Water Governance and Climate Change Issues in Chennai (original) (raw)
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Law, Technology and Humans
The prevailing water crisis and problem of climate change demand a review of the developmental activities conducted by State of Tamil Nadu. While ascertaining a system to address the crisis can be daunting, integrated approaches, such as those that use technology, are fundamental to identifying and evaluating options for sustainable solutions. This paper explores the water–climate nexus through the case study of Chennai, the capital city of the state of Tamil Nadu in India. Climate change has influenced the behaviour and patterns of floods, brought about incessant rain and led to a shift in the monsoons. In addition, changes to the climate have resulted in a shortage of drinking water in Chennai. There is a concomitant problem of a large and increasing population. These elements warrant a discourse on law, humans and technology. In Chennai, the indifference and denial of political leaders have resulted in failure, and unsustainable measures to address the water crisis have been impl...
Water scarcity in Chennai, India
The main contributions of the paper can be divided into five areas. (a) It tries to explain conceptually, the institutional arrangements for water supply in Chennai and whether the state government's decision about improving the performance of the water utility depends on particular political circumstances. A plausible explanation is also given of the impact of ground water regulation on the supply decision of private sector (tanker truck operators), using a crowding out framework. (b) It discusses how Amartya Sen's entitlements approach could be used to understand water scarcity as a problem of some people not having enough water rather than a problem of there being not enough water, and in that light, to examine inequality in access to water supply. (c) The paper presents a water balance sheet for Chennai. While I do not use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, I suggest a possible framework to use such models for water supply policy issues at city level. (d) Aspects of water quality are discussed by focusing on the steps taken by households to improve water quality at home, and whether access to energy also contributes to entitlement deprivation of the poor. (e) Monthly household expenditure on water supply is briefly examined. These expenditures comprise direct costs, the cost of time spent in collecting water, and expenditure incurred in improving the quality. Expenditure on water is found to be positively associated with years of education of the respondent, water endowment, home ownership and location within Chennai City (as compared to residing in the peri-urban areas). The low income households do spend a slightly larger proportion of their monthly income on water supply as compared to others, mainly in the form of the cost of time spent in collecting water. Due to energy prices and lack of access to certain sources of energy, they may also be suffering from entitlement deprivation in having to settle for using water of low quality and increased health risk. (printed publication) ISBN 92-9190-105-9 (internet publication) 11 There has been some discussion on property rights in relation to ground water (for example, Moench 1998), but much focus in this literature seems to be on irrigation (for example, Shah 1993).
Chapter 6 Rivers and water security : Supply adaptation strategies in the city of Chennai, India
2018
27,000 inhabitants per km 2 , and this concentration has been growing at about 7.8% per year over the decade 2001-2011 (TNWRD 2011). Metropolitan water demand is 900ml/d for the urban domestic sector (households), while only 700 to 730ml/d can be supplied (Lakshmi and Ramalingam 2012). Hence there is a supply gap. Thus, extra-supply initiatives have been the main policy focus in the past, but the resulting desalination plants, alternative river-based supply schemes (out of State), the Krishna and Veeranam supply schemes (described later), and most other remedial measures have failed to improve the water scarcity situation, essentially because the major perennial supply system, the three rivers of Chennai, is heavily polluted and barely usable, while its alternative, ground water, is rapidly moving in the same direction (Deccan Chronicles 2011). Also, although Chennai has 100% pipe connections, water supply is intermittent, therefore what the metropolitan area requires is completely re-focused management initiatives designed to improve the quality, conservation, and use effciency of its existing river system (Deccan Chronicles 2011). Three main rivers traverse Chennai, the Kotalaiyar River (draining at Ennore shore in the north of the city), the Coovum River (Koovam) in the central region, and the Adyar River in the south. A fourth river, the Otteri, a Nullah or minor watercourse, runs through north Chennai and meets another but artifcial water course, the Buckingham Canal, that travels parallel to the coast, linking the Adyar and Coovum rivers. All these watercourses are heavily polluted with effuent and trash from domestic and commercial sources within the urban area. However, only one, the Adyar, which is much less polluted than the Coovum or the Kotalaiyar, is de-silted and cleaned periodically by the State government. This action is due to the need to preserve its protected estuary that forms the natural habitat of several species of birds and animals (Ramanujam, Devi, and Indra 2014). Finally, there are several artifcial lakes of varying size fed by the rivers that are located on the western fringes of the city: The Red Hills, Sholavaram, and Chembarambakkam lakes. These intercept part of the perennial river fows prior to the urban area, and supply Chennai with part of its potable water needs. Groundwater sources in the metropolitan area are mostly brackish, but are also used to supply the urban area. Historically, Chennai has often faced the problem of water supply shortage, as its three rivers are not major watercourses, and there is a consequent reliance on the annual monsoon rains to replenish the artifcial lakes and groundwater storages scattered around the metropolitan area. The city's ground water resources have also been depleted to very low levels in many areas, forcing many residents to buy their drinking water from suppliers whose source is further afeld, while even the monsoon can fail. Thus, most Chennai districts are currently water starved (Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage Board 2008) because of their inability to use the rivers as a source of potable water. The city of Chennai is itself part of the larger Chennai Metropolitan Area, which includes some urban areas and villages outside of the core city. In addition to Chennai city, the jurisdiction of the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage Board (CMWSSB) extends to urban outlying regions covering about 164.6km 2 , and
2021
Managers of urban water systems constantly make decisions to guarantee water services by overcoming problems related to supply-demand imbalances. A preferred strategy has been supply augmentation through hydraulic infrastructure development. However, despite considerable investments, many systems seem to be trapped in lackluster development pathways making some problems seem like an enduring, almost stubborn, characteristic of the systems: over-exploitation and pollution of water sources, distribution networks overwhelmed by leakages and non-revenue water, and unequal water insecurity. Because of these strategies and persistent problems, water conflicts have emerged, whereby social actors oppose these strategies and propose alternative technologies and strategies. This can create development pathways crossroads of the urban water system. To study this development pathway crossroads, we selected the Zapotillo conflict in Mexico where a large supply augmentation project for two cities experiencing water shortages is at stake. The paper concludes that urban water systems that are engaged in a trajectory characterized by supply-side strategies may experience a temporal relief but neglect equally pressing issues that stymie the human right to water in the medium and long run. However, there is not a straightforward, self-evident development pathway to choose from, only a range of multiple alternatives with multiple tradeoffs that need to be thoroughly discussed and negotiated between the stakeholders. We argue that this development pathway crossroads can cross-fertilize technical disciplines such as socio-hydrology, and social disciplines based on hydrosocial studies, which both ambition to make their knowledge actionable and relevant. 1 Introduction Urban water systems around the world are vulnerable in the face of climate change and uncontrolled urban growth (Flörke et al., 2018). This alarming situation poses a risk that may sever water security for billions of people (WWAP, 2019; UNESCO, UNWater, 2020). Historically, water managers have implemented large supply augmentation projects as their main strategy, despite the piling evidence of its shortfalls (
Water for a Thirsty Urban World
2010
The great city is that which has the greatest men or women, If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the world.-Walt Whitman, Song of the Broad-Axe WATER HAS STEADILY CLIMBED the global political agenda during the first decade of the twenty-first century. During the 1980s and 1990s, water was not an important resource issue in international environmental and humanitarian dialogue. Issues like climate change and biodiversity took center stage: water was at best a bit player. All heads of state completely ignored the fact that water scarcity was a problem and could become an even more serious problem in the coming years. Even at present, most member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) do not consider water to be an important issue, mistakenly believing that developed countries have resolved all their water-related problems. 1 This, unfortunately, is not the case. Developed countries have different types of water problems compared to developing countries, especially with regards to modernizing their infrastructure (some of which were laid more than a century ago and are well past their functional lives) and improving the efficiencies of water delivery and use. The fact is that for nearly all countries of the world, water continues to be a problem. However, the types of water problems faced by different countries are not similar. The magnitude and extent of these problems differ, and their solutions are similarly likely to vary, even within national borders. This is to be expected since countries are not homogenous-they differ in respect to the level of economic and social development; climatic patterns (even when annual average rainfalls are similar); technical, management, and administrative capacities; and strength and effectiveness of institutional arrangements for managing water. While the type, magnitude, and extent of water problems may vary from one country to another, the primary reason why nearly all countries are facing them is the poor water management practices of the past and the present. There are signs of rapid improvements in some select locations of the world, but in many other areas the improvements have been, at best, incremental, and sometimes even illusory.