In her new book Watershed, climate expert Mridula Ramesh stresses on urgent need of water management in India

Mridula Ramesh, Executive Director of Sundaram Textiles. and Founder of the Sundaram Climate Institute, is out with a new book titled Watershed: How We Destroyed India’s Water and How We Can Save It. Published by Hachette India, it comes three years after her critically acclaimed volume The Climate Solution: India’s Climate-Change Crisis and What We Can Do About It (2018). We bring you an in-depth interview with this author and climate expert, who is also an angel investor with a portfolio of over 15 start-ups, lives in a net-zero-waste-home in Madurai, and is on the board of trustees of World Wildlife Fund India. Excerpts from the exclusive interaction below: Why did you choose to write Watershed, and what is your target audience? My climate journey began when I ran out of water at home. I began writing on climate to make the issue more accessible to people outside closeted climate dialogues. As I began partaking in climate conversations, I realised that while carbon headlines most or all of them, water needed a greater share in those conversations. The warmer climate speaks eloquently through water. For India, one of the most vulnerable countries in this climate crisis, adaptation needs to form an important part of the narrative. And in adaptation, water takes centrestage. My target audience is any Indian – water touches everyone, and everyone has a part to play in its management. The book aims to show you how and why and what to do. What do you think of the commitments India made at the recent COP-26 in Glasgow ? To what extent will they lay the ground for a comprehensive water policy in India? Many of India’s commitments had to do with carbon. But by increasing the share of renewables within the energy mix, the water consumed by the power sector will go down. To that extent, it is water-positive or water-adjacent. Secondly, India’s earlier commitments on forest cover are water positive as forests are critical to India’s water story. But a water policy, by India’s water’s very nature, must be local, and vary from region to region. Climate change discourse is often dismissed as being alarmist. When you meet people who are reluctant to give up instant gratification and see present choices through the lens of their impact on future generations, how do you respond? How easy or difficult is it to keep the focus on science, and not get into blaming or guilt-tripping people?

While conscience is good for spurring a change, it is less effective in sustaining a change. That’s why we need good economics and design to come in to sustain the action we want to see.

To get meaningful action, it is important to keep the action local – where the pain of the action and the benefit are somewhat better aligned – and use a number of actors to communicate the necessity for a change, and handhold extensively while making the change. Show and tell is always better than heckling. Lastly, without an economic rationale, no change will be sustainable. After all, why conserve something that is seen as value-less? What might make people more receptive to hearing about and adopting sustainable practices? It might seem counter-intuitive to aspire to a life of simplicity when everyone around is consuming more and flaunting that as a marker of success and affluence.  First, sustainable does not mean abstinence. Ours is a net-zero-waste house because we manage almost all of the waste we generate. That’s the key. We make biogas and compost after segregating it, rather than dumping it into the corporation bin. Second, make any action easy to adopt. Segregating waste takes no additional time because of the way we have designed the high-waste zones in our house. Using less water in the washbasin does not require conscious thought as we have lowered the water pressure in the tap. Let’s focus on design rather than conscience. Third, responsible consumption is important, and needs good role models. Today, there is a fair bit of green washing going on there, so new and genuine role models would help. That’s the trillion-dollar question, how to make sustainable sexy? What are the challenges that the agricultural and industrial sectors are currently facing with respect to water? What role can technology play in addressing these challenges? One problem with agriculture is the rotting of so much of our crop post-harvest. To address this, we need many more small warehouses that are accessible to the smallest farmer, and well-managed technologies such as moisture meters and links with banks to facilitate cheaper credit against stored grain. It’s not the technology per se that makes the difference but, as I have said repeatedly in the book, well-managed technology that makes all the difference. The same is true in industry. In industry, for example, wherever water is perceived as being precious, tremendous advances in effluent treatment have turned effluent treatment from a cost centre to a profit centre – that is companies go beyond just complying with regulations, to recovering water and chemicals from their effluent treatment plants. Once they do that, they become fully vested in ensuring that every last drop of effluent is treated. What is required is a signal of what is important to manage. If we signal that water demand is worth managing, we will get metering and analytics to flourish. If we signal that we do not care about water demand management, we will get borewells to flourish. How will India’s economic landscape be transformed by water scarcity in the coming years? What are the new revenue streams and job opportunities that you foresee? Certain industries will stop making sense in dry areas, thermal power plants being a notable example. This can accelerate the switch toward renewables, while adding to the stress of banks who have lent to the promoters of these plants. Industrial use will see a greater scrutiny of its water use; big brands will act as lightning rods for protests. This means that water needs to figure meaningfully in the income statement and balance sheet, far more than it does today. As water becomes more precious going forward, water management births new sectors – sewage treatment, waste water markets, and tank tourism being notable examples. [caption id=“attachment_10265321” align=“alignnone” width=“639”]  Mridula Ramesh[/caption] Do you think that entrepreneurs producing mock meats will help solve our water crisis? In India, vegetarianism and veganism are often discussed through the lens of religion and caste, not in terms of water use and carbon footprint. Do you see this changing? The cash flow provided by animal products is an important element to consider, while looking at how to wean ourselves away from animal products. Also, while mimicking meat, the taste, look, and how it is perceived are critical elements to its success. Moving away from animal products is important. They are massive greenhouse gas emitters and water guzzlers, and they weaken forests. But we can’t move away until we crack the cash flow piece of the puzzle. Framing this as a religious or caste issue only makes it an emotional issue. Once that happens, logic recedes in importance, and any potential change is made much harder. In that sense, reframing it as a climate, water, and finance problem can make the transition far easier. How will dams, maritime trade, and water-sharing treaties shape geopolitical ties in our neighbourhood? What must India do to ensure water security and water resilience? India does not have a refugee law, and is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention either. Do you think a water policy must also make provisions for climate refugees? So much of India’s water crosses boundaries, so dams play a critical role in our relationship with neighbours. The problem is that we don’t have water treaties with China, which lies upstream. Consider the huge dam that China is building on the Brahmaputra just before it enters India, will that become a hydro-disciplinary tool – i.e. hold back water when required by India? Or will it get overwhelmed in an increasingly volatile water regime as the climate heats up? How will that impact the relationship between these two countries? What about the water sharing between India and Bangladesh, and power generation in the Farakka thermal power station in summer? Will we renegotiate treaties or stick to earlier commitments? What about climate migrants, even within the country? How will we handle that issue? There are no easy answers, but we must recognise that the climate (and water) is changing. We cannot wish these problems away. India’s democratic realities has made water management next-to-impossible, making solving these problems far harder than they otherwise will be. Chintan Girish Modi is a freelance writer, journalist, and book reviewer.