Steadily shrinking Himalayan glaciers will inexorably melt and rush down the flood plains.
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Part of the problem lies in India’s rapid and unruly development. As water demand has soared, the natural sponges of Indian cities — lakes, ponds, marshes, mangroves — have been lost to construction. Only a handful of city and state governments have lately begun to mandate rainwater harvesting to slowly replenish groundwater.
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This year, in the perennially drought-stricken agricultural region of Vidarbha, in central India, the monsoon was first tardy and then, unexpectedly furious. Those who had low-lying lands lost their crops entirely. In the western state of Rajasthan, a fluke downpour turned desert to lake.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/world/asia/01india.html?hp&ex=1159761600&en=8c1924ab05bbaabd&ei=5094&partner=homepage

PT1: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=68581&mesg_id=68581
PT2: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=68684&mesg_id=68689