**2.3 Rapid urbanization**

Over the years, the increasing population has directly impacted the demography of urban India [11]. According to the census released in the year 2001, urban population was 26.75 per cent, which after ten years i.e. in 2011, increased to a tune of 30 per cent at the annual growth rate of 3.35 per cent [12]. It is anticipated that by the year 2030, Indian cities will have 40 per cent of total country's population. Thinking on the number of people having access of clean water by then is quite panicky. With the expansion of cities, there has been an unprecedented increase in buildings, roads and other construction works. Most parts of the metropolitan cities are either residential areas or commercial spaces. It is hence very hard to find open, fallow land in the cities. Almost the entire ground surface is covered with asphalt roads and that too at the cost of massive deforestation. There is an inextricable relationship between forest and rain, due to which the water storage areas do not irrigate the underground aquifers and create conditions like drought in summer and flood in monsoon. These conditions make it almost impossible for the rainwater to percolate into the soil and recharge the groundwater tables. Furthermore, most of the metropolitan cities of India majorly depend on groundwater reserves as their primary source of water. This juxtaposition of ignorance and reality is the key reason why most of these cities now have to confront a tough predicament.

## **2.4 Over and non-judicious use of water resources**

Wastage of water does not only mean using it more than what we require when it is scarce, rather it encompasses failing to conserve it when it is in abundance. Lack of awareness and poor infrastructure towards water conservation is the foremost driver behind the water wastage problem. It's pretty regrettable that despite realizing the horrific situation of water crisis in the future, man has not stopped using the available ground water indiscriminately. The crisis seems even more daunting when the numbers related to the wastage of water are shockingly high. Inside the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted every year worldwide involves 45 trillion gallons of water [13]. This fairly represents a staggering 24 per cent of all water used for agriculture. For a majority of the countries, the primary source of irrigation is groundwater, India being one of them. Sadly for India, the picture is not a happy one, as far as groundwater resources are concerned and the data speak more eloquently and loudly than words. In fact, groundwater is being exhausted at a mean rate of 4.0 ± 1.0cmyr.−1, that implies an equivalent height of water [17.7 ± 4.5km3yr.−1] is being depleted every year across the Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana

#### *Ensuring Water Availability in Future through Revival of Indian Traditional Water Culture DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99311*

[including Delhi] [14]. The study revealed that the lessening of groundwater in a period of August 2002 to October 2008 was equivalent to a net loss of 109km3 of water, which in fact, is double of the capacity of India's largest surface-water pool. Additionally, bitter competition between rural and urban consumers is increasing and at some places even conflict has come to the fore. This problem is more severe in areas where the rocks are hard or the level of recharge is very low. Poor farmers are deprived of irrigation sources, while rich farmers are successful in drilling deep wells. Massively falling water table increases energy consumption as more energy is expended in pumping water from higher down. Roughly 30.5 per cent of India's electricity generation is currently spent on pumping groundwater [15].

The efforts of the government are also proving to be insufficient and shortsighted in this direction. Instead of meeting the needs of the agricultural sectors, water is being brought through intensive pipelines from various water sources not only for the population of the city but also for industrial need. For example; water is being carried to the capital Delhi from Tehri dam in Uttarakhand that is 300 km away. Water is being supplied to Hyderabad; the IT hub of India from NagarjunaSagar Dam of Krishna river built at a distance of 116 km. Whereas the Kaveri river is supplying water to Bengaluru that is 100 km away. In this way, water needs are being met in the expanding city and industrial areas that otherwise were ought to be for farming.

#### **2.5 The broken water management systems of rural India**

The rural India has proven to be resilient even in the hardest of times like the pandemic of 2020. Unlike their urban counterparts, people of rural India were able to contain the spread of the virus, during the first wave of the pandemic. Such response was made possible by the cooperative efforts of the villagers. With only a little help from the administration, the residents took steps like sealing their respective villages as and when cases rose, forbidding non-residents from entering their village, setting up makeshift quarantine centers for taking care of residents developing symptoms of illness. As a result, the death toll in villages was remarkably less than what it was in the metropolitan cities. These incidents are evidence that rural India is not a setup that should be mistaken as a group of people with little knowledge of worldly affairs. However, the anatomy of Indian villages is anything but that simple. During times of crisis, they proactively work together as a unit with a common goal for the mutual benefit of their village. This is just one among the many examples wherein the villages have faced a great calamity on the strength of cooperatives and traditions. Similarly, water management had a rural style of its own, which, till a few decades ago, defied any likelihood of water crisis in rural arena, however, in the recent past, the water management systems of a sizable chunk of rural India appears to be perpetually broken. Modern systems, in fact based on market principles have broken communities and have proved to be cruel and biased on the distribution front.

Rural India cherishes a long history of water resources management. The collective style of water use and its conservation used to be an integral part of it. A variety of structures were also built for diverse uses of water including domestic purposes and irrigation. Since ancient times, the Indian priests [locally known as Bhagiraths], along with the development of civilization and culture, took into account the climate, soil nature and other variations for maximally utilizing and conserving the rain water, rivers, streams and underground water resources. This approach was suitable for the specific and local conditions of the north-eastern region from snowcapped Laddakh to the plateau in the south and the arid desert of Thar to the high rainfall for most of the year. Keeping in view the climate and availability of water or

#### *Environmental Management - Pollution, Habitat, Ecology, and Sustainability*

ice at all these places, methods of water harvesting, its disposal and use in irrigation were discovered and time-tested methods were developed. Strong evidence of these achievements is available in every nook and corner of the country. In fact, these evidences reflect the advanced knowledge, vision and excellent understanding of the circumstances of the ancient rural Indians and are also relevant in the present context. The systematic approach of ancient people is well exemplified by the practices that were followed during the rule of several rulers of ancient and medieval India. Being well versed in the knowledge related to hydrology and water management, the society also carried out the work of building, running and maintaining the structures. The function of the ruler or king of that period was to help in running the system smoothly. The rural peasants were also well acquainted with the work of flood control [some examples are cited in the coming section]. They built interconnected structures of canals and ponds to avoid the floods of the over floating rivers.
