E-Paper
Why we are thirsty on a blue planet
This article is authored by Aun Abdullah, programme director, Sustainable Urbanisation, Lodha Foundation.
We have long viewed water as a commodity – a tangible asset essential for life, something to be hoarded, measured, and saved. This is a fundamental error in perspective.
Unlike minerals or fossil fuels – finite stocks that require immense energy to extract, separate, and recycle – water is a renewable flow. Nature, powered by the sun, constantly distils and recycles it for us, ideally returning the molecule intact unless we pollute it.
To truly understand the crisis we face, we must look at water not as matter, but as time.
Time is, in theory, infinite. Thirteen billion years have passed since the dawn of the universe, and billions more lie ahead. Yet, to the human experience, time is fleeting. We find ourselves constantly short of it, rushing against clocks, managing deadlines, and feeling the scarcity of hours despite the infinity of existence.
Water shares this paradox. There are trillions of gallons on Earth, cycling through the biosphere just as they have for ages. The water in our bodies today may once have been in a Jurassic fern or a glacial sheet. It is chemically indestructible, it is part of a closed loop of rain, percolation, runoff, and evaporation. Yet, despite this abundance, we find ourselves facing Day Zero scenarios and water-rationing protocols. Like time, water feels fleeting. And if the nature of the scarcity is the same, the solution must be too: we do not need to create more water; we need to manage the flow.
To manage this flow, we must first renew our understanding of it: we rarely "consume" water. In physics and hydrology, water is a carrier, not a fuel. It passes through us. The water we drink, we eventually excrete. The water we use to bathe, wash clothes, or scrub floors is merely borrowed to transport dirt, and then returned to the system. Even in industry, water used for cooling or chemical processes eventually evaporates or is discharged.
The crisis, therefore, is less about the intake volume; it is more about the state of the water we return to nature.
Consider a simplified arithmetic of our water use in our daily existence. In India, the domestic water demand hovers between less than 20 to higher than 50 cubic meters (cum) per capita annually. While the affluent enclaves consume far more, millions in informal settlements survive on a fraction of their consumption. Industrial demand sits higher, estimated between 80 to 100 cum per capita annually. Yet, the true behemoth is agriculture, which demands as much as 1,000 cum per capita annually to sustain our food systems.
On paper, the hydrological cycle delivers enough water to meet these demands. According to the Central Water Commission (CWC), India receives approximately 4,000 billion Cubic Metres (BCM) of annual precipitation. Even after accounting for natural evaporation, roughly half remains as utilisable potential flow in our rivers and aquifers.
This translates to roughly 1,300-1,400 cubic metres for every Indian annually. Compare this to our needs: even if we sum up our agricultural (1,000), industrial (70-100), and domestic (<50) demands, we require roughly similar volume per person as much as the nature provides us annually. In fact, nature is essentially offering us a surplus. The math balances. So, why are our taps running dry?
The answer lies in what we can call the contamination multiplier.
Because water is a cycle, its utility depends on its purity. When we return water to nature, we often return it broken. Untreated domestic sewage doesn't just add volume to a river; it subtracts usability. Untreated domestic wastewater has the capacity to contaminate roughly five times its volume of fresh water, rendering it unfit for use. Industrial effluent, laden with heavy metals and chemicals, is even more destructive, with a capacity to spoil ten times its volume. Even agriculture, the largest user, is not innocent in this cycle of destruction. The runoff from fields is often laced with nitrates, phosphates, and pesticides.
Here is the terrifying calculus of a hypothetical untreated scenario: If we take 60 cum of domestic use and 100 cum of industrial use, we aren't just affecting 160 cum of water. By releasing it untreated, we are effectively contaminating vast multiples of fresh water, potentially spoiling the very reserves nature provides us for the next year. We are not running out of water; we are actively destroying the usability of the water we have.
This mismanagement is compounded by a broken rhythm. The climate change has disrupted the predictability of the cycle. The rain still falls, but it often arrives in violent, condensed bursts rather than steady, nurturing showers. Most rain falls and runs off within 200 hours during the year. It is a feast-or-famine delivery system that our infrastructure cannot handle.
Simultaneously, we have sealed the earth with concrete. Urbanisation acts as a waterproof tarp over the soil. Instead of rain percolating into the ground – our natural, long-term savings account – it runs off instantly into drains and out to sea. We are effectively rejecting nature's deposit. Consequently, we are forced to withdraw from our groundwater reserves, depleting ancient aquifers faster than they can recharge.
In the face of this systemic failure, our policy response must be calibrated correctly. We often obsess over metering domestic taps and exhorting citizens to shorten their showers. Urban water metering and household efficiency are undoubtedly important – they foster a necessary culture of mindfulness and accountability, ensuring we value the resource. However, in the grand calculus of hydrology, they are not the silver bullet.
Focusing solely on the 60-cum domestic user while ignoring his 1,000-cum agricultural footprint is a strategic error. The real, transformative gains lie in agricultural efficiency – moving from flood irrigation to more efficient systems like the drip systems where applicable – and in rigorous industrial oversight. If we save 10% of domestic water, we save a bucket. If we save 10% of agricultural water, we save all of the domestic water we need.
As we approach World Water Day, we need a paradigm shift. We must stop treating water as a finite stock to be hoarded and start treating it as a flow to be curated.
Palava, a development by Lodha, provides a living example of this philosophy, having built a system where 100% of used water is recycled and put back to work, drastically reducing freshwater demand. By utilising repurposed quarries as both aesthetic features and emergency reservoirs, the city effectively harvests rain for the days we need it most. Furthermore, by deploying measures to lower demand—such as pressure control, low-flow fixtures, and cluster-level metering—it demonstrates that our cities can evolve into responsible water ecosystems that thrive even when the regional supply falters. Sustainable urbanisation must lead the transition toward treating water as a curated flow. First, universal wastewater treatment is non-negotiable; it neutralises the contamination multiplier and effectively creates water by closing the loop in domestic and industrial systems. Second, percolation is survival. We must un-pave our cities and revive our lakes to allow the earth to act as a sponge again, replacing the waterproof tarp of concrete with the natural security of groundwater recharge. Finally, while agricultural efficiency offers the most massive systemic savings, where a 10% gain can provide for all domestic needs, urban centres must simultaneously eliminate leakage and mandate low-flow fixtures to align local demand with national development goals.
Water, like time, is a resource we cannot create. But we can stop wasting it, stop polluting it, and learn to synchronize our civilization with its eternal rhythm. If we can manage this flow, the scarcity will evaporate.
This article is authored by Aun Abdullah, programme director, Sustainable Urbanisation, Lodha Foundation.
