Date: 02/12/2022

Relevance: GS-1: Distribution of key natural resources across the world (including South Asia and the Indian sub-continent).

Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation

Key Phrases: State of Global Water Resources 2021, Global Water Crisis, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Sustainable water management, Water Security.

Context:

• Recently, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) released its first State of Global Water Resources 2021.
• The report can guide global climate adaptation and nudge countries with glaring crisis hotspots, like India and Pakistan, to take action.

Focus of the report

• The report offers an overview of river-flow volumes, apart from major floods and droughts, and also identifies ‘hotspots’ of change in freshwater storage.
• The cryosphere (comprising snow and ice) is highly vulnerable to melting in the global heat-trap created by anthropogenic gas emissions.
• Shrunken polar caps and rising sea levels have been familiar tropes but this report’s data is alarming.
• There is insufficient understanding of changes in the distribution, quantity, and quality of freshwater resources; the report aims to fill that knowledge gap and provide a concise overview of water availability in different parts of the world.

Key highlights of the report

• Key factors
  • In 2021, large parts of the planet were unusually dry largely due to global warming.
  • Although little may be caused by periodic anomalies of La Niña.
  • The global warming led water scarcity could get extremely severe as we go along.
  • Annual glacier runoff increases initially due to the melting of glaciers until the turning point called peak water is reached after which the runoff declines.
• The water scarcity impact
  • 74% of all-natural disasters between 2001 and 2018 were water-related.
  • As of now 3.6 billion people have insufficient access to water for at least one month per year.
    • This number is expected to exceed 5 billion by 2050.
    • This means that more than three people would be short of water for every person at risk of floods by that point.
  • For countries like India, too little water could turn out to be a bigger worry than occasional floods or related events over the next few decades.
• River and Stream flows
  • The area with below-average streamflow was approximately two times larger than the above-average area, in comparison to the 30-year hydrological average.
  • African rivers and rivers in some parts of Russia and Central Asia were all affected by weak stream flows last year.
  • Above-usual discharge was observed in southern Africa’s Zambezi and Orange rivers, as also a clutch of American, Chinese and north Indian rivers who are becoming more prone to floods.
• Monsoon and Rain
  • There was a rainfall deficiency in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia last year.
  • Even though India did not suffer much dryness, monsoon coverage is going awry which may pose a threat in the future.
• Terrestrial water
  • The most threatening area is terrestrial water storage (i.e. on the land’s surface and just under it) which needs close monitoring.
  • Last year’s data shows that north India and Pakistan are among the regions marked as ‘below normal’ in comparison with their 2002-2020 average.
  • Vast zones of these regions are undergoing severe groundwater depletion.
  • The Gangetic and Indus systems also feature on the WMO’s ‘hotspot’ list of rapid deterioration.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

• The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is an intergovernmental organization.
  • It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
• It has about 192 States and Territories as its members and India is also a member of WMO.
• Its roots lie in the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), which was established after the 1873 Vienna International Meteorological Congress.
• In March 1950 ratification of the WMO Convention took place.
  • It established WMO as the specialized agency of the United Nations for meteorology (weather and climate), operational hydrology and related geophysical sciences.

Recommendations and suggestions

• Informed climate adaptation and mitigation investments are key along with the United Nations campaign to provide universal access advanced technological solutions.
• Invest in filling the capacity gap in collecting data at the national level.
• Working together as a global hydrological community on developing annual State of Global Water Resources etc.
• Increase sharing of hydrological data at the international level.
• Development of end-to-end drought and flood early warning systems.

Conclusion

• The recent UN climate change conference, COP27 held in Egypt urged governments to further integrate water into adaptation efforts and the COP outcome document had made a reference to water conservation for the first-time is the recognition of its critical importance.
• Although we have our own water audits in India, the findings of the report are extremely important and should be taken into consideration and actions should be adopted by the World including India accordingly.
• India along with Pakistan are hotspots countries and they need to have a dialogue on water conservation for the betterment of the people of the subcontinent.

Source: Live Mint

Mains Question:

Q. Water security leads to food security which leads to national security. Discuss the statement in context of India’s growing water crisis. Also suggest measures to free India from water stress. (250 words).