In the land of the monsoon the need for dams is great, but also a great struggle to build.
An excerpt.
Thirsty Giant
Often Parched, India Struggles to Tap the Monsoon
SURAT, India — Early on a Monday morning during the August monsoon, after several days of torrential rains, the engineers in charge of a massive dam about 50 miles upstream from this diamond-polishing hub faced a harrowing crisis.
With water brimming well past the permitted levels at the 350-foot Ukai Dam, according to official records, and the skies showing no sign of relief, the engineers apparently threw open the reservoir’s 21 sluice gates. Water then did what water does. It surged downriver, swallowing this city of three million people like a hungry beast. The diamond lanes of India became a warren of muck and ruin.
In less than three days, at least 120 people died. More than 4,000 animal carcasses were later hauled out of the mud. Two weeks after the floods, Surat’s diamond-polishing factories were practically empty of workers, who had fled fearing disease. An industry group estimated the losses at $60 million.
Exactly what happened in Surat is still under investigation. But the deluge has drawn new attention to a puzzle that is crucial to securing India’s future: how to harness and hold on to its rich but capricious rains.
The problem is a matter of bitter and enduring debate in this country — and the answer may hold a key to India’s prosperity. Every year, India is crippled by floods in some areas, even as it is parched in blighted corners elsewhere.
India’s average annual rainfall rate hovers at an abundant 46 inches, as much as Ireland’s. Yet growing water scarcity threatens both farms and cities. With the population hitting 1.1 billion, the amount of water available to each Indian is roughly the same as the amount available to the average Sudanese, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
India’s rains tend to come in short, furious bursts, meaning that much of that water escapes as untapped potential, washing into the sea and wreaking havoc on the fragile villages and flourishing cities that stand in its way.
India is likely to become even more vulnerable, environmentalists warn. Global climate change threatens to make weather patterns even more erratic. Steadily shrinking Himalayan glaciers will inexorably melt and rush down the flood plains.
Floods in India are already a perennial and costly affair, especially in human terms. The southwest monsoon killed 2,545 people in less than four months this year, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Part of the problem lies in India’s rapid and unruly development. As water demand has soared, the natural sponges of Indian cities — lakes, ponds, marshes, mangroves — have been lost to construction. Only a handful of city and state governments have lately begun to mandate rainwater harvesting to slowly replenish groundwater.
Moreover, the country faces a water storage crunch. Traditional small-scale Indian storage systems, from temple tanks to elaborate step-wells, have fallen into disrepair. China, a country with similar development issues, manages to store five times the water that India does per person, the World Bank estimates. But the Chinese government, with scant public debate, has moved thousands of people to make way for colossal water projects.
India, too, has tried. But here, in the world’s largest democracy, the big-money water solution — the big dam — has been the subject of rancorous disputes. Some projects have met resistance for decades.
Proponents say India must build many more reservoirs to meet its growing water and energy needs. India’s founding prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, under whose watch the Ukai Dam was built, called them “modern temples” of his newly sovereign nation. India has roughly 4,300 large dams, like the one east of Surat, and an additional 475 under construction.
