Whopping 169 gallons per day water usage in water scarce Utah where I live now!

By Rajiv Shah

Even as rains lashed Salt Lake City, the capital of the US state Utah, where I live now, I was a little surprised to read a story in a local website. The story says, "When it comes to per capita water use in the US, Utah ranks second at 169 gallons per day. That's only slightly behind Idaho's 184 gallons per person each day."

I was interested in the story as it would help those seeking to compare water usage and management in India -- many of whose states are water scarce -- with that in US. In India water usage is 443 gallons per day (both domestic and agricultural).

Utah gets very little of precipitation compared to other US states. It's capital, where I stay, Salt Lake City, gets about 16 inches of rainfall in a year. Another town, Delta, gets 8 inches of precipitation each year. By way of comparison, India's average annual rainfall is around 115 inches, and of Gujarat, a water scarce state, it's around one third of it.

At the same time, the story claims, thanks to water management, despite rise in its population (Utah's population "grew by more than 61,000 in a single year, the majority of which came from net migration"), there is enough water available for people.

The story says, "The dramatic growth has occurred even though Utah has not seen any major new dams built since southern Utah's Sand Hollow in 2002 and northern Utah's Jordanelle in 1993. In other words, the water needed by hundreds of thousands of new Utah residents has been dependent on and accommodated by earlier water projects from water managers with the foresight to conserve the state's limited water resources."

At the same time, the story points to high water usage in the US. It states, "Water withdrawal in the United States has increased over the last decades, reaching 322 billion gallons per day in 2015. The US is one of the largest per capita consumers water in the world, in addition to being one of the largest absolute consumers of water."

It continues, "The average U.S. family uses some 400 gallons of water per day. However, a large share of water is lost or wasted through leaky pipes or just evaporation and over-watering landscapes."

Ahmedabad world’s least climate resilient major city: AlphaGeo study

By Rajiv Shah A new study has ranked Ahmedabad as the least climate-resilient major city in the world , highlighting a dangerous gap between the city’s extreme physical vulnerability to climate hazards and its capacity to adapt. Cited by The New York Times , the analysis, conducted by geospatial artificial intelligence firm AlphaGeo , places the Indian city at the top of a list of global urban centres most exposed to climate risk.

The making of a self-made woman: How eighty sheep changed everything for Kalawati Ninama

By Vikas Meshram* About forty-two kilometres from Rajasthan's Banswara district, in the tribal heartland of Ghatol block, lies the small village of Ubapana. This is where Kalawati Ninama, her husband Dhulji, and their four children make their home. Their days unfold much like those of their neighbours—bustling mornings, long hours of farm labour through the afternoon, and evenings spent tending livestock. For this family, farming and livestock were once simply a means of putting food on the table. Today, they have become the sturdy foundation of something far greater: genuine self-sufficiency.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Counterview

Search This Blog