‘ Water - a Precious Resource’

On the World Water Day March 22, 2011,in the National Science Centre, Delhi. An Exhibition – Water: a Precious Resource’ was inaugurated on March 22, 2011 at 10:30 AM by Kumari Selja, Minister for Culture and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation in presence of Dr. Krishan Lal, President, Indian national Science Academy (INSA) and Chairperson, Research Advisory Board, National Council of Science Museums (NCSM). The Minister emphasized the importance of water conservation, its judicious use and proper management if we have to leave the Earth livable for our future generation. She advised the young audience to become messengers and communicators to create consciousness and awareness on the water crisis that is looming the planet earth:

The Exhibition – Water: a Precious Resource – will stay in Delhi for two months for public viewing and then, in next two years, it is scheduled to travel across India through the circuit of 25 science centres developed and managed by the National Council of Science Museums, the science communication organization, functioning under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Several activities, lectures etc. shall be organized at each site to create awareness. The exhibition attempts to raise consciousness about the world wide crisis of this precious resource that affects over 1.1 billion people around the globe. Today, scarcity of water is the most excruciating problem in the face of the earth after global warming.

The issue raised by this exhibition, developed by the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), is one that we all know of but often tend to ignore. This exhibition makes us look at the problem squarely in the eye – A big squeeze on the world’s freshwater resources looms as populations mushroom and incomes rise; moreover, we have been casual and careless about water resources.

The 20th century saw a tripling of the world’s population while freshwater use grew by a factor of six. With the world population expected to increase as much as 50 percent over the next half century, analysts are indeed worried that increasing demand for water, coupled with industrialization and urbanization, will have serious consequences both for human health and the environment. Access to freshwater is also likely to cause conflicts between governments as well as within national borders around the world. Today one-sixth of the world’s human population lacks access to clean drinking water, and more than two million people—mostly kids—die each year from water-borne diseases. With the human population more than 6 billion and climbing, the per capita quantity of freshwater continues to decline. Yet the principal problem continues to be man-made: the inequitable access to and distribution of freshwater, which is highly variable between and within countries. The visitors can explore how much water is being wasted by them through an interactive exhibit illustrating fresh water withdrawal and consumption in the year 2010 across various continents.

By the year 2020, to quote a report, majority of the Indian cities will run dry. In India, supply of safe drinking water too is fast dwindling primarily due to depletion of water resources. Now, situation has arrived when even a single drop of water matters. Interactive displays and multimedia based presentations highlight the shocking facts that looming water crisis brings uncertainty in our lives and also the ways to face these challenges through water conservation practices in our daily lives.

How is the scenario in India? In 1947 per capita per year water availability was about 6000 cubic meters. It came down to 2300 cubic meters in 1997. If we let it dip below 1700 cubic meters, India may slip into the category of a water stressed state. We don’t actually realise how much water we need on daily basis. This exhibition makes it clear through interactive exhibits – eat an apple and you are consuming 70 litres of water because that is the amount of water needed to make the apple grow. A glass of milk equates to 200 litres of water and a cup of tea means 35 litres, this devouring of water going on through the spectrum of products we use or consume unthinkingly on a daily basis. Agriculture being the largest water consuming sector, studies show that in many modern cities (Delhi included) water scarcity often is a result of huge water stream diversion to agricultural fields, which in a way is inevitable.

The exhibition demonstrates that even low-tech water conservation methods and some conscious readjustments in our daily water usage patterns could be viable alternatives that may potentially stop us from running our taps dry. This exhibition is de-facto a plea on behalf of the planet earth and presents a manifesto of what needs to be done to save the planet from ensuing water crisis.