Water Quality
Water quality concern is going to precede water availability in future, as surface and groundwater resources shrink, at least in urban environments. Water quality determines the suitability of the water for any particular use including domestic and drinking needs. Lack of adequate management and natural causes are responsible for the present situation now.
In these days of digital networked world, it is a surprise that sufficient data on water and its quality is not forthcoming in public domain. Most scientific data on natural resources available today are largely from State or Central government agencies and are not in a readily usable form.
But areas such as weather, agriculture, and health that have embraced digital tools are popular today. However, in some disciplines infusion of current technologies are yet to make an impact. Water and water quality are one such area today.
Groundwater meets unknown but significant quantity of urban domestic water needs, especially the middle and lower economic sections of the society.
Today, cities and towns with their growing population, vertical growth, widening demand – water supply gap and fluctuations of annual monsoon, is subjected to seasonal water stress. This has prompted drilling more borewells, that increased groundwater extraction, which however eventually lead to poor yields.
Over exploitation not only decline bore well yields and leave open wells dry, but can also decrease the quality of groundwater. Water quality issues will restrict use of water for drinking, cooking and washing which are major uses of groundwater in urban areas. Groundwater quality is going to precede among urban water supply issues in future.
