Water Security in India Hope, Despair, and the Challenges of Human Development

by Asthana, Vandana; Shukla, A. C.

• ISBN13: 9781441179364
• ISBN10: 1441179364
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-10-23
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Few people actively engaged in India's water sector would deny that the Indian subcontinent faces serious problems in the sustainable use and management of water resources. Water resources in India have been subjected to tremendous pressures from increasing population, urbanization, industrialization, and modern agricultural methods. The inadequate access to clean drinking water, increase in water related disasters such as floods and droughts, vulnerability to climate change and competition for the resource amongst different sectors and the region poses immense pressures for sustainability of water systems and humanity.

Water Security in India addresses these issues head on, analyzing the challenges that contemporary India faces if it is to create a water-secure world, and providing a hopeful, though guarded, road-map to a future in which India's life-giving and life-sustaining fresh water resources are safe, clean, plentiful, and available to all, secured for the people in a peaceful and ecologically sustainable manner.

Author Biography

Vandana Asthana is Associate Professor in the Government Department, Eastern Washington University, USA. She was a member of the planning process of nongovernmental organizations at the United Nations Prep Com Meet on Environment and Development.

A.C. Shukla is a Visiting Scholar at the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He headed the Biopollution Study Centre at Christ Church College, UK and Chhatrapati Sahu Ji Maharaj University in Kanpur, India.

Table of Contents

Preface
Part- I
1: Water Security: Introducing the Concept
2: Water in India

Part -II
3 Agriculture and Irrigation Development in India
4: Industrialization, Urbanization and Population Growth
5: Climate Change and Its Impact on Water Security
6: Securing Water: Law and Enforcement

Part-III
7: Conflicts Over Water Resources : India and its Neighborhood

Part-IV
8: Human Security: Water for Life, Livelihood and Ecology
9: India's Water Vision and Alternative Management Strategies
10: Ensuring Water Security for Peace and Development
Bibliography
Index