Come summer and its not just the heat Bengaluru has to put up with but also water shortage. In years to come, however, the city may begin to experience a water crisis even before summer sets in unless something is done to improve the condition of the catchments of the Cauvery and Arkavathy which feed Bengaluru, warn concerned ecologists.
Aware of the threat to the city’s water supply, the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) embarked on a joint survey of the catchment area of the Cauvery with the help of experts fromthe Indian Institute of Science a year ago and has drawn some alarming conclusions.
The survey warns that the inflow of water from streams, channels and tributaries into the river Cauvery is dwindling with every season and some of the water receiving stations and the Beechanahalli dam too receive less water than before with the approaching of summer .
“This scarcity is felt although there is little change in the rain pattern of the Kodagu region,” notes a member of the survey team, who also reveals that pollution is rising in the Cauvery at some points. “For instance, part of the untreated sewage from Mysore city enters the river,” he says. While the team has made recommendations on ways to improve the catchment area and free the streams and tributaries that feed the Cauvery of encroachments, its clearly upto the government to respond and do what it takes in the interests of the city's water supply.
Conservationists, for their part, emphasise its important to save the tiger’s habitat where the river Cauvery originates, so that the water needs of the people of Bengaluru can be met. They are concerned that major
tributaries of the Cauvery like the, Ramatheertha and Lakshmana Teertha in Kodagu are drying up even before summer can set in because of extensive lift irrigation by pumpsets and soil erosion caused by growing ginger in the region.
Senior wildlife conservationist from Kodagu, K. M. Chinnappa is worried that frequent fires in its forests and grasslands will reduce the water percolation capacity of land in these parts and in turn affect the inflow into the streams. “The grasslands of Talacauvery store water that seeps out during summer making many of the tributaries of Cauvery perennial. But when there is a forest fire water is not able to seep into the ground, which leaves these tributaries dry,” he explains.