What is water scarcity and what are its main causes?

(a) Water scarcity implies water-shortage in low rainfall regions or drought prone areas. It is related to availability of bad quality of water as well. For example, in Rajasthan we see women balancing many ‘Matkas'(earthen pots) used for collecting and storing water and travelling long distances to get water.
(b) The main causes of scarcity of water are mentioned below:
(1) Increase in population: The water scarcity is an outcome of large and growing population that needs more water for domestic use as well as to produce more food. This leads to over-exploitation of, water resources to expand irrigated areas and dry-season agriculture. More tub wells for irrigation leads to falling ground water levels, adversely affecting water availability.
(2) Intensive industrialisation: In post independent India, there has been intensive Industrialisation. More industries means need for more water and more power to run them. Thus to meet the requirement, energy is produced from hydroelectric power. Thus industrialisation has led to more consumption of water. In India, hydroelectric power contributes 22 per cent of the total electricity produced.
(3) Urbanisation: Multiplying urban centres with large and dense populations life-styles have not only added to water and energy requirements but have further aggravated the problem. People have their own groundwater pumping devices to meet their water needs. This leads to over-exploitation and depletion in the cities.
(4) Bad quality of water too leads to scarcity of water. There may be sufficient water in an area but it may be polluted by domestic and industrial wastes, chemicals, pesticides and fertilisers used in agriculture, thus, making it unsafe for human use.
(5) Unequal access to water among different social groups: Some time, the poor people in Jhuggi-Jhopri colonies may not get water for their use. The well-to-do people in-their colonies may get water. This policy of discrimination of unequal access to water leads to scarcity of water for poor people, particularly in metropolitan cities.