India's heat wave leads to water shortages in Delhi | DW News

to India now where Monsoon rains have hit the country's South two days sooner than expected providing some relief from the country's unprecedented Heat Wave but residents of sweltering Delhi and other areas they continue to suffer under conditions posing an increasing threat to human health temperatures hovered as high as 47° C in Delhi today heat waves are common in India but these unrelenting high temperatures caused by climate change are becoming more common and experts say they are getting [Music] worse the sun sets over [Music] Delhi marking an end to another scorching day dusk brings much needed relief a chance for residents to cool down it was extremely hot between 11:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. it was unbearable and troubling for everyone but what can I say we have to work in the fields and look after the cattle that's how nature is children are sick because of the heat they are vomiting and have diarrhea and fever this is what happens in these temperatures the heat is not only a risk to Children many people are suffering in the high temperatures experts warn of a Public Health crisis as the heat wave drags on heat waves are particularly problematic if they last for a longer period of time in addition to the intensity so usually the first day of extreme heat is a problem for human health but especially the second and later days of extreme heat are additionally difficult because then the human body doesn't have time to recuperate as an extreme heat period extends and the extreme heat looks set to continue Delhi authorities say water shortages are likely they're advising the city's residents to stay home during the day as much as possible all right for morning I'm joined by ad Muki she is a director of the climate impact platform at CG D it's good to have you with us let's talk about water how severe are water shortages in India now yeah thanks thanks so much for having me on this um so the Water Crisis particularly right now in delhi looks to be quite severe because of the low flows of the yamuna but it's it's a bit more than that even because um when it comes to water and high extreme heat like the one that we are experiencing right now water demand increases in every possible way you need more water for the power generation and on top of that you have power outages so the ability to draw water from either the river or from groundwater decreases so all of these actually compounds the Water Crisis that is what we are seeing right now and there was something I really noticed in your in your uh 2 minute segment earlier is that so many people are saying that this is what the nature is what can we do but I feel that there is there needs to be much more recognition that this is not what the nature is this is what we have done this is climate change in action these were predict these were projected 30 years ago we are simply living what was projected Ed in the climate models like from 30 years ago and we knew that if we keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere this is what will result in so we feel I feel that we need much more awareness about that extreme heat is not natural extreme heat is caused by human induced climate change and and Water Crisis is a part of that because every aspect of the water cycle is affected when we have climate change and let me ask you about the situation with Delhi Delhi has been particularly um hard hit during this heat wave the government has blamed the problem on low levels in the yamuna river which is the primary source of water for Delhi but is this the only cause of water shortages or does this get back to what you were saying you've got the government trying to to blame it on what low levels of a river instead of climate change so I think climate change is the driver I think we all know that so it's very clear and what exactly is happening is with the low LEL s of water in the yamuna that's exacerbating the problem we also have an issue of lack of management of groundwater so overall in an urban area where recharge is very low our groundwater levels are also low on top of it we have power crisis because of the heat because the power generation um Power demand has gone up so there is also that issue of not having enough electricity when you need to pump water so all of those kind of add up but the heart of the issue literally is the amount of CO2 that everybody is pumping into the atmosphere and certainly the role of the of the u high income countries in causing climate change so this is really an impact of climate change that we are seeing in action and as I said Water Crisis integral part of it and what about the the monsoons we know monsoon season usually brings some relief to India um can we count on that moving forward yes certainly so Monsoon has already hit the southern coast in Kerala and by the time it reaches Delhi it takes another month or so because the that's that's how Monsoon is expected in Delhi only in July so you can expect more heat waves to have be to be there in the northern part of the country monsoons will bring relief for sure but is also want to note that even the monsoon patterns will not are also getting affected by climate change so it's it's not as if um you know Monsoon alone would be the relief the long-term relief is literally to reduce emissions and to stabilize the climate that still would remain the long-term solution D Muki we appreciate you taking the time to talk with us we appreciate your insights tonight thank you thank you so mucha is an earth system scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai welcome to DW how is this current Heat Wave different from what India would normally see at this time of year well this year is riding on 2023 which has been a record warm year uh we had in fact discussed this on this very channel before the 2003 warming was more than expected because we combined global warming with Al Nino and unfortunately is much higher than what El Nino brings elino is a mini global warming as we know the Heat that is stored in the ocean is belched out maybe the 2022 underwater volcano hangat Tonga added water vapor and made it much worse and we are still continuing that heat so then our summer has arrived but the other thing is the long-term trend of warming over the Middle East has shifted the winds over the Arabian Sea so Delhi instead of getting drier winds is actually getting very humid winds from the warm Arabian Sea which is what fired up a few showers last night but this humidity combined with the high temperatures the heat index is unbearably high which is what is different this year okay so we have El Nino this underwater volcano uh as well as shifting um wind currents those all sound like a normal natural phenomena so how much of this um should we be looking at and and blaming climate change for well everything is now happening in a global warming world so it's a warm world so everything has a component of global warming so just El Nino and shifting winds would not have done it the winds themselves have shifted because of global warming over the Middle East so everything is happening within global warming what is coming up is of course the lania so next year will likely look not as bad but the duration intensity frequency and the exent of the heat waves are increasing so this risk continues to you know climate change basically loads the dice everything that should happen once in 10 years is going to happen now maybe once in 5 years or once in three years so that's what we are looking at it's not just climate change every year but every few years it's going to spike the natural things like the Heat wve season right and so given these dire warnings from scientists like yourself um what is India's government doing what can it do to protect its people from these extremes well the first thing is India has invested well over $500 million in improving the early Warning Systems so 1 to three days 3 to 10 days these weather Focus have become much more accurate and the national disaster man management agency Works closely with the India meteorology department and it puts resources in place and it has hydration centers shelters public transport early warnings work well so it is doing very well this year the number of deaths due to heat waves are slightly higher because we got much warmer than we expected and people were not prepared but in general the mortality due to these climate hazards have come down so India is compared to at least the neighbors and the other developing countries has done phenomenally well in man managing the disaster and developing developing its early Warning Systems okay so some good news in there at least thank you so much for guiding us through that so clearly system scientist rugu Mugu thank you thank you

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Length: 10min 38sec (638 seconds)

Published: Thu May 30 2024