In the present scenario of climate change coupled with deforestation, many springs or jaldharas, which are a common source of drinking water for the villagers in hill states, are drying up, thus leading to water shortage in the hills and impacting communities. A report by Deepanwita Gita Niyogi
In the Himalayan region, a common source of drinking water is the spring or jaldhara from where water comes out naturally like a fountain from subterranean passages.
In the present scenario of climate change coupled with deforestation, many springs are drying up, thus leading to water shortage in the hills and impacting communities. A NITI Aayog report says that there are five million springs across India, of which nearly three million are in the Himalayan region. An estimated 200 million people depend on spring water.
These jaldharas or springs are found in abundance in states like Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh due to their being situated in the Himalayas. According to Chandarshekhar Tewari, rural people collect water from dharas. But a changing climate is responsible for the drying up of many of these natural water sources.
Tewari, who works at the Doon Library and Research Centre, a public library in Dehradun as a programme associate, also blamed factors like road cutting, installation of hand pumps and the insistence on piped water supply in villages behind the drying up of jaldharas. “To boost tourism, many hotels and resorts are coming up in the mountains which is impacting water availability and source.”
The situation is the same in the eastern Himalayas. Pasang Lepcha is based in Darjeeling district of West Bengal and works for WWF. “The organisation is collecting data in Darjeeling to find out how much amount of rainfall is seeping underground and recharging aquifers. Recharged aquifers are most important for continuance of springs. There are spring sheds where water gets absorbed and stored in aquifers, and then is discharged out.”
“Springs which were perennial in nature earlier have turned seasonal. In many places, the water discharge rate has gone down. At the same time, the demand for water is increasing day by day due to rural tourism,” Lepcha said.
He talked about plans to carry out restoration work like tree plantation to secure spring sheds. As part of the recharge work, pits are also dug where water can be collected. “Now, a lot of rainfall happens within a short period. So, there is no time for the water to seep inside the earth.”
