Unit 2 Ch 3 : Water Resources — Social Studies STD 10 — Question

1. Over Exploitation of Water: Most of the farmers have their own private wells or tube wells to meet their irrigation needs, this leads to fall in the groundwater level and excessive use by them. Expansion in the crop production has resulted in the over exploitation of water to cater to irrigated areas and dry season agriculture. It also leads to unequal distribution of water, people in rural complaint about water getting diverted to urban areas.​Water is excessively used in agriculture, in fact, agriculture consumes and use more water for production, at the same time water is inefficiently used and wasted by some farming practises.

Water is also overexploited by some section , those have their own irrigation facilities depriving others of the equal share. Seasonal irrigation also impacts water scarcity as for instance during summers, more water is used for irrigation as compared to other seasons.

During summers most of the regions face water shortage due to increased demand, less precipitation in some regions putting more burden on our scarce resource.

2. Intensive Industrialization,urbanisation: Industrialisation requires water not only for the industrial process but for generating power, a considerable part of energy comes from hydroelectric power. Increase in urban cities and towns along with urban lifestyles have aggravated the problem of water scarcity. Many housing societies have their own groundwater pumping devices which again leads to excessive use of water. Growing population has increased the demand for water.

3. Bad quality of water: Even in some areas water is available to meet the needs of the people, water is polluted due to domestic, industrial wastes, use of chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers.

4. Unequal distribution of water among different social groups: The poor in the rural areas blame the state machinery of diverting water in urban areas and benefiting the rich has also resulted in the scarcity of water. It is primarily due to its potential shortage of clean and safe drinking water.

5. Growing water disputes: The disagreement is also over the cost of the projects and sharing of benefits of the multi purpose river projects. The main point of contention is that downstream state's objection to pollution, excessive irrigation and construction of dams by the upper streams states which might then control the quantity of water flowing to the downstream state. This leads to disputes between the states.