While Cape Town is in the unenviable situation of being the first major city in the modern era to face the threat of running out of drinking water, there’s an Indian city as well which is likely to run out of water.
Banglore is one of the 11 cities which most likely would run out of the water, according to a survey conducted in 2014. The other ten cities include Cape Town, London, Miami, Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Beijing, Cairo, Moscow and Istanbul.
Due to the recent growth of new property developments and Bangalore’s rise as a technological hub, local officials in the city have been bamboozled and are struggling to manage the city’s water and sewage systems.
Banglore has old-fashioned sewage structure and it needs an urgent upheaval. As per a report from the government, the city loses over half of its drinking water to waste.
Similar to China, India grapples with water pollution and Bangalore is no different: an in-depth inventory of the city’s lakes found that 85% had water that could only be used for irrigation and industrial cooling. Sadly, not even a single lake had suitable water for drinking or bathing.
While UN-endorsed projections claim that global demand for fresh water will exceed supply by 40% in 2030 due to a combination of climate change, human action and population growth.
The condition arises in spite of 70% of the Earth’s surface is water. But especially drinking water, is not as plentiful as one might think. Only 3% of it is fresh.
More than one billion people lack access to water and another 2.7 billion find it scarce for at least one month of the year. A 2014 survey of the world’s 500 largest cities estimates that one in four is in a situation of “water stress”.