- An influx of tourists and new residents to Uttarakhand, driven by heat waves and work-from-home options, is straining local resources, particularly water.
- Nearly 12,000 natural springs reportedly have dried up in recent years, with 90% of Uttarakhand’s population depending on these vital water sources.
- Widespread construction for tourism disrupts aquifers and natural water percolation, exacerbating water scarcity and affecting water quality; water sources are further threatened by changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures.
- Local residents, especially women and marginalized communities, face increased hardships in accessing water amid growing allegations of water diversion by hotels.
With heat waves becoming a significant struggle, especially in urban India, many people are moving to hill stations with work-from-home options, seeking respite in states like Uttarakhand, at the seat of the Himalayas. This influx includes both short-term tourists and long-term residents.
In Uttarakhand, small villages like Kasar and Mukteshwar have been promoted as tourist destinations due to their picturesque views of the country’s highest peaks, surrounding forests and cool temperatures. However, this increased population has strained local resources, particularly water. According to a 2018 government report, “a staggering number” of 12,000 natural springs in Uttarakhand are now thought to be “completely parched.” Among these are an estimated 83% of the springs in the district of Almora.
Ninety percent of Uttarakhand’s drinking water depends on spring water. In rural areas, people rely heavily on natural aquifers, called naulas. These stone-walled structures, where water pools from the ground, hold cultural significance and are integral to many sacred rituals. Now, many of these aquifers are nearing depletion, and one of the main reasons is due to infrastructure development aimed at supporting tourism, causing concern among residents about water scarcity.
Much infrastructure development in the hills requires cutting trees that act to recharge the groundwater after a rainfall. Ravi Chopra, an environmentalist based in Uttarakhand, says the very act of clearing forests in hills is a major reason for the demise of aquifers in Uttarakhand.
“When forests are cut down, particularly … on the slope, then whenever there is a heavy shower, the water comes down and saturates the upper layers of the soil and then it flows down like a stream. This is called the ‘sheet flow,’ and does not have time to percolate into the soil and the rocks underneath. What most people don’t understand is that the groundwater is actually trapped inside rocks,” Ravi says.
Sanjeev Bhuchar, senior watershed management specialist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, notes that many places in Almora are named after springs, such as Dharanaula, which translates to “spring-aquifers,” highlighting their significance in the region. However, the push to modernize Almora and make it more aesthetically pleasing has led to development projects, including roads, hotels and pathways, that do not align with the principles of sustaining and recharging these vital springs.
“After my work hours, I spend hours at the communal aquifer just to fill 10 liters [2.6 gallons] of water,” says Radha Devi, mother of three from Kausildhar village in Kasar. The burden on women to fetch water for their families has increased over the years. With more hotels and homestays, the demand for water in these villages has surged, compounding the evident strain.
“The summers are the hardest; we have to buy water for 1,100 rupees [about $13], which lasts us a week,” says Ganga Devi, who, with a family of six, is forced to walk an hour to fulfill her family’s daily water needs. And when the nearby aquifer dries up, she is left with no option but to buy water in Matena village in Almora.
Tourism and peri-urban living
According to government figures, the number of tourists visiting Uttarakhand increased from 22 million in 2014 to 39 million in 2019, with a compound annual growth rate of 11.97% before the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional figures show that domestic tourist visits have steadily increased over the course of three decades, even into the pandemic, with a compound annual growth rate of 7.8% across all states and territories. Such growth has fueled a surge of construction in hilly states, often compromising the fragile landscape and ecology of Uttarakhand.
This proliferation of tourism and hotels has resulted in a higher consumption of water. Many locals allege that while the entire Kasar belt, which includes several villages housing as many as 2,000 people, suffers from a scant water supply, nearby hotels never run out of water.
“These people have bribed authorities to receive more water than any other households. You will never see these hotels buying water,” says Anand Mehra, a resident of Kasar. Locals also claim that hoteliers divert water from the village by altering pipelines and using water pumps to bring water to one’s property, despite it being an illegal practice. Allegations of bribery and corruption over water are, as seen in a 2011 U.N. Development Programme report, longstanding issues globally, and local cases have also been documented in Uttarakhand.
However, Mohan Singh Rayal, president of a hotel and homestay association and owner of Mohan’s Binsar Retreat in Almora, denies the allegations of bribing authorities or altering the pipeline and points at the lack of water and failing governmental policies as the prime reasons for water scarcity.
“The notion of commercial people taking up all the water and that being the reason for the lack of water for other villagers is a myth. Businesses typically purchase water tankers. There is no water in the hills, and the policies built in the region for distribution have failed here,” Rayal says.
He has built a 450,000-liter (120,000-gallon) rainwater harvesting system on which his cafe and hotel highly depend. Despite this enormous structure, Rayal says he had to buy 40,000 liters of water in June, alone, due to erratic rainfall. (A local involved in the water business says it comes from the town’s storage tanks, pumped from the nearby river.)
“Our association has brought up the demand of commercial line for water to the authorities with a meter so we can pay accordingly; although we have a commercial line we only get 100 liters (26 gallons) a day,” Rayal says.
According to a report by Yamini Yogya, who is currently a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability in the U.S., resorts and guesthouses are often seen on land with available water resources — groundwater or otherwise — which dilutes access to water for others nearby.
According to the National Water Policy (adopted in 1987 and updated in 2002 and 2012), water is a national resource and not owned by individuals or groups. Traditionally, water sharing was a social norm in Uttarakhand villages, but this is changing due to water scarcity. Over the past decade, city dwellers have bought land for weekend homes, resorts and hotels, often fencing off properties and claiming water sources within these boundaries.
Bachi Singh Bisht, a resident of Supi village and a water conservation activist, tells Mongabay, “The new hotel culture has taken root in the state, bringing urban lifestyles to the Himalayas. Developers are constructing on sites with vital aquifers, unaware that these areas are crucial water sources. This construction disrupts water percolation, hindering the natural rejuvenation of springs.”
Environmentally unsustainable construction
“Tourism planning in Uttarakhand is far from sustainable and ecologically suitable. Cutting through aquifers for roads or tunnels in seismically active zones disturbs the entire aquifer system,” Bhuchar says.
Uttarakhand’s geographical location and climatic conditions make it extremely vulnerable to climate change. Local springs periodically dry up due to a lack of recharge during the summer months. Changing patterns of snowmelt and rainfall are affecting the quantity of water available from local sources. Studies show a decreasing trend in overall and monsoon rainfall in Almora, coupled with a rising thermometer.
Temperatures in Almora, which averaged 17.55° Celsius (63.59° Fahrenheit) in the last half-century, have reportedly increased by up to 0.46°C (0.83°F). At present, on average, the Almora Hill Station is receiving 23% less annual rainfall compared with its 53-year annual average, according to a 2020 study published in the International Journal of Management and Humanities.
Compounding the situation, environmentally unsustainable road construction leads to soil erosion, the uprooting of large trees and the destruction of lower plants. It adds silt to water bodies and increases air and water contamination, compromising the availability of surface and groundwater for drinking, domestic and irrigation needs.
Local residents’ lives depend on springs and on small mountain streams in Uttarakhand, Chopra says, and the loss of forest means no recharge of groundwater and springs.
“The width of the road in rural areas it is 10 meters [32.8 feet] tarred surface, plus space for drainage and for cross barrier to prevent accidents; about 3-4 m [9.8-13 ft] space is left for that. To cut this much, the right of way which is given to construction companies is 24 m [78.7 ft], and the lower the angle of the slope, the greater they have to cut, which exposes the path of the spring,” Chopra says.
Locals note that development projects have contributed to the depletion of water sources, with construction affecting water quality. “We depend on this water for our basic needs, but now we get muddy water on certain days due to nearby construction,” says Seema Devi of Kasar, as she fills her canister of water from an aquifer just below a fairly newly constructed field, which is also used as a helipad for high-level authorities and celebrities.
In another village of Almora, a stone quarry above the main aquifer of Lamgarha has caused debris to contaminate the water. “Ever since this quarry was set up, we’ve not seen clean water. That aquifer supplies water to several villages, and every time it rains, we either get no water or muddy water,” says Rajendra Singh Adhikari from Bajwar village in Almora.
The construction of hotels, including the installation of septic tanks, contributes to increased contamination of spring water. Poor sanitation practices have also added to the rise of water-related diseases in India. According to a 2023 preprint report on western Himalayan water quality, human activities are the primary cause of negative impacts on spring water quality, and unmanaged sewage from hotels and residential areas are among the primary anthropogenic factors affecting water quality in hilly regions.
Failing government policies
While residents rely on aquifers, the government is obliged to provide tap water to every household in rural India under the Har Ghar Jal scheme, which was introduced in 2019 to provide functional household tap connections, with a promise of 55 l (14.5 gal) of water every day to every rural household by the year 2024. While the website shows a whopping 95.21% of Uttarakhand households having tap connections, many villagers report that even though they have these connections, the water supply is inconsistent or nonexistent.
“The tap was provided to us two years ago, but the authorities fixing the taps also mentioned that water wouldn’t be coming through the taps,” says Kavita Devi of Baghadh village in Almora.
This lack of infrastructure for water impacts marginalized communities, especially the Dalits, who are discriminated against, as they are historically considered “untouchable” due to the rigid Hindu caste system. They face increased difficulty in procuring water, and Dalit hamlets, often located on the outskirts or lower sides of hills, lack official pipelines and are forced to invest in makeshift plastic pipes to access water. Despite paying water bills, these communities struggle to get adequate water.
The little trail leading to Ganga Devi’s home is riddled with plastic pipes, a marker indicating the start of a Dalit hamlet in the region. The villagers had to spend a sum of 10,000 rupees ($120) to have the pipes laid down, connecting to the main pipeline provided by government authorities. With no official pipeline reaching their village, investing their own money was the only way to get water.
“We pay the bill for this water, despite the fact that it is hard to even get a bucketful out of it. One year, out of frustration, we did not pay the water bill, and very soon we had a notice handed to us as a reminder to pay our bills,” Ganga says.
With no taps provided, aquifers become their main source of water. Aquifers, considered sacred, are unofficially demarcated by caste. Upper-caste members often have more aquifers, while the scheduled caste community depends on fewer, more remote sources. This exacerbates the burden on women, who must walk long distances to fetch water.
“There is one naula that is only for us. Pandits or Thakurs [two of the most dominant castes] are only allowed to fetch water from it; no other caste is allowed to get water from there. Us Thakurs live on one side of the village, and people from scheduled caste[s] live on the other side; their aquifers are different,” says Bhuperndra Latwal of Chausali village in Almora.
“These social ‘structures’ that shape access to safe drinking water are entrenched in the everyday life of the marginalized via tacit codes of conduct that maintain and perpetuate caste-based segregation, practices of untouchability, and gender-based inequalities in both rural and urban areas,” according to a chapter on “water justice,” published in a 2022 book, Climate Justice in India.
For Ganga, it takes at least an hour of walking to reach the aquifer her family can use. This makes it harder for women with young children to manage their households with water duties. “My sister-in-law migrated from [her] ancestral home and now lives in Main Almora, paying rent, because it was impossible to raise two young children with such long trips for water,” she Ganga.
Local homestays and tough competition
With scarce economic opportunities, many local women, with the help of NGOs around them, have also opened their homes to tourists. However, with the lack of basic amenities, the women’s duties become much harder.
“I have to provide two buckets of water three times a day to guests, which means more trips to the aquifer,” says Bhawana of Basoli village, Almora.
Water scarcity also brings down the number of footfalls to their homestays. Competing with big hotels and hostels, many have no hope of working in this tilted market.
“Tourism is not for the locals; we sell our lands, our water gets taken and the locals then work for those very properties,” says Bachi Singh, the conservationist. “How is this fair?”
Banner image: Seema Devi and other women from her village line up at the aquifer beneath a newly constructed field that doubles as a helipad. Debris from construction muddies the water, especially during the rainy season. Image by Swati Thapa.
Risky development in Uttarakhand: Interview with environmentalist Ravi Chopra
Citations:
Chhimwal, M., Kaur, S., Srivastava, R. K., Hagare, D., & Shiva Prasad, H. J. (2022). Water quality of springs and lakes in the Kumaon lesser himalayan region of Uttarakhand, India. Journal of Water and Health, 20(4), 737-754. doi:10.2166/wh.2022.028
Panda, A., Gupta, A. K., & Kaur, A. (2020). Sectoral and livelihood vulnerability to climate risk in Indian Himalaya: A case study of Almora district of Uttarakhand. International Journal of Management and Humanities, 4(7), 59-66. doi:10.35940/ijmh.g0679.034720
Kothari, V., Vij, S., Gupta, N., Balomajumder, C., Pant, N., Bamola, V., & Rana, V. (2023). Water quality analysis in relation to biological, hydrogeochemical factors with spring discharge, population, and land use pattern in the western himalayan region in India. doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-2734500/v1
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