{"id":68698,"date":"2017-08-08T14:28:11","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T21:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=68698"},"modified":"2017-08-08T14:28:11","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T21:28:11","slug":"water-the-existential-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/08\/08\/water-the-existential-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"WATER \u2013 The Existential Challenge."},"content":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

It is pardonable to suppose that biggest existential threat to the peoples of this ancient Island comes from bungled politics and the incohesive social dynamic that is thereby entailed. While one must not underestimate the strength of these disruptive forces, there is a far more formidable threat that is hardly noticed by our intellectuals and political leaders. In plain language it is the growing shortage of \u2018drinkable water\u2019 that results from a combination of factors – the principal of which can be enumerated as follows. Our Planet is warming and fresh-water systems are under threat due to expanding planet-wide desertification. Human population growth is still exponential and the per-capita demand for water continues to rise as a direct consequence of \u2018urbanization\u2019 or \u2018modernization\u2019. Last \u2013but not least \u2013 the planetary dynamics that control the weather seem to be \u2018out of kilter\u2019 (in the opinion of leading systems experts) \u2013 and we may be entering a \u2018hot phase\u2019 of the kind not uncommon in our planetary history. Unlike in previous episodes of this kind, our collective water-usage is so huge that a real threat exists to the sustainability of the kind of planetary exploitation that is heedless of realities.<\/p>\n

Let us be more focused and practical. Sri Lanka has \u2018moist\u2019 parts that are seasonally deluged and most of the water flows back to the ocean. There is also the so-called Dry Zone where the supply is seasonal and the technique of \u2018water storage\u2019 in artificial or natural reservoirs called \u2018Tanks\u2019 has been practiced since antiquity. The notion that excess water from the wet zone can be profitably diverted to buttress water-stocks in the Dry Zone was familiar to the early Sinhala Rulers and steps in that direction were taken with a degree of success that matched the engineering expertise available at the time. The need today is for \u2018potable\u2019 or \u2018drinking water\u2019 for the huge populations that live outside the wet zone and agricultural use must be regarded as secondary. As stated earlier in this article, the fearsome ecological challenge is the likely desertification of the \u2018dry zone\u2019 due to a succession of \u2018failed monsoons\u2019 \u2013 in the North, East and the North-Central regions of our Island. A fore-warning of this likely disaster will be the sustained loss of agricultural productivity – with paddy-lands un-worked and rice imported from foreign lands to feed our burgeoning population.<\/p>\n

The critical question is this \u2013 are we seeing the beginnings of a \u2018desertification\u2019 of the dry zone of Sri Lanka in consonance with the\u00a0 global trends in this direction? We must treat this possibility with all seriousness and our best engineering expertise needs to be exploited to thwart this natural but fatal threat. We are fortunate in having a central mountain-mass that intercepts and receives the abundant moisture carried by the monsoonal winds. This water must not flow back to the sea if that fatal desertification mentioned earlier is to be avoided. This truth \u2013 in its ancient dressing \u2013 was known to that prescient sovereign Parakrama Bahu the Great. Times have changed but the fatal truth about water remains unfazed. The Science Editor of the Guardian Newspaper Robin Mackie\u00a0 has recently presented the case with force and eloquence. He writes \u2013 \u2018Water is the driving force of all nature,. Unfortunately for our planet, supplies are now running dry \u2013 at an alarming rate. The world\u2019s population continues to soar but that rise in numbers has not been matched by an accompanying increase in supplies of fresh water. The consequences are proving to be profound. Across the globe, reports reveal huge areas in crisis today as reservoirs and aquifers dry up. More than a billion individuals \u2013 one in seven people on the planet \u2013 now lack access to safe drinking water\u2019. Our once green and wet Isle may become hot and dry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma It is pardonable to suppose that biggest existential threat to the peoples of this ancient Island comes from bungled politics and the incohesive social dynamic that is thereby entailed. While one must not underestimate the strength of these disruptive forces, there is a far more formidable threat that is hardly noticed by our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-chandrasoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}