A study on groundwater market and its techno-socio-economic implications

Abstract

Demand for water has been constantly increasing as population increases. However, global freshwater supplies are restricted to finite 2% of total available water. In India, groundwater resources play a very critical role in meeting the ever increasing demand of the agricultural, industrial and domestic sectors. Many cities in India experience water shortage and the authorities are not able to provide adequate quantity of protected water, particularly in summer or periods of monsoon failure. During these periods, the aquifer of the peri-urban areas or villages acts as a source, and a huge amount of water is transferred to the city formally and informally. Chennai, one of the major metropolitan cities in India is facing an acute water crisis because of the growth in the domestic and industrial sector. Surface water is the major contributing source to the city water requirements, which is highly inadequate. The deficit is met by draining and transferring the groundwater through tanker supply as well as packaged water supply particularly from peri-urban villages. Development of groundwater for commercial purposes without any quantification and recharging activities have all impacted the land, water and on people in peri-urban villages. It has resulted in the lowering of water levels, deterioration in water quality and a decreasing trend in agriculture and agriculture related employment opportunities as a peri-urban village is already stressed due to urbanization impacts. With this background, the present study of transdisciplinary research was taken up with the objective of examining groundwater market, its role in meeting the demand, different actors involved and village level survey for assessing the socio- economic impacts in peri-urban areas. Further, this social issue has been analyzed with technical components such as land use changes, assessment of groundwater balance, hydrochemical analysis, and mapping of groundwater potential in order to meet out the gap identified in the literature survey.