Bengaluru’s urban development widening its water crisis: IPCC

BENGALURU: Bengaluru’s urban development and infrastructural advancements are rupturing the water tank system preserved by its communities for generations, highlighted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its new report. The report was published on Monday, February 28, with the title ‘Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.

According to the report, urban growth has taken a toll on community-managed water tanks. “Today, Bengaluru relies on long-distance water transfers that cause political tension, as well as a dense network of private boreholes that are diminishing the city’s water resources,” states the report. The restoration of existing network of community-managed water tanks provides a more sustainable and socially just way to manage water supplies.”

It further stated that city authorities invested in interconnected, community-managed networks of tanks and open wells that were periodically refreshed with gathered rainwater, according to records dating back to the 6th century. “The water system was changed at the end of the 18th century, when the colonial state, then the post-independence government of Karnataka, took responsibility for water management,” according to the report. The creation of new water infrastructure and piped networks was influenced by modernist planning ideas, including the first piped infrastructure, which brought water from sources 30 kilometers distant, including the Hesaraghatta and then the TG Halli reservoirs.”

The report stated, “As tanks became underused, polluted, or built over, the ancient network of tanks gradually deteriorated.” In the post-colonial period, more extensive and costly water transfers occurred, supplying water from the Cauvery River in a large engineering project with a high energy cost and entangled in inter-state water disputes. In Bengaluru, scarcity is still a problem. Despite efforts to mitigate the risks, scientists at the IPCC report stated that human-induced climate change is creating hazardous and pervasive upheaval in nature and disrupting the lives of billions of people throughout the world.

It also mentioned that the international transboundary river basins of the Amu Darya, Indus, Ganges, and the interstate Sabarmati River basin in India could face severe water scarcity issues, with climate change acting as a stress multiplier. The report highlighted that the subregions of Asia, both climatic and non-climatic causes, such as socio-economic developments, have caused water stress situations in both supply and demand. According to the IPCC, these changes in space and time had a direct or indirect impact on water usage sectors and services.