The Hindu Business Line : Water crisis is mostly man-made

SHORTAGE of drinking water right from February onwards and till the onset of southwest monsoons in June seems to have become a recurring phenomenon in the State, despite its receiving on an average copious rainfall of 3,000 mm almost every year.

In the past, even when there was a deficiency of about 10 to 25 per cent in the monsoons, drinking water scarcity was less comparatively. But, in recent years, the situation has gone from bad to worse in the State, which has 44 rivers and vast expanses of backwaters. For the current predicament the reasons attributed by experts here are mainly degradation of forests, shrinkage of wetlands and indiscriminate sand mining from rivers, all man-made.

During the rainy season, the tropical forests retain rainwater and allow it to percolate. Around 40 to 50 per cent of the rainwater, which falls in the forest area, is thus retained in the soil and this replenishes the underground water table. This, in turn, would flow down in small streams to the rivers.

Large-scale deforestation in recent years has reduced the forest cover to around 10 per cent of the total area of Kerala, from around 30 per cent few decades ago. Kerala has now only around 10,000 sq.km of actual forest vegetation cover in the State's total area of 39,000 sq. km, environmental activists pointed out.

One of the reasons attributed to the encroachment on forestland is high density of population and pressure on land. The size of the land holdings in the State has become quite small, the average size of the holdings being less than 0.4 hectare. About 90 per cent of the holdings is below half a hectare in size.

The extreme pressure on land has resulted in large-scale encroachment of forestlands resulting in the denudation of the green canopy of the State, says a State Planning Board report. "This has had its adverse impact on the ecology of many parts of the state and has been one of the major causes of frequent occurrence of droughts and floods and of degradation of lands in hilly areas," it said.

The catchment areas receive about 60 per cent of the monsoon rains during June-August and 25 to 30 per cent during September - November. The balance 10 to 15 per cent rainfall is spread over the remaining six months. But, the unfortunate part is that the entire rainwater received in the high ranges flows down to the backwaters and sea in less than 48 hours.

The solution to arrest this phenomenon, in the absence of adequate dense tropical forest cover, is to take up watershed programmes by constructing check dams in the high ranges and down streams at various points. But, this has not been implemented effectively in the State , the activists alleged.

Because of the ecological activity sand used to accumulate and spread in the rivers in 10 to 12 feet thickness. This sand-bed used to play an important role in regulating water flow apart from retaining and spreading of the water from the river.

This natural activity is not allowed to take place now due to indiscriminate mining of river sand, which has deepened the riverbed by 3 to 6 meters in most of the major rivers. It has also resulted in changing the ecological balance besides pushing down the underground water table, Mr N.K.S. Nair, General Secretary, Pampa Parirakshana Samiti told Business Line.

Filling up of kulams (ponds) and removal of kavus (sacred groves), which used to help maintain the ecological balance are also responsible for the drop in groundwater table, he said.

On the other hand, the water carrying capacity of the Vembanadu Wetland system has been reduced to an abysmal 0.6km3 from 2.4km2 with a decline of 75 per cent, he pointed out. Kuttanadu, the rice bowl of Kerala, is in this region, where rice cultivation is done in about 53,000 hectares.

The situation will deteriorate further in the coming years, if the Union Ministry of Water Resources' proposed Pampa-Achankoil- Vaipar Link Project is implemented, says environmental experts.

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