Newsletter No. 65;
IRBMS
Govt is ready to take meaningful action in water world’s greatest rivers such as the Nile, Amazon,
conservation when water is a state subject. On the Yangtse, Ganges and Mississipi.
other hand States are fighting with each other for
the waters of the interstate rivers. Central Govt. is A recent study reveals this decline has aggravated
equally indifferent about the crisis, yet to finalize local water stress and caused potential sea level
the National water policy. Societies at large and rise. A net water loss has been quantified in the
corporate are totally oblivion to this situation. But global endorheic basin of approximately 100 billion
lakhs of poor farmers and rural India will again tons of water per year since the start of the current
face the burnt of this crisis. In the middle of this millennium. This means a water mass equivalent
Prof, G D Agarwal left for his heavenly abode after to five Great Salt Lakes or three Lake Meads is
111 days battle with Govt. His fight to save Ganga, gone every year from the arid endorheic regions.
the Surprisingly the amount of endorheic water loss is
mother
of
Indian
civilization
remains
double the rate of concurrent water changes across
unfulfilled, can we wait any further?
the remaining landmass except Greenland and
Antarctica.
NEWS
[Source: Science News, Kansas State University]
Substantial Water Loss in Global
Landlocked Regions
Water resources are extremely limited in the
continental hinterlands, where stream flow does
not reach the ocean (endorheic basin). Along with
a
warming
climate
and
intensified
human
activities, recent water storage in global landlocked
basin – has undergone a widespread decline. This
includes some of the sub-continental areas like
Thar Desert in India, where seasonal streams like
the Sambhar in western Rajasthan draining into
the inland basins and salt lakes. On the other
hand,
exoreic
basins
account
for
most
of
continental surface and are home to many of the
The Dry Colorado River shows the Global
Water Crisis
From its source high in the Rocky Mountains, the
Colorado River channels water south nearly 1,500
miles, over falls, through deserts and canyons, to
the lush wetlands of a vast delta in Mexico and into
the Gulf of California, it was flowing so for six
million years. The river now serves 30 million
people in seven U.S. states and Mexico, with 70
percent or more of its water siphoned off to
irrigate 3.5 million acres of cropland.
The damming and diverting of the Colorado, USA’s
2
Integrated River Basin Management Society