Groundwater market and its implications on water resources and agriculture in the southern peri-urban interface, Chennai, India

Abstract

This paper describes the informal groundwater market existing in the urbanperi-urban interface of Chennai. The private water tanker suppliers and packaged water industries utilize the land and water resources of the peri-urban villages. Thus, the groundwater sources in peri-urban areas play a significant role in meeting the growing urban demand. The villages that are experiencing the groundwater market are highly influenced by the urbanization and its related activities, due to their proximity to the city. The transfer of groundwater from the peri-urban villages not only deprives the peri-urban areas of their water rights but also leads to environmental damage. Agriculture declined in the water marketed villages in the range of 20-95 per cent during 1990-2007. The premonsoon and post-monsoon groundwater level fluctuation varied from 2-6 m to 0-5 m, respectively, during 1971-2007. The declining trend of the groundwater table and agriculture is highly significant in the water marketing villages. Moreover, the present groundwater quality is also in a susceptible state due to over extraction. Hence, strengthening the legal and institutional framework to ensure an equitable access to water for both urban and peri-urban areas is urgently required. This paper also describes the characteristics of the groundwater transfer, quantification of the marketed water, the role of the existing regulatory framework, and the institutional mechanisms. Many stakeholder's meeting and focus group discussions have been conducted in the villages under study for understanding the socio-economic implications of the water market. The study ultimately emphasized a sustainable groundwater extraction/market which will safeguard the interests of the peri-urban and urban communities.Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.

The peri-urban to urban groundwater transfer and its societal implications in Chennai, south India – A case study

“…The studies conducted by several researchers were reported the similar evidences in the decline of agriculture and the related implications particularly in the peri-urban contexts (Keith et. al, 2003;Shanmugam et. al, 2010).…”

“…The increased labour cost, fertilizer cost, the profitable business of the sale of water for non-agricultural uses, and adequate non-agricultural employment opportunities, decrease the dependency on agricultural activities in the village (Shanmugam et al 2010). Furthermore, the agricultural lands are used for residential purposes due to the increased land value in the peri-urban village (as the lands are highly demanded for non agricultural purposes), which is located very close to the urban centres.…”

Periurban Transformations in the Global South and Their Impact on Water-Based Livelihoods

“…For well off farmers, water vending is a chance to increase their income, while it deprives poor farmers who cannot afford borewells from their livelihood base. Water vending generally requires less labour input and offers higher profits [20,22,103]. Yet, this new livelihood results in further transformations, as farmers drop out of agriculture and professionalise in water vending [20,22].…”

“…Together with overextraction and pollution, changes in managing the resource, result in changing access to water, with the patterns being determined inter alia by location, socio-economic status, gender, and social identity [18,[20][21][22][23][24]. In many cases, the shortfall of governance is the root cause for these problems.…”

Assessment of Water Quality Index (WQI) for Drinking Purpose of Groundwater in Lower Varahanadhi subbasin, Tamilnadu, India

“…The suitability of groundwater for various uses majorly depends on quality of groundwater. Hence protecting the quality of groundwater is a major concern (Packialakshmi et al,2011). Water quality index is one of the most efficient tools to converse information on the quality of water to the concerned people and understand the spatial and temporal variation of quality.…”