Ganga
Newsletter No. 60; IRBMS
February- March, 2017
The Brahmaputra Gorge in Tibet ( Picture Source: NASA)
Commentary
As feared in our last newsletter 59 commentary, in climate change has impacted but is it only climate
the beginning of May 2017 itself Ministry of water change? It is a well-known fact that India is having
resources has warned water shortages in this 4% of the world’s freshwater resources with 16% of
summer. Maharashtra, Telangana, Bihar, Uttar global population share. And it’s region wise
Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand availability of water is highly skewed. The Ganga–
and Chhattisgarh are identified as vulnerable Brahmaputra–Meghna basin with 33% of the land
states. All these states are fully or partially either in mass has 60% of total water flows, while the
Semi-arid or Arid zones. But was it different few western coastline with 3% of the area has another
decades ago? what has changed since then? True 11%. Therefore only 29% of water resources are
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Integrated River Basin Management Society