Satellite data shows groundwater depletion in North India: implications for political economy

Recent research (the latest one was a study in Nature, 12 August 2009) has highlighted the alarmingly high rate at which groundwater levels in various parts of Northern India are falling. Since water in one of the key inputs into agricultural production, this will have very serious consequences for the political economy of the region where a large section of the population still derives its income from agriculture or related economic activities.

This also highlights the fact that any attempt to deal with this and other similar issues will need collective action (like government regulation of the rate at which ground water can be extracted and how to ensure a decent rate of recharging of the aquifers, etc.); private, market-based initiative to deal with such problems will not be able to make any decisive dent.

( Within the paradigm of radical transformation of Indian society, this development may have important implications. Even if redistributive land reforms, which creates and reinforces private property, is on the short-term agenda of the agrarian revolution, it has to be quickly re-fashioned into an attempt to build institutions of collective action (like communes, etc.) for organizing production. A small-peasant economy based on private ownership of land will not be the best way to deal with issues of optimal resource extraction and sustainable utilization of common property resources. The concrete experience of the Chinese revolution also highlights this quick transition away from private property built into the very logic of the new democratic revolution. Within two years of the seizure of power, i.e., by 1951, serious efforts were already underway to build rural communes to organize agricultural (and other rural) production even though redistributive land reforms had been one of the main slogans of the revolution. The structure of land ownership in India today is of course very different from what was the case in China in 1949 (the main difference is the extent of the prevalence of tenancy); this difference in the agrarian structure will also drive the difference in strategies. )

Below are a few recent reports related to the disturbing development about the falling water table in Northern India.

Groundwater vanishing in North India, says NASA

The Hindu, August 14 2009

Groundwater levels in Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi are falling dramatically — by one foot a year — a trend that could lead to “extensive socio-economic stresses” for the region’s 114 million residents, says a scientific paper based on the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s satellite imagery.

A staggering 109 cubic km of groundwater has been lost in just six years (2002-08) — a figure twice the capacity of India’s largest surface reservoir Upper Wainganga and “much more” than the government’s estimation, says the paper published in the latest issue of international journal Nature.

The depletion is caused entirely by human activity such as irrigation, and not natural climatic variability, concludes the study co-authored by Matthew Rodell, a hydrologist with NASA. Groundwater is being pumped out faster than it is being replenished.

The finding is based on images from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), a pair of satellites that sense changes in Earth’s gravity field and associated mass distribution, including water masses stored above or below the Earth’s surface.

Between August 2002 and October 2008, the region lost 109 cubic km of groundwater, almost triple the capacity of the largest man-made reservoir in the U.S., Lake Mead. If measures are not taken to ensure sustainable groundwater use, consequences may include collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water, said Professor Rodell.

Depletion is likely to continue until effective measures are taken to curb groundwater demand which could propel severe shortages of potable water, reduced agricultural productivity, conflict and suffering, the research paper added. Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi are semi-arid or arid. The region has benefited from the Green Revolution “fuelled largely by increased production of groundwater for irrigation.”

Plunge in India water levels threatens farms: study

Reuters India. August 13, 2009

Groundwater levels in northern India have fallen about 20 percent more than expected because of excessive pumping, threatening to spark a major food and water crisis, according to a study based on U.S. space agency data.

The study, led by Matthew Rodell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said groundwater across three states, including the New Delhi region, dropped at a rate of 1.6 inches per year between August 2002 and October 2008.

That depletion is double the capacity of India’s largest reservoir and is around 20 percent higher than previous estimates by Indian authorities. More than 110 million people live across the three states, or nearly twice the population of Britain.

“If measures are not taken soon to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, the consequences … may include a reduction of agricultural output and shortages of potable water, leading to extensive socio-economic stresses,” the study said.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, come as almost a quarter of India faces drought because of failing monsoon rains this year. But the drop reported in the study came in years where there was no shortage of rainfall, so the decline was caused by excessive demand for irrigation and other uses.

The study, nonetheless, only confirms what has been long feared. Water shortages plague Indian cities and villages alike as a burgeoning population of 1.1 billion people tries to meet growing economic and farming activity, stretching natural resources.

Experts say water availability could impact economic activity in a country trying to beat a downturn and return to 9-10 percent growth.

The Indian government released an environmental report this week that said a growing percentage of its groundwater was neither drinkable nor could be used for irrigation.

“This illustrates that degraded water quality can contribute to water scarcity as it limits its availability for both human use and the ecosystem,” the Indian report said.