Water Conservation and it's advantages Water Pollution Environmentalist and their movements Narmada Movement

1. WATER
presentation by-
GEETIKA SINGLA

2. With only 1% of water available for human
consumption, doesn’t it make sense that we
should treat our water supply with more
respect?
INTRODUCTION

3. WATER – a unique resource
•High Specific Heat- cools down and heat up
slowly.
• It also has High Latent Heat Of Evaporation –
takes high energy for vaporization.
•Excellent solvent – carrier of nutrients. (O2
and Pathogenic Micro- organisms).
•Anomalous expansion behavior – expands
when cooling.

4. Energy
Supply
26%
Transport
13%
Industry
19%
Agriculture
14%
Forestry
17%
Wasteage
3%
Residential &
Commercial
buildings
8%
CONSUMPTION RATE

5. WATER CONSERVATION

6. WHAT – is water conservation?
• Water conservation encompasses the policies,
strategies and activities to manage fresh water as a
sustainable resource.
• To protect the water environment and to meet
current and future human demands.
• Climatic changes, population growth, household size
all factors influence the rate of water used.

7. OBJECTIVES – of water conservation?
• To ensure availability for future generations, the withdrawal of
fresh water from an ecosystem should not exceed its natural
replacement rate.
• Energy conservation
Water pumping, delivery and waste water treatment facilities
consume a significant amount of energy. In some regions of the
world over 15% of total electricity consumption is devoted to
water management.
• Habitat conservation
Minimizing human water use helps to preserve fresh water
habitats for local wildlife and migrating waterfowl, as well as
reducing the need to build new dams and other water diversion
infrastructures.

8. WHY – water conservation?
• Today the earth is in the need of water
conservation as the quantity of water is going down
day by day.
• Though we say that the Earth is a Blue Planet ,the
reality is that only 3% of the total water available is
fit for drinking.
• Out of that 3% also , 2.997% is locked up in polar
ice caps, and only 0.003 % is there in form of
surface & ground water.
• The rate is still declining and the reason is water pollution

9. ADVANTAGES OF WATER CONSERVATION
I don’t think anyone can say that water
conservation has disadvantages.
• Factories produce harmful waste products
which if purified and discarded help in keeping
the surrounding of the factories safe and keep
local residents out of health problems.
•Rivers and lakes will remain clean. Hence can
be used for irrigation and cultivation
purposes.

10. •Fishes and other aquatic life forms can breathe
well in the water.
• Various treatment methods like trickling filter
method, activated sludge process and RBC help
in purifying sewage water.
• Nitrogen and phosphorus in sewage remains
in the effluent from secondary treatment.
These inorganic nutrients can cause
eutrophication. (use of such pesticides and
insecticides should be prohibited)
ADVANTAGES OF WATER CONSERVATION

11. ADVANTAGES OF WATER CONSERVATION
•Saves money.
• Minimizes water pollution and health risks.
•Protects drinking water resources.
•Reduces the need for costly water supply and
new wastewater treatment facilities.

12. WATER POLLUTION

13. WATER POLLUTION
• Water pollution is a major global problem which
requires ongoing evaluation and revision of water
resource policy at all levels (international down to
individual aquifers and wells).
• It has been suggested that it is the leading
worldwide cause of deaths and diseases, and that
it accounts for the deaths of more than 14,000
people daily.

15. HUMAN WASTE

16. INDUSTRIAL WASTE

17. EFFECTS - OF WATER POLLUTION
•
• Drought
• Desertification
• Conflicts Over Water
• Water Borne Disease

18. Drought is an extended period when a region notes
a deficiency in its water supply whether surface or
underground water. A drought can last for months
or years, or may be declared after as few as 15 days
1) When annual rain fall is below normal and less than
evaporation, drought conditions are created.
2) Unlike flood, it is not a distinct event.
3) It is often caused by the complex factor.
DROUGHT

20. DESERTIFICATION
• It is the extreme deterioration of land in arid and
dry sub-humid areas due to loss of vegetation and
soil moisture.
• It results chiefly from man-made activities and
influenced by climatic variations.
Consequence Of Desertification:
1. Economic loss
2. Worsening drought
3. Lowering living standards
4. Environmental refuges

22. CONFLICTS OVER WATER
Water conflict is a term describing a conflict
between countries, states, or groups over an access
to water resources.
1. Local Level: Example: Between villages or
streets or houses
2. National level: Example: Cauvery river –
between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
3. International level: Example: Jordan river water
conflict between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia.
LEVELS OF CONFLICTS

23. WATER BORNE DISEASE
Typhoid Fever
Giardia
Cholera
Salmonella
Hepatitis A
Dysentery

26. RAINWATER HARVESTING
•Rain Water Harvesting is capturing and storing
rainfall to irrigate plants or to supply people and
animals.
•A well-designed system will also decrease your
landscape maintenance needs.
•All you need for a water harvesting system is rain,
and a place to put it.
•A "catchment" is any large surface that can capture
and/or carry water to where it can be used
immediately or stored.

27. RAINWATER HARVESTING
• Cost less than Rs.1500 to build
• Softer Water: 5mg/gal of dissolved minerals as
compared to 500 in city water.
• Cut water use by 95%.
• Many use similar system for laundry and toilets.

29. • Wash laundry and dishes with sufficient amount
of water only
•Always turn off running water
• Take shorter showers
•Eliminate all leakages.
•Reduce the flow of toilets and showerheads
STEPS TO SAVE WATER

30. Case Study:

31. Narmada means ‘ever-delightful’, one of the holiest
rivers in the country of India
“they say that even the site of the river will
cleanse all of your sins”

33. The first of the dams to be built is the Sardar Sarovar. It is
considered to be one of the most important dams in the
project and the biggest water development project in
India.
According to the government, the Sardar Sarovar Dam
will do the following:
• Provide safe drinking water to 30 million people
• Irrigate 4.8 million hectares of land
• Produce 550 megawatts of power
• Provide 1,300 cubic-meters of water per yr.for municipal and
industrial purposes
• Provide a drainage system to carry away floodwaters
• It will also take the land of 320,000 people
THE NARMADA DAM PROJECT

34. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF DAMS
Relocation of communities:impacts on health, economic,
social, cultural well-being
Loss of community control over water: - transfer of control from
local level to central government or
corporate control
Diseases: - encouraged by dam projects (creating habitat
for parasites), e.g.schistosomiasis, mosquitoes
Increasing cost of dams: - problems encountered in building dams
(ex. sedimentation).
- cost of mitigating
social, environmental impacts.
- delays - best sites already taken -- only more
remote, more difficult sites left.

35. • Dalits and Adivasi (indigenous people). In
accordance to their caste system they are
often referred to as ‘untouchables’. Many of
these people are uneducated and very few
can read and write.
• Narmada Bachao Andolan, the Save the
Narmada Movement (NBA). The movement
started in 1986 when the World Bank lent
India $450 million for the Sardar project. It
was started by a social worker named Medha
Patkar. She is the representative for the NBA
movement.
OPPONENTS

36. • Arundhati Roy; Booker Prize-winning author
supporter of the Save the Narmada Movement;
wrote a book about the Dams in India called
‘The Greater Common Good’.
• Baba Amte; a social worker whose work with
leprosy has earned him much respect in the
country among the tribal people and
government officials.
“Nobody builds Big Dams to provide drinking
water to rural people. Nobody can afford to.”
“There's a lot of money in poverty .”
Arundhati Roy
OPPONENTS

37. • Indian Government supports the building of dams
• The World Bank supported the Sardar Sarovar Dam
Project and loaned India $450 million. They withdrew from
the project after an independent review confirmed social
and environmental impacts were increasing.
• The Supreme Court of India has ruled on the Sardar
Sarovar Dam. In 1995 they suspended work on the dam
because the height exceeded the amount originally
planned, 75m. In 1999 they ordered work to continue up to
the height of 85m. Then in Oct 18, 2000 they ruled in favor
of building the Sardar Sarovar despite global protests
PROPONENTS

38. • It was a protest by the NBA called 'satyagraha'
that caught the World Banks attention.
• They sent in an independent review team
headed by Hugh Brody, a British anthropologist
and Donald Gamble, a Canadian environmental
engineer.
WHY DID THE WORLD BANK
WITHDRAW THE LOAN?

39. • Threat to aquatic habitat – barriers for fish passage,
water quality is affected because of change in land use
can also affect aquatic life
• Water logging – excess water in the soil and can
render the soil useless. This could affect 40% of the area
to be irrigated.
• Salinisation – when irrigation water has more saline
content and adds more salt to the system. This happens
because the land to be irrigated is an arid area and not
used to so much water. This impacts the flora and fauna
and makes the water not suitable for drinking.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

40. Outbreak of diseases – the concern of an
increase in malaria because of the increased
reservoirs and water logged lands, which are
prime locations for mosquitoes to breed.
Authorities have suggested pesticides but there
is concern for humans ingesting the pesticide.
Another disease on the rise is TB because of the
increasing number of people being moved out
of their villages because of dams. The shanty
towns they move to have no running water and
no plumbing.
HEALTH IMPACTS

41. There was no social impacts assessment before
the dam project started.
The World Bank tried to do an assessment after
the dam project started but found that there
was a ‘severe shortage in baseline data’.
One of the main problems that came up was the
lack of communication between the state and
the people who were to be affected by the
project.
SOCIAL IMPACTS

42. • Established in 1989
• Sept 1989 - 60,000 people rally against
destructive development
• Jan 1990 – 5,000 people marched on the
Narmada Valley Development authority offices
forcing them to close
• March 1990 – 10,000 protesters blocked the
highway from Bombay for two days
• May 1990 – 2,000 people staged a sit-in
outside the prime ministers house in Delhi
SAVE THE NARMADA MOVEMENT

43. • Christmas Day 1990 – Long March – 3,000
people walked, 100km, which took a week to
the dam site, once they got there Medha Patkar
and 6 others went on a hunger strike
demanding the government suspend work on
the dam and hold an independent review. It
lasted 22 days until they broke fast – this made
Narmada an international issue.
• Jan 1991 – The World Bank commissions
independent review
SAVE THE NARMADA MOVEMENT

45. (born on 1 December 1954)
is an Indian social activist and social
reformer turned politician. She is the
founder member of Narmada Bachao
Andolan and was National Convener of
National alliance of people’s
Movement (NAPM), an alliance of
progressive people's organisations.
She was a representative to the World
Commission on Dams, to research the
environmental, social and economic
impacts of the development of large
dams globally.”

46. Her struggle began with the demand of information
about the development plans of the Narmada Valley.

47. How can the government make plans to bulldoze a
culture, a way of life steeped in history without
consulting or rehabilitating the people who would be
affected??, she asked
The question became the movement !!

48. Since 1985,
She mobilized massive
peaceful marches and
rallies against the project
though repeatedly beaten
and arrested by the
police.
Joined the tribals in
resisting evacuation and
resigning themselves to
drown in the rising
waters.

49. “I am not anti-technology,
I am all for it: beautiful,
harmonious,
equitable, sustainable,
egalitarian, non- destructive
technology, not this gigantic
technology which is
apocalyptic, destroying
thousands of homes, hearts,
habitats,
ecology, geography, history,
and finally, benefiting so
few, and at such great cost.
This is mindless answer RHIS
is violence?

50. Worked to obtain
just compensation
for people affected
by dams which have
already been built
on the Narmada as
well as opposing
other dams in the
Narmada Valley.
1997: helped tribal
communities stop
construction of the
Upper Veda and
Lower Goin dams

51. As an outgrowth of her
work to stop dam
construction, helped
establish a network of
activists across the
country-
THE NATIONAL
ALLIANCE OF PEOPLE’S
MOVEMENTS

52. Received numerous awards:
• Deena Nath Mangeshkar
Award
• Mahatma Phule Award
• Goldman Environment
Prize
• Green Ribbon Award for
Best International Political
Campaigner by BBC
• Human Rights Defender’s
Award from Amnesty
International

53. And finally…
The actual people displaced

54. According to the Government, the
Sardar Sarovar Project, when
completed will affect approximately

55. According to the Government, the
Sardar Sarovar Project, when
completed will affect approximately
245 40,000
villages families

56. According to the Government, the
Sardar Sarovar Project, when
completed will affect approximately
245 40,000
villages families
in 3 STATES