Water sustainability: Assessment of water resources

Growing water demand has put a burden on the availability and quality of water resources present in India. In 2010, per capita water availability was 1608 m3, which is expected to decrease to 1341 m3 by 2025 and to 1140 m3 by 2050. Factors accounting for this substantial decrease in availability of water resources are climate change, impact of urbanization and land use changes, energy choices of people, and growing populations. Change in climatic conditions leads to decrease in water availability and increase in water demand. Thus, it becomes difficult to cater for the water demand of the ever-increasing population. Climate change has also amended the water cycle in innumerable ways, leading to decreasing availability in water resources. Also, expanding impervious surfaces have altered the amount of percolation of water and thus declining ground water recharge. In some areas of the country, increased dependency on groundwater resources have burdened the aquifers in that region. Changing dynamics of water resources of India has an adverse impact on different economic sectors as well. Moreover, it becomes a critical issue in a country which is expected to reach the population of 1.6 billion by 2050. Thus, there is a need of monitoring and managing the water resources to avoid the problem of water shortage or degrading water quality in future. This paper explains in detail the reasons behind depleting water resources, focusing on impacts of climatic change and assesses the depleting water resources of hill town Nainital, Uttarakhand.