With an unusual monsoon, just enough rain is not what is needed - we need a better water-management strategy.
The 2009 monsoon has finally ‘arrived’— in many places with a vengeance — leading to flash floods and loss of lives. Taken in by images of rain and news of reservoirs getting filled up, our macro-economists are seemingly clueless about the damage the delayed and deficient monsoon will cause. Agriculture plays a marginal role in the nation’s GDP numbers so even if the crops fail it will not make a dent in the growth rate, they say. Besides the stock market is going up so all growth fundamentals are sound. In any case, the revival of the monsoon will help the next winter rabi crop as soil moisture and water levels improve in wells and canals. All’s well that ends well?
This is the most short-sighted and uninformed view of the impact of monsoon failure on vast numbers of people living on the margins of survival. We must understand why this temporary rain failure is crippling. It forces people to migrate; it pushes them into moneylenders hands as crops fail and it forces them to sell their only means of survival, their livestock. This is the beginning of the spiralling cycle of destitution. Drought is not just about lack of water or failing crops, it is also about non-availability of fodder for animals. This process of impoverishment is so adverse that rebuilding rural economies becomes difficult. Each drought destroys the abilities of rural communities to cope. It makes them weaker and more disabled to deal with the vagaries of the monsoon. Drought is not a temporary phenomenon. It is permanent and long lasting and it eats away at the very insides of the country.
It is for this reason that we must have a long-term plan to deal with monsoon failure and water shortages. The fact is that we must also do this in a scenario where the monsoon is being impacted by climate change. In other words, we no longer have just the natural variability — and that itself was extreme — to deal with in our monsoon. We also have to understand how this natural variability is being accentuated because of anthropogenic (human-made) climate change.
At a recent meeting of South Asian media professionals, B N Goswami, the country’s top monsoon scientist, explained what climate change means for the monsoon, present and future. First, studies show that global warming will make the Indian monsoon even more variable and less predictable. A recent study using daily rainfall data between 1901 and 2004 concluded that the monsoon has become almost twice as difficult to predict. The implications of this finding are enormous. It is not the failure of rainfall that debilitates farmers, but the lack of knowledge about what will happen. So, farmers buy seeds and invest in planting, only to find the crops withering in front of their eyes. This also means that India will have to invest big time in improving prediction models and computing power to keep up with the climate change impacts on the monsoon. This is what ‘adaptation’ and ‘coping’ with climate change will mean for our future.
The second key finding is equally problematic. The question that is worrying Indian monsoon scientists, explained Goswami, was why the summer rain is not increasing with the higher temperature — as predicted in all climate change models. So, was there no impact of climate change on our monsoon?
The answer should concern us all. Their analysis of rainfall trends over the past half century finds that there is a significant decrease in the frequency of moderate rainfall events and an increasing frequency of heavy rainfall events — above 100 mm/day. Worse, the number of extremely heavy rainfall events — when it rains more than 150 mm/day — is going up. In other words, rainfall is changing in its character: When it rains it pours. Just think of what this means for our water future — extreme rain, which floods and then flows away, leaving less useful water for farmers and leading to less recharge of groundwater.
It is important to understand these changes. We are at the water-cusp. On the one hand, our water demand is increasing with increased urbanisation and industrial growth. On the other hand, we are adding to wastage and degradation of available water though pollution. And we are wasting precious time dreaming of big irrigation projects, which do get built or fully utilised. We are not focused on what we can do this monsoon and this coming water stress period: Hold every drop of water in every tank, pond, forest watershed and even on rooftops of every home, in every village and every city. Then make sure you get value for each drop: More and different crops, more industrial productivity and much less wastage in our homes. It can be done. It is a water agenda for the changing future. It is a water agenda we must not lose sight off — even in the rain.
