World Water Day: Water is life, but how much of it is actually fresh and accessible?

India boasts an unlimited and numerous floor water community. This water is an interconnected community of pure water our bodies like rivers, lakes and ponds. The main rivers in India being Ganga, Brahmaputra, and Godavari together with numerous lakes, ponds and conventional water tanks. These water our bodies help agriculture, ingesting water provide, and groundwater recharge whereas additionally enjoying a job in cultural and ecological preservation. From the lakes of Kashmir to the stepwells of Rajasthan, water storage and conservation have been integral to India’s historical past.

A devotee takes a holy dip within the Ganga river throughout dawn, in Varanasi.

Surface water is like India’s lifelines. India’s everlasting floor water assets are divided in three classes: Lakes, rivers and wetlands.

Rivers

The main river techniques in India that embrace the Ganga, Brahmaputra, Indus, Godavari and Krishna, present water for agriculture, ingesting and hydropower. These rivers, appearing because the spine of India’s water provide, are nourished by monsoons, glaciers, and tributaries. The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system is the biggest river community in India, contributing considerably to the floor water availability.

Lakes

India is house to each pure and man-made lakes. Famous pure lakes embrace Dal Lake (Jammu & Kashmir), Chilika Lake (Odisha), Loktak Lake (Manipur), and Sambhar Lake (Rajasthan). Many synthetic lakes, comparable to Udaipur’s Lake Pichola, have been created for water storage and irrigation.

Vegetable sellers wait for patrons on the financial institution of Dal Lake within the backdrop of ranges coated in fresh snowfall, in Srinagar.

Status and Distribution

India’s floor water assets are unfold throughout varied areas, with some states enjoying a number one function in particular classes. West Bengal has the best quantity of ponds and reservoirs, whereas Andhra Pradesh has essentially the most tanks. Tamil Nadu leads within the quantity of lakes, and Maharashtra is identified for its in depth water conservation schemes. These water our bodies are essential for sustaining ecosystems, supporting agriculture, and assembly home and industrial wants.

Ponds, tanks & stepwells

Traditional water our bodies like stepwells, temple tanks, and village ponds have traditionally been lifelines for rural communities. These small reservoirs helped retailer rainwater for irrigation and ingesting functions but at the moment are in danger on account of urbanisation and neglect.

Unique Stepwells and tanks

India’s wealthy custom of water conservation is mirrored in its beautiful stepwells like Rani ki Vav (a UNESCO website) and Chand Baori (one of the deepest). Historic constructions just like the Kallanai Dam, constructed over 2,000 years in the past by Karikalan Chola, nonetheless help irrigation, whereas temple tanks like Pushkar Lake spotlight the nation’s sustainable water practices.

Sacred temple tanks: Many temples in South India have giant water tanks, comparable to Madurai’s Meenakshi Temple Tank and Kamal Pushkarini in Hampi, which have been as soon as essential for non secular rituals and water conservation.

Rani ki vav
| Photo Credit:
Madhuvanti S Krishnan

Chand baori

Meenakshi Temple Tank

Pollution

Industrial discharge, plastic waste, and untreated sewage are main pollution contaminating rivers, lakes, and ponds. The Ganga and Yamuna are among the many most affected rivers on account of city and industrial waste.

Pilgrims supply prayers alongside the banks of the Ganges River strewn with flowers supplied in non secular rituals and plastic bottles on the break of daybreak on March 04, 2025 in Varanasi.
| Photo Credit:
Abhishek Chinnappa

Polluted water of a drain that merges into the Yamuna river close to Taj Mahal, in Agra.

Encroachment

Rapid urbanisation has led to the loss of many pure lakes and ponds. Wetlands are being stuffed for development, lowering groundwater recharge and growing the chance of floods. Wetlands act as pure flood buffers, absorbing extra rainwater and lowering flood severity.

The 2015 Chennai floods are a key instance—wetland loss and city growth worsened the impression of heavy rainfall.

Zooming in on the biggest wetland in India

Sundarbans Mangrove Wetlands (West Bengal) – The largest mangrove forest on this planet, masking round 10,000 sq. km (with 4,200 sq. km in India). The ecosystem faces extreme threats from rising sea ranges, coastal erosion, and human encroachment, endangering each biodiversity and native livelihoods.

Tourist boats within the Sundarbans.
| Photo Credit:
SHAILENDRA YASHWANT

A lady is standing in entrance of her home which is underneath water on account of tidal flood in Mousuni Island, Sundarbans.
| Photo Credit:
Supratim Bhattacharjee

India has misplaced practically 35% of its wetlands within the final 4 many years on account of urbanisation and encroachment. Over 50% of wetlands in main Indian cities (together with Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai) have disappeared on account of development and land use adjustments.

Zooming in on Ganga

The Ganga, one of India’s most sacred and important rivers, is additionally among the many most polluted. High ranges of faecal coliform micro organism, particularly in cities like Varanasi and Kanpur, point out extreme contamination from untreated sewage and human waste. Industrial effluents, plastic waste, and city run-off additional degrade its water high quality. Despite varied clean-up efforts, air pollution stays a serious problem, impacting each the atmosphere and hundreds of thousands who depend on the river for day by day wants.

Gopal Pandey, a laboratory technician checks a river water pattern collected to check for faecal coliform micro organism from the Ganges River within the Swatcha Ganga Research Laboratory, a collaborative undertaking of the Sankat Mochan Foundation, State Bank of India (SBI), the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and the Australian High Commission for India, New Delhi, on March 05, 2025 in Varanasi, India.
| Photo Credit:
Abhishek Chinnappa

Overuse & mismanagement

Excessive damming, sand mining, and over-extraction of water have led to shrinking rivers and depleting lakes. Many conventional water our bodies are drying up on account of neglect, lowering their function in water conservation. Sustainable administration is essential to preserving India’s floor water assets.

Looking again into historical past

Water administration has been an integral half of Indian civilisation for hundreds of years, with superior techniques designed for storage, commerce, and day by day use.

Harappan Water Systems

The Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro is one of the earliest examples of public water storage, probably used for ritualistic functions. The reservoirs of Dholavira in Gujarat spotlight the delicate rainwater harvesting methods of the Harappan civilisation.

Lothal’s Dockyard

The historic port metropolis of Lothal (Gujarat) had a sophisticated dockyard, showcasing early water administration for commerce. It featured a well-planned drainage system and a basin for ships, proving the significance of water in commerce.

The most scientifically constructed dock-yard with an inlet of its age of Lothal. It had water-locking preparations. It was constructed as an artifiicial basin for sluciing ships at excessive tide. Vessels from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Dil mun (Bahrain) and Magen, loaded with items, berthed there. After unloading their items and receiving fresh provides of water & meals, these vessels returned to their international locations. The ships have been serviced on the dock-yard. The Harappans had constructed the ebb and movement of the tides earlier than they constructed the dock-yard, the dockyard was constructed on the mouth of the river Sabarmati.
| Photo Credit:
VIJAY SONEJI

Protection and insurance policies

To safeguard India’s floor water assets, a number of insurance policies and initiatives have been applied to advertise conservation and sustainable administration.

• Wetland Conservation Rules, 2017: These guidelines intention to guard wetlands from encroachment, air pollution, and degradation. They regulate actions that will hurt these ecosystems and encourage native participation in conservation efforts.

• National Mission for Clean Ganga (Namami Gange): Launched in 2014, this flagship program focuses on river rejuvenation, air pollution management, and sustainable water administration within the Ganga basin. It contains sewage therapy tasks, afforestation, and biodiversity conservation.

• Jal Shakti Abhiyan: This initiative promotes rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge, and environment friendly water use throughout India. It focuses on water conservation efforts in each rural and city areas to make sure long-term water safety.

Wake up, earlier than we run dry!

We worship our rivers, but we poison them day-after-day. 46% of India’s rivers are polluted. A nation that reveres water is turning it right into a poisonous wasteland.

Villagers are seen as they’re heading in the direction of the remaining water of a river to gather waters for his or her households home makes use of simply outskirts of Kantabanji city of Balanir district of western Odisha. Maximum stream line rivers are dried out in each summer time season and individuals at all times going through water shortage in these areas.
| Photo Credit:
BISWARANJAN ROUT

Every single day, 38,000 million litres of untreated sewage movement into our rivers—air pollution on a scale we can’t ignore. In Chennai alone, 250 million litres of uncooked waste is dumped into water our bodies day by day. We generate over 72,000 million litres of sewage but can deal with solely 32,000 million litres. The math is easy—we’re drowning in our personal waste.

Why? Because funding flows the place public curiosity is loudest. While packages like Swachh Bharat and Namami Gange have tried, lack of efficient implementation is killing our progress.

This isn’t a slow-moving disaster—it’s occurring now. If we don’t act, water conflicts gained’t be a distant menace; they are going to be our actuality.