Environmental Issues

Humans have lived in South Asia for at least 50,000 years, but as recently as 1700 c.e. (just before British colonization), population density and human environmental impacts were light. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, population density and human impacts had grown exponentially; as a result, today South Asia has a range of serious environmental problems.

South Asia’s Vulnerability to Climate Change

All across the region of South Asia, people are dealing with a wide range of water issues that are made more serious by climate change. A discussion of eight of these issues follows.

1. Water Scarcity and Flooding

Significant sections of South Asia have lived with water scarcity problems for millennia, due primarily to low average rainfall, but also because of extreme seasonal variability. The Indus Valley of Pakistan, for example, has many ancient structures that captured water during wet seasons and floods and held it for use during dry times (see Figure 8.13A). Now, the shifting rainfall patterns and rising temperatures linked to climate change are creating drier conditions in much of South Asia, and also occasionally causing abnormal, heavy rainfall that can result in epic flooding, as was the case in Pakistan in 2010.

2. Glacial Melting

Because South Asia’s three largest rivers are fed by glaciers high in the Himalayas, the issue of glacial melting is of particular concern. (Smaller glacial-melt streams serve Afghanistan and Central Asia; see Figure 5.8A). As many as 703 million people, almost half of the region’s population, depend on these glacially fed rivers for drinking water, domestic and industrial uses, and irrigation. (Irrigation takes more water than industrial and domestic uses combined.) While the immediate effect of glacial melting may be flooding, the real threat is that as the glaciers shrink, they will provide less water each year to recharge the ancient aquifers beneath the heavily populated Indo-Gangetic plains south of the Himalayan Range. The amount of water pumped on these plains for multiple uses already exceeds the rate of recharge; the long-term effect of the pumping, therefore, will be severe water shortages.

Both water conservation and increased water storage are needed for supplies to last through the dry winter monsoon. High Himalayan communities in Ladakh, on the India–China border, are attempting to retain autumn glacial melt in stone catchments, where the melt refreezes over the winter and is available for spring irrigation.

3. Sea Level Rise

Tens of millions of poor farmers and fishers live near sea level in South Asia, most of them in Bangladesh, which has more people vulnerable to sea level rise (see Chapter 1) than does any other country in the world (Figure 8.7A). With 162 million people already squeezed into a country the size of Iowa, as many as 17 million Bangladeshi people might have to find new homes if sea levels rise by a few feet. The biggest economic impacts of sea level rise would come from the submergence of parts of South Asia’s largest cities, such as Dhaka in Bangladesh, Mumbai (Mumbai’s vulnerability to sea level rise is discussed in Chapter 1; see also Figure 8.7C) and Kolkata in India, and Karachi in Pakistan.

FIGURE 8.7 Photo Essay: Vulnerability to Climate Change in South Asia Climate change is putting more lives at risk in South Asia than in any other region. However, many responses to climate change are being developed, which could increase resilience to climate-related hazards. 8.5a Courtesy Tushar S. Chowdhury/Flickr/Getty Images, 8.5b Courtesy Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images, 8.5c Courtesy Shantanu Bedarkar/Flickr/Getty Images

Also threatened by continuing sea level rise are the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean, 80 percent of which lie 1 meter or less above the sea. Beach erosion is so severe that homes built only a few years ago in this richest of South Asia’s countries are falling into the sea.

All of these places are developing responses to climate change, though the resources available to do so are often very limited in this region (see Figure 8.7D).

4. Rising per capita Use of Water

As we learned in Chapter 1, humans require an average of 5 to 13 gallons (20 to 50 liters) of clean water per day for basic domestic needs: drinking, cooking, and bathing/cleaning. Per capita domestic water consumption tends to be lower for the poor, so it would be reasonable to assume that many South Asians consume 5 to 6 gallons per day. Consumption increases as incomes rise, so not only do the middle and upper classes consume closer to 13 gallons per day, many may consume much more than that. One flush of a toilet can use several gallons. Thus, as more and more South Asians join the middle class, they will consume more water per capita. Add population growth to that and it becomes easy to see that demand for water is bound to rise across this region. We must also consider that domestic water consumption is only a fraction of a person’s actual water consumption. Much of South Asia’s water is tied up as virtual water used to produce the manufactured goods and agricultural products that South Asians themselves consume as well as those that are made for export.

5. The Role of Virtual Water

The concept of virtual water, introduced in Chapter 1 (page 38) is especially useful in assessing the sustainability of water resources in the drier regions of South Asia. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwest India are all naturally dry regions that have been made more so by thousands of years of human use.

The water that goes into the production of all agricultural and industrial products of these regions (whether used locally or exported) is drawn from supplies that are so scarce that ordinary citizens often must survive on less water than is considered healthy. In the past, when production was mostly for local consumption, the virtual water used was less and remained in the region. Now, export crops—cotton, grain, rice, fruits, and nuts—are all produced with irrigation; thus all have a large virtual water component (Table 8.1). Because these crops are exported and the virtual water is consumed elsewhere in the global marketplace, these water-scarce regions are in effect subsidizing the water use of wealthy global consumers. The same is true for manufactured goods with high virtual water inputs, such as textiles, garments, hides, leather goods, and sporting goods. Furthermore, in these dry regions, water for crops and industry is frequently drawn down faster than it is naturally replenished, so none of this water use is sustainable. Most importantly, the costs of depleted water used in production are not sufficiently accounted for in the pricing of goods exported from these regions.

6. Inefficient Allocation and Use of Water

There is wide spatial and temporal variation in the availability of water across the region, and this is only likely to increase with climate change. South Asia has more than 20 percent of the world’s population, but only 4 percent of its freshwater, making access to water often difficult. Disputes are increasingly common, yet few citizens understand the gravity of the problem because political rivalries and bureaucratic inertia have delayed the development and implementation of national water policies. As a result, there are cases, like that described below, when scarce water is used to purposely create a flood and in so doing threatens the well-being of millions.

During the dry season, India occasionally diverts as much as 60 percent of the Ganga River flow to Kolkata to flush out channels where silt is accumulating and hampering river traffic (see the Ganga-Brahmaputra Delta on map in Figure 8.1 and the map in Figure 8.5). These diversions temporarily deprive Bangladesh of normal freshwater flow. Reductions in the freshwater levels in the Ganga-Brahmaputra Delta allows saltwater from the Bay of Bengal to penetrate inland, ruining agricultural fields. The diversion has also caused major alterations in Bangladesh’s coastline, damaging its small-scale fishing industry. Thus, to serve the needs of Kolkata’s 16 million people, the livelihoods of 40 million rural Bangladeshis have been put at risk, triggering protests in Bangladesh.

Similar water-use conflicts occur across the region. In Delhi (the ancient city and New Delhi are now commonly referred to simply as Delhi), just 17 five-star hotels, serving a few thousand guests, use about 210,000 gallons (800,000 liters) of water daily, which would be enough to serve the needs of 1.3 million people living in Delhi slums. When two or more states or countries share a water catchment, conflicts can become geopolitical in scale. In the late 1990s, India signed a treaty with Bangladesh promising a fairer distribution of water, but as of 2010, Bangladesh was still receiving a considerably reduced flow. India’s draft water policy of 2012 merely mentions the need to resolve the issue.

182. COCA-COLA BLAMED FOR INDIA’S WATER PROBLEMS

7. Water Pollution

First, it should be noted that most people do not drink water out of the tap in South Asia. Water must be boiled or otherwise purified before it is consumed.

Basic water safety is an issue across the region but is especially crucial in historic religious pilgrimage towns, such as Varanasi, where each year millions of Hindus come to die, be cremated, and have their ashes scattered over the Ganga River. The number of such final pilgrimages has increased with population growth and affluence, causing wood for cremation fires to become scarce. As a result, incompletely cremated bodies are being dumped into the river, where they pollute water used for drinking, cooking, and ceremonial bathing (Figure 8.8B). In an attempt to deal with this problem, the government recently installed an electric crematorium on the riverbank. It is attracting considerable business, as a cremation in this facility costs 30 times less than a traditional funeral pyre.

Of even greater concern now is the amount of industrial waste and sewage dumped into rivers and streams (Figure 8.8A). Most sewage enters these water bodies in raw form because city sewage systems (most built by the British early in the twentieth century) long ago exceeded their capacity. In Varanasi, pumps have been installed to move the sewage up to a new and expensive processing plant, but the plant is so overwhelmed by the volume of water during the rainy season that it can process only a small fraction of the city’s sewage.

FIGURE 8.8 Photo Essay: Human Impacts on the Biosphere in South Asia South Asia’s huge population and growing industries have had major impacts on water and air quality, as well as on the extent and health of remaining ecosystems, such as forests. 8.8a Courtesy Farooq Naeem/AFP/Getty Images, 8.8b Courtesy Tim Graham/Getty Images, 8.8c Courtesy Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg/Getty Images, 8.8d Courtesy Thierry Falise/LightRocket/Getty Images

8. Crop Failures and Food Insecurity

Insufficient water threatens two essential agricultural activities in South Asia: the production of export crops and the production of food for domestic consumption. The primary use of water in South Asia is for irrigation, and though old and new ways of conserving water in fields are being tried (see Figure 8.7B), the demand for irrigation water is not likely to decrease. For most countries in the region, agriculture supplies jobs for close to 50 percent of the workforce and the export crops they produce contribute 17 percent or more of the GNI. Water conservation measures will contribute to crop success and food security by preserving the possibility of irrigating; meanwhile, the work being done to reduce CO₂ levels will help alleviate climate warming and drying trends.

Since ancient times, both India and Pakistan have pioneered methods of increasing the rate at which water deposited during the summer monsoon percolates through the soil and into underground aquifers, rather than evaporating. This practice has made more water available for irrigation during the dry season. Because agriculture uses the most water of any human activity (more than 70 percent in some places), drip irrigation technology, now known to be the most efficient way to irrigate, would help conserve water. Currently, though, the relatively high cost of modern, efficient drip equipment has hampered widespread implementation of drip systems.

Responses to Water Issues Related to Global Climate Change

Unless effective action against climate change is taken, Himalayan glaciers could eventually disappear, causing South Asia’s largest rivers to run nearly dry at least during the winter, when cool, dry air flows off the Eurasian continent and rainfall is sparse (see Figure 8.4 and the Figure 8.5 map). South Asia is pioneering some innovative responses to the multiple threats posed by global climate change. India, by far the largest country in the region, has some experience in developing and implementing emergency plans. In 2012, after many years of bureaucratic stalling, India adopted a national water-use plan, which acknowledges the many water crises likely to be caused by climate change. Although implementation may be difficult, perhaps the most useful proposal in this plan is that water can no longer be considered a free resource. For health, safety, and conservation reasons, everyone must now be required to get their water from a public source and they must somehow be charged for the water they use.

Deforestation

Deforestation has been occurring in South Asia since the first agricultural civilizations developed between 5000 and 10,000 years ago. Ecological historians have shown that, as the forests vanished, the northwestern regions of the subcontinent (from India to Afghanistan) became increasingly drier. The pace of deforestation has increased dramatically over the past 200 years. By the mid-nineteenth century, perhaps a million trees a year were felled for use in building railroads alone. Such radical deforestation jeopardized the well-being both of people and of animals in South Asia (Figure 8.9).

FIGURE 8.9 LOCAL LIVES PEOPLE AND ANIMALS IN SOUTH ASIA 8.9a Courtesy Tom Brakefield/Stockbyte/Getty Images, 8.9b Courtesy Buena Vista Images/The Images Bank/Getty Images, 8.9c Courtesy Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images

Causes of Deforestation and Resistance to It

In the twenty-first century, South Asia’s forests are still shrinking, due to commercial logging and expanding village populations that use wood for building and for fuel. Many of South Asia’s remaining forests are in mountainous or hilly areas, where forest clearing dramatically increases erosion during the rainy season. In addition to the loss of CO₂-absorbing forests, one result of deforestation is massive landslides that can destroy villages and close roads. With fewer trees and less soil to retain the water, rivers and streams become clogged with runoff, mud, and debris. The effects can reach so far downstream that increased flooding in the plains of Bangladesh is linked to deforestation in the Himalayas.

Unlike China and many other nations facing similar problems, the countries of South Asia have a healthy and vibrant culture of environmental activism that has alerted the public to the consequences of deforestation. In 1973, for example, in the Himalayan district of Uttarakhand (then known as Uttaranchal), India, a sporting-goods manufacturer planned to cut down a grove of ash trees so that the factory, in the distant city of Allahabad, could use the wood to make tennis racquets. The trees were sacred to nearby villagers, however, and when their protests were ignored, a group of local women took dramatic action. When the loggers came, they found the women hugging the trees and refusing to let go until the manufacturer decided to find another grove.

The women’s action grew into the Chipko movement (literally, “hugging”), which is also known as the social forestry movement. The movement has spread to other forest areas and has been responsible for slowing deforestation and increasing ecological awareness. Proponents of the movement argue that the management of forest resources should be turned over to local communities. They say that people living at the edges of forests possess complex local knowledge of those ecosystems that has been gained over generations—knowledge about which plants are useful as building materials and for food, medicines, and fuel. Those who live in forested areas are more likely to manage the forests carefully because they want their descendants to benefit from forests for generations to come.

180. TRIBAL PEOPLE IN INDIA WANT TO PROTECT INDIGENOUS WAYS OF LIFE

Industrial Air Pollution

In many parts of South Asia, the air as well as the water is endangered by industrial activity. Emissions from vehicles and coal-burning power plants are so bad that breathing Delhi’s air is equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes a day (see Figure 8.8C). The acid rain caused by industries up and down the Ganga River basin is destroying good farmland and such renowned heritage monuments as the Taj Mahal.

M.C. Mehta, a Delhi-based lawyer, became an environmental activist partly in response to the condition of the Taj Mahal, whose white marble was becoming pitted by acid rain. For more than 20 years, he has successfully promoted environmental legislation that has removed hundreds of the most polluting factories from India’s river valleys. His efforts are also a response to a disastrous event that took place in central India in 1984. At that time, an explosion at a pesticide plant in Bhopal produced a gas cloud that killed at least 15,000 people and severely damaged the lungs of 50,000 more. The explosion was largely the result of negligence on the part of the U.S.-based Union Carbide Corporation (which owned the plant) and the local Indian employees who ran the plant. To help address the tragedy, the Indian government launched an ambitious campaign to clean up poorly regulated factories, a project that is far from complete.