The Hindu Business Line : The coming drought

Last week's warning from Britain's Meteorological Office that 2007 is set to be the hottest year on record worldwide could mean that a severe drought is likely in Kerala this year.

Long before economic and financial globalisation unified the world in an occasionally abrasive manner, there was one aspect of commercial life that was long more comfortably globalised - climate.

Thus, in the 17th and 18th centuries, sailing ships used winds to establish "trade" with the New World.

These "trade winds" - the prevailing winds in the tropics, blowing from the high-pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the low-pressure area around the equator - aided the progress of the ships and hence the trade of goods carried by those ships.

These days, trade may not be so directly linked to climate, but the global inter-linkages of changes in climate and weather patterns are bound to have a profound impact on official policy making. Thus last week's warning from Britain's Meteorological Office that the current year is set to be the hottest on record worldwide due to global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon, had an immediate reaction from the Kerala Government.

The State Minister for Water Resources, Mr N.K. Premachandran, told the media that a severe drought was likely in Kerala this year on account of this dire prediction. Britain's Met Office makes a global forecast every January with the University of East Anglia. This time around, it said it expected the world's average temperature to be 0.54 degree Celsius above the 1961-1990 long-term average of 14 degrees. A combination of factors, it said, would probably push average temperatures this year above the record set in 1998.

"This new information represents another warning that climate change is happening around the world," said Met Office scientist Katie Hopkins. The world's 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1994 in a temperature record dating back a century and a half, according to the United Nations' weather agency.

While scientific consensus on the issue is not forthright, most scientists agree that temperatures will rise by between two and six degrees Celsius this century due mainly to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.

IMPLICATIONS

What are the implications of this for Kerala, a State that once reported an embarrassingly opulent amount of rainfall each year? Faced with the prospects of a severe drought, Mr Premachandran said that immediate measures would be taken to conserve and improve the availability of water in the State. Of the 94 ongoing projects under the Kerala Water Authority, eight major projects and 19 minor schemes would be commissioned within days.

Meanwhile, the Union Ministry of Water Resources has said the Centre plans to declare 2007 as `Water Year - Year of More Crop and Income Per Drop of Water'. This was a recommendation of a Sub-Committee, chaired by eminent scientist M.S. Swaminathan, of the Advisory Council on Artificial Recharge of Groundwater.

The sub-committee had wished to create awareness about the "uncommon opportunities available with the technologies on the shelf for increasing the productivity and profitability of agriculture.''

The goal is to demonstrate how to increase yield and income per drop of water through generating synergy among water usage and various agronomic practices, particularly relating to macro and micronutrients in the soil.

This "more crop per drop" approach is a cornerstone of water literacy programmes. If Kerala's efforts to combat the possibility of an imminent drought can be combined with a campaign to teach its citizens - and not just farmers - how to collect, use and conserve water, the results could be dramatic.

Earlier, in December 2005, the then government did launch a water literacy drive, but progress has been tardy. Other States have had some success. In Hyderabad, for instance, a toll-free hotline allows customers to report water and sanitation problems round-the-clock. Data from the hotline are used to generate "efficiency ratings" for water managers, which are publicly displayed on office terminals.

Only similar efforts by Kerala will help the State play its part in meeting Target 10 of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal: "Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation."

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

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