Counting on Rainwater Harvesting to Rescue Agriculture, Address Water Scarcity

It’s for a reason the southwest monsoon is called the Finance Minister of India. Even though agriculture’s share in the GDP has been falling consistently over the years, a bad monsoon can cause severe pain to the Indian economy. That’s because 51% of the country’s net sown area, yielding nearly 40% of the total food production, is dependent on the rains.  

After a particularly dry June in which Assam and Meghalaya saw record rainfall, floods, and destruction of lives and property, monsoon is finally catching up with the rest of India. However, Delhi, Bihar, and south of West Bengal continue to experience deficiency while Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Telangana are lashed with incessant rains.  

India is witnessing a wide variability in precipitation patterns, which experts believe have been aggravated by climate change. This means that even as some parts will be inundated by extreme downpour in a short span of time, the rest will receive less than adequate rainfall. Additionally, farmers will have to grapple with unseasonal rain. The sheer unpredictability of these situations has affected agriculture and, by extension, the country’s food security.  

Indiscriminate extraction of groundwater for agriculture can result in catastrophic consequences in just a few years. It has made rainwater harvesting extremely urgent for India. On top of that our freshwater sources are extremely skewed in terms of spatial and temporal distribution and subjected to profligacy. Agriculture has a monopoly over the use of this water. Years of reckless usage and low awareness have culminated in a water scarcity that has already affected 600 million Indians, or roughly half of the country’s population, with the vulnerable section suffering the most. By 2030, the demand for water would likely be twice that of supply, pushing millions into severe water scarcity and causing loss of nearly 6% to the GDP.

We need a water management strategy for both the near- and long-term to tide over the crisis. Right now, the spotlight should be on conserving rainwater and augmenting groundwater reserves through a scientific and systematic approach. The solutions include accurate mapping of India’s groundwater reserves and formulating strategies based on the information. An end-to-end solution needs to cover information on existing groundwater levels as well as offer insights into rates of recharge and water quality. The structures for arresting and storing rainwater on the surface need to be low-cost, compact, and designed in a way to minimise loss through evaporation. They should be built keeping in mind the terrain, climatic conditions, existing water resources of the area, and their proximity to farmlands. These factors would help in effectively addressing the needs of both upstream and downstream populations while capturing maximum rainfall. Such storage systems will play a vital role in taking the load off irrigation systems and facilitate multiple cropping. In fact, 70% of India’s irrigation needs should be met with rainwater harvesting.

Long-term solutions to deal with India’s water scarcity will involve technologies that can treat wastewater for agricultural applications. This wastewater could be sewage from households and industrial effluents. Rich in organic matter and plant nutrients, it can be beneficial for crop production, provided it is thoroughly cleaned. Agricultural fields near urban and peri-urban centres can be irrigated with this water.  

Desalination of seawater for agriculture is another powerful alternative that has gained traction the world over. The air-to-water technology that converts ambient humid air into water, is yet to scale up for agricultural usage. These could help in overcoming challenges of finding new water sources and their sustainability, especially in water-scarce regions. However, at this point these solutions are energy-inefficient. 

One needs to realise that water is a sensitive issue for farmers who don’t see it as a financial commodity. So, start-ups need to demonstrate value and devise innovative business models, which will make the solutions viable for farmers and create an assured source of water supply. They will also need to work in close coordination with NGOs, foundations and FPOs for successful implementation of their solutions. The government must step in with R&D and other interventions that can accelerate adoption of these technologies.  

The planet is sending warning signals at alarming frequency. Droughts, floods, increasing sea levels, and glacier-melting together paint a grim picture of the future, an insane competition for limited water resources that can trigger civil wars and bloody conflicts.

About the Author

A journalist for 20 years handling multiple roles on the field and at the desk, Pratik Ghosh takes abiding interest in social, economic and political issues. He calls himself a Content Farmer, cultivating Social Alpha’s deep engagement with science and tech startups that are striving to solve India’s stubborn developmental challenges at the grassroots.