Powerhouse of Water- Israel’s technology inspires millions taking India along to fight ‘Water Crisis’
Mumbai, March 22: Water is life, water is basic need, it is mandatory for living for every living being! Up to 60% to 70% our human body consists of water. While Earth is fighting ‘climatic’ challenges, humans are striving hard to fetch water in the remote areas especially.
India’s remote corners are facing severe water crisis. All Indian water bodies within and near population centres are now grossly polluted with organic and hazardous pollutants. Regardless of improvements to drinking water, many other water sources are contaminated with both bio and chemical pollutants, and over 21% of the country's diseases are water-related. Furthermore, only 33% of the country has access to traditional sanitation.
India which is surrounded by water from three sides is facing drought and scarcity issues across nation. Isn’t this a threatening issue?
Taking inspiration from our dearest friend Israel is the need of hour for India’s water survival.
India spreading vastly water issues equally challenges millions of Indians. On other side, Israel which constitutes to 60% dessert is now powerhouse of water!
Israel Water Management is where it uses the lake water and groundwater with the use of technology. But key to its water security are efforts such as drilling deep wells, massive desalination, reusing treated sewage for farming, finding and fixing leaks early, engineering crops to thrive in onerous conditions, discouraging gardening, making efficient toilets mandatory and pricing water to discourage waste.
Drip Irrigation: Drip, also called micro-irrigation, was the first watering innovation in thousands of years. Instead of flooding the fields with prodigious amounts of water and fertilizer, much of which get wasted, small amounts of both are dripped directly onto the plant's roots. ‘Drip Irrigation’ is one of “Startup Nation” Israel’s greatest inventions.
From waste to best: Israel treats almost all its sewage and reuses the water in agriculture. Israel’s desalination technology treats sewage water to conserve and make the water usable. Israel has smart technologies to find leaks and solutions that don't involve tearing up whole streets to replace pipes.
Desalination technology: This time while Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on his India tour gifted ‘Mobile Water Desalination Van (Gal-Mobile Vehicle) to Gujarat. About 60% of Israel’s domestic water demand is met through desalination.
Desalination – the process by which salt and other impurities are removed from seawater to produce potable water.
Along with drip irrigation, water recycling and sustainable water conservation policies has increased Israel’s water supply and amazingly, transformed its water shortage into a water surplus. In fact, Israel is the only country where the desert is shrinking thanks to the abundance of water for agriculture.
For example, reverse osmosis – the technique by which seawater is forced through ultra-fine membranes that filter out larger salt molecules – was pioneered by Israeli scientist Sidney Loeb in the 1960s at Ben-Gurion University (BGU), which is located in the Negev, Israel’s largest desert.
IDE Technologies, which has built 3 desalination plants in Sorek, Ashkelon and Hadera, along Israel’s coastline. The internationally renowned company was ranked the world’s 19th smartest company in 2016 by MIT Technology Review, and is sought by countries across the globe. According to IDE Technologies, the company’s 400 plants in 40 countries (which it has built over four decades) provide 3 million cubic meters of potable water around the world daily.
Israel has helped boost the water supply of China and India, the two most populous countries in the world, with over 1.3 billion people each. In the Indian state of Gujarat, IDE built India’s largest desalination plant in 1998, which supplies water to India’s largest oil refinery. The plant has proven to be so successful that IDE recently started expansion works, a project that has been shortlisted for the “Industrial Desalination Plant of the Year” by Global Water Awards 2017.
Israel has been standing as a ‘strong’ channel which has so many examples to value ‘Water’. India needs to learn and adopt these techniques which can transform ‘Water’ use.