How to Save a Drying City (BENGALURU)

so imagine a city of over 11 million

people running out of water this is the

future for bangaluru India which has

grown so fast they've outpaced their

water supply and face a crisis of Epic

Proportions until

now when a group of ecological water

Geniuses have taken their future into

their own hands and are digging 1

million recharge Wells to save the city

one million Wells how is this possible I

traveled to bangaluru to find out for

myself

nice my name is vishad I'm a civil

engineer and an urban planner I run the

biome environmental trust the trust

works on sustainable water issues which

includes rainwater harvesting

groundwater recharge waste waterer

Recycling and Lake regation Bangalore is

one of the fastest growing cities in

Asia the only source of pipe Water

Supplies from the river cavi which is

about 100 km away and 300 M below the

city there's only a limited amount that

comes to the city about 1,450 million L

per day on the other hand the rainfall

on the city is very good the equivalent

of 3,000 million L per day rainfalls so

our idea is to make sure that at least

half of this is captured allowed to per

at inside the earth into the shallower

stored there and then drawn through the

open Wells that you saw historically

bangaluru was a city of lakes which were

filled up by heavy Monsoon rains these

Lakes were giant recharge basins and the

lake water would seep down into the

ground and get filtered through Stone

and soil and end up in the shallow

aquifer when the shallow Wells were lost

there was a big human impact as well

because there's an entire enire

community of people who make their

livelihoods from digging and maintaining

these shallow Wells it is an art and

skill set pass down from one generation

to the next can you imagine what happens

when these skills are lost s shanka is

one such well digger he has been working

with his father from the age of 15 years

so his grandfather was doing earlier and

then slowly after his father passed away

he started the group The wers have built

I believe around 200 50,000 recharge RS

to use these traditional livelihood

skills and to build water security for

the city is our goal about 64,000

farmers will have water security for

their livelihoods in turn when the

farmers grow food the city will get food

security so this is a circular economy

in place keeping livelihoods of well

diggers of Fishers of farmers in mind if

we are able to build a million Wells we

will never run out of water in the city

of Bangalore so bangaluru residents

would get their water supply from the

shallow water table table where the

water was so close to the surface that

it could just be pulled up by hand one

bucket at a time from a community well

but as time went on the Lakes were paved

over to make room for the city shallow

groundwater and Wells became polluted by

Wastewater and garbage and the city dug

deep bwells to tap into much deeper

groundwater sources but the deeper

aquafers had their own

problems deep board Wes in Bangalore

have gone to 1,800 ft the deeper you go

the tendency is for the water to have

more contaminants such as fluorides

nitrates especially salt chemical

contaminants are more difficult to treat

the shallower we go the clearer the

water shallow aquifers have a tendency

to be polluted with bacteriological

contamination which is easier to treat

so it's in our interest to go away from

deep borell aquafers and to move towards

the shallow aquer with a bit of water

treatment this treated water would be

integrated with the town's water supply

system and become portable water so a

combination of waste water surface water

treatment in Wetland system earth

filtration and recovery from an open

well plus water treatment to make it fit

for drinking recycling water as much as

possible so there's this incredible

cycle being restored here the rains and

the treated Wastewater from the city

fill up the Lakes the waterers filtered

through the soil and Bedrock to recharge

shallow aquifers those aquifers are used

to supply the city's needs and the water

supply is

decentralized each neighborhood has its

own well and buildings are providing

their own supplies through rainwater

harvesting how do you think people treat

the wells when they're owned and

maintained by the community they're

treated as sacred and you can see the

beautiful paintings that decorate and

honor these water

sources this B about 16 minutes or why

can be uses as a recharg and discharger

this 2 area is the cement for that I do

not wish even a single do of water I

love nature that's the

reason the million Wells program has

caught the attention of the government

of India in Delhi and with another

partner organization called aquadam

based out of Pune we able to persuade

the ministry to adopt this as a pilot

basis for 10 cities in India in 2009 the

city was very interested uh in water

saving and Water Conservation because I

was interested in the subject and had

been studying it for long I could find a

seat at the table and become part of the

committee and design a system which

would enable the city to harvest at

least 75% of the rainfall falling on it

it was the time to draft a law a

building bylaw which would make it

mandatory for every new building to have

a rainwood harvesting structure so many

large buildings many educational

institutions large Apartments gated

communities including government schools

all are practicing rain water harvesting

what do you think happens at a public

school when the water runs out we

visited an incredible school that

supports the water needs of the campus

completely with rainwater harvesting

from the roof this is not a wealthy area

and school is super important to these

children and their families so this

school being self-sufficient with water

has a ripple effect for the whole

Community we are in sunali government

highest primary school this school has

360 student

so we thought we'll do a rain water

harvesting demonstration here this is

the first rain separator of the school

it almost meets around 120 days of water

demand of the school and during the

summer only they will use the water

which is coming again from the BV to

reduce that water demand we install

airers in the tamps almost like 60% of

water is saved apart from that we have

created a water quality Learning Center

where all the rain mot arresting best

practices are implemented so the

surrounding household or the schools and

all can come to this school to study

people do not know the difference

between a shallower a deep aquifer they

don't not what know what an aquifer is

they do not know what is happening to

the crusting of the city and therefore

no recharge occurring into the ground

they do not know about rainfall what

volumes of rainfall occur if we are able

to educate them and build groundwater

literacy we are able to persuade more

citizens to join the bandwagon of

sustainable Water Management it will

prevent Urban flooding it will

supplement or water requirements and it

will help us tide over drought years so

rainwood harvesting is the way to go

with the shallow aquer management and

the million Wells to tied over Urban

India's water problems in the N of

climate change the million recharge

Wells bangaluru project is not just an

on the ground program to dig and restore

the city's water it's political it's

educational they're having an impact on

policy throughout the country because

they're proving an actual solution that

works imagine what this will look like

when this simple strategy spreads to

water stress cities throughout the

[Applause]

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