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Urbanization, Water Scarcityand Climate Change: A Case from Rajasthan withGlobal Implications

 

Introduction
The world is rapidly urbanizing. At a global level, over 50% of the world’s population already resides in cities and urban areas, which have become the primary engines of economic development (UN-HABITAT 2009). Migration into urban areas is high, as populations respond both to the opportunities they present and the pressures inherent in highly uncertain rural, agricultural livelihoods. Urbanization is often thought to be closely associated with poverty reduction and other positive social outcomes that range from higher living standards to technological innovation and women’s empowerment.

By 2040, urban populations will exceed rural in all major world regions with the excep- ion of Eastern Africa.Yet, how solid is the foundation upon which urbanization rests? In many parts of the world, the basic resources, such as water, required for burgeoning urban populationsare increasingly polluted, in limited supply and facing intense competition frommultiple users. Climate change is likely to substantially exacerbate the multiple challenges of providing adequate water resources to urban populations and protecting ecosystems. Fluctuating weather patterns — changes in temperature, precipitation and other climatic variables — could fundamentally affect the availability and quality of the water supplies that are central to the survival of urban areas. Many migrants from rural areas to urban areas are already pushed to leave their homes by depleted or degraded water resources and weather variability. As the frequency and intensity of climate.

 

Bisalpur Dam, designed to become the principal source of Jaipur’s municipal water supply from 2010 onward, has only filled nine times since it became operational in 1994 (Department of Irrigation 2010). Rainfall distribution is spatially uneven throughout the Banas River Basin, the river that feeds Bisalpur Dam, and is highly variable. Approximately 90% of the annual precipitation falls in July-September as the basin lies at the northwestern fringe of the South Asian Monsoon. The basin is bounded by the Aravalli Range on the west, which creates two rainfall zones in the area upstream of Bisalpur Dam. One zone receives an annual average of 805mm and the other only 614mm. Sequential drought years are common and some, such as 2000-2003 in which rainfall decreased almost 60%, are severe. The extreme recent drought events resulted in a marked flight from the rural areas to Jaipur city, and a significant drawdown in groundwater. Slight changes in the dynamics of the monsoon system as a result of climate change, whether through general shifts in the starting date, changes in overall rainfall amount and/or through rain events becoming less frequent but more intense, could have drastic implications for Jaipur’s water availability. Given Jaipur’s dependence on this one source for much of its water supply, any disruption could undermine one of the most essential resources required for any city to sustain itself – a secure source of water supply.

Jaipur’s potential vulnerability to climate change and rapid population growth typifies that of many cities. Cities are, as the latest UN-Habitat report (2010) on urban areas emphasizes, engines of economic activity that contribute to poverty reduction, centers of population growth and potentially the foundation for many positive changes in human living conditions. The systems upon which cities depend, such as water, food, ecosystems, and energy systems, are complex and poorly understood. While cities have historically been among the most resilient of human institutions, as populations grow, competition over resources increases and the difficulty of projecting the effects of global processes ripples through systems, profound vulnerabilities may emerge. The State of the
World’s Cities 2010/2011 (UN-Habitat 2010) mentions climate change in passing in the text. In no place are the systems on which urban areas depend evaluated in any systematic manner. This is not intended as a criticism of the report. Instead, it reflects a much larger gap in understanding of the implications of climate change for urban areas that applies to most global knowledge centers.

 

Methodologies
Methodologically, the report combines:
1. Background information on Jaipur and the evolving urbanization context based on secondary data and interviews with key actors;
2. Detailed surveys on migration across a number of villages and urban labor markets;
3. Statistical downscaling of climate change scenarios to produce future rainfall projections between 2009 – 2040; and

4. Modeling and analysis of Jaipur’s current and future water supply vulnerabil- ity through an integrated water resource software, the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) software developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

 

A baseline characterization of Jaipur’s water supply context based on the above analysis was evaluated and used to develop potential future scenarios of water supply, demand and migration patterns. Plausible demand and supply-side scenarios were then devel-oped and tested in an integrated water resource model to evaluate their ability to provide water to Jaipur’s burgeoning population under various migration and climate change scenarios. These scenarios drew heavily on extensive prior research by one of the core project partners, the Centre for Environment and Development Studies Jaipur (CEDSJ).

 

Key Findings
Analysis of Jaipur’s water supply system highlights the fundamental fragility of one of the basic systems upon which the future of the urban area and the livelihood and wellbeing of its residents depend. Both historical experiences and modeling results highlight the high possibility of sequential drought years in which the current water supply system would fail severely to meet the basic needs of urban residents. The ability to respond to this situation is heavily undermined by the unavailability, inaccessibility and lack of neutrality in key data sets. Official estimates of water supply availability in key facilities, such as the Bisalpur Dam, differ by as much as two orders of magnitude depending upon the data source.

 

Study Limitations

No research initiative is able to examine all elements that are known to be criti- cal to the particular context being investigated. The critical piece of research missing from this project is a detailed investigation of the peri-urbanization and urbanization processes occurring in and around Jaipur city. The formal urban and industrial plans and informal processes by which the city, its services and provisions are expanding, were not able to be incorporated into this research effort, due to lack of data. CEDSJ is currently conducting more research on actual land use change patterns, loss of ecosys- tem services and provisions, trends in livelihood and economic development in the surrounding areas. These processes will greatly impact both future water demand and the strategies the city chooses to better manage supplies and demands. Given the lack of baseline data or a comprehensive snapshot of the peri-urban/urban development processes around data, we have relied on CEDSJ’s initial observations and government.


studies on Jaipur’s projected development to inform the research in this project. Despite the lack of data in some areas, the data and observations we do have concretely demonstrate that Jaipur’s water supply is already extremely vulnerable and not very resilient to either shocks or slow-onset events – whether those are large pulses imigration or persistent, low-level drought. The study shows that even when consider- ing only two “simplified” stressors of migration and potential climate change, the city’ future water supply vulnerability will only increase unless demand and supply conserva- tion options are considered soon.

 

Urbanization
Similar to the trends being observed around the world, India too is witnessing rapid growth in urban centers. In India, out of the total population of 1027 million as of 2001, approximately 742 million lived in rural areas and 285 million (27.8%) in urban areas. The decadal growth of populations in rural and urban areas between 1991-2001 was 17.9% and 31.2%, respectively (Gov. of India 2001). The rate of urban population growth far surpasses that of rural population growth and currently, almost a third of

India’s population lives in urban areas. According to a recent study on Indian urban- ization, each year the urban population in India grows by more than 7 million people (Furthermore, the trend in urbanization is expected to accelerate in coming decades as rural populations seek the better livelihood and lifestyle options that cities often afford. It is projected that by 2021 the number of cities with a population of more than one million will rise to 75 (in 2001 there were only 35) with nearly 40% of India’s population living in urban areas.

 

 


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  • Posted on : December 02nd, 2018
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