"Water will reclaim its space," says Shweta Narayan, an environmentalist.

Indeed, Climate change is causing rising sea levels, increased flooding, drought and water shortages in many cities around the globe. The coastal city of Chennai is suffering knee-deep with all of these problems.

Even though the city receives an average amount of 1,400mm (55 inches) of rainfall a year, still in 2019 it made headlines for being one of the first major cities in the world to run out of water—trucking in 10 million litres a day to hydrate its population.

And the situation has been deplorable ever since.

Chennai's Geography has been it's biggest Boon and Bane

The city settles on a low plain on the southeast coast of India, intersected by three main rivers, all heavily polluted, that drain into the Bay of Bengal. 

Historically, it has been a trading link connecting India to the far-east, while also buffering as a gateway to South India. Its success spawned a conurbation that grew with scant planning with ruthless engagement in thriving auto, healthcare, IT and film industries.

It's all a Case of Human-made Disaster

"The Water Scarcity issue in Chennai is a Two-fold problem," emphasizes Shweta Narayan while talking to Prasar Bharati News Service. There have been tremendous changes in the land usage of the city.

Industrialization, urbanization, extreme weather converge and a booming metropolis - the act of human encroachments, has left the city vulnerable to droughts and floods alike.

"In order to satisfy the demand for new homes, factories and offices heavy encroachments have been carried out over Chennai's flood plains," says Shweta Narayan distressing over the fact that the geography of the city, initially, was at a natural advantage.

The water scarcity problem is human-made.

The cyclone-prone waters of the Bay of Bengal sporadically gush over the city, forcing its sewage-filled rivers to overflow into the streets. The rainfall patterns are uneven, with up to 90% falling during the northeast monsoon season of November and December. When rains fail, the city must rely on huge desalination plants and water piped in from hundreds of kilometres away because most of its rivers and lakes are too polluted.

When doomsday befell the City

On 19 June 2019, Chennai city officials declared that "Day Zero", or the day when almost no water is left, had been reached, as all the four main reservoirs supplying water to the city had run dry at this point. This happened because of two years of deficient monsoon rainfall, particularly in late 2017 and throughout much of 2018.

What now? Chennai needs to Catch the Rain

A lack of rainwater and groundwater had left four of the reservoirs that supply the city completely dry, namely, Red Hills, Cholavaram, Poondi and Chembarambakkam.

Back in 2001, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa had made rainwater harvesting mandatory. For over a time, this had inculcated the culture of harvesting rainwater in the common households of Chennai, but due to excessive industrialization and urbanization of the city in this past decade, individual efforts had been severely cut short at the expanse of greater exploits.

The Government in 2013 revised a scheme, Master Plan for Artificial Recharge to Groundwater in India for rainwater harvesting and artificial recharge of groundwater which envisages the construction of about 23 lakh rainwater harvesting structures in rural areas, and close to 88 lakh artificial recharge and rainwater harvesting installations in urban centres. 

Simultaneously since 2017, the Department of Land Resources is currently implementing 8214 watershed development projects in 28 States covering an area of about 39.07 million ha. under the Watershed Development Component (WDC) of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) for the development of rainfed portions of net cultivated area and culturable wastelands.