Background

According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, approximately 2.8 billion people worldwide live under conditions of abysmal water scarcity at least one month out of every year. In India, these statistics look even more grim. A report published  by NITI Aayog (a government run think-tank) in 2019, posits that cities like Chennai, Bengaluru, New Delhi and 17 others are at the risk  of running out of groundwater completely. This would detrimentally affect 100 million people, and unless corrective measures are taken, the numbers will multiply at an alarming rate. In the National Capital Region itself, a population of 20 million has only 1200 rainwater harvesting units, so corrective measures appear to be far and few. 

A panacea to a mammoth problem such as water scarcity is often found by employing a targeted strategy in a fixed, bounded area. Recharging ground water, a method inspired by ancestral Indian and international techniques, has proved to be an effective solution to the crisis at hand. Rainwater harvesting enables the recharging of groundwater. This solution can be taken up independently or collectively. This is done by creating rain gardens with shallow bowl shaped bioswales. Rain gardens are essentially deep layered trenches which make use of natural topographical gradients to direct and slow down rainwater, and collect it in one place where the microbes present in the soil break down any contaminants that might be before the water flows down to reach groundwater. Bioswales achieve the same but in a different way: they are simple landscaping features used to slow, redirect, filter and collect rainwater.The natural filtered underground storage facilitates further recharge of groundwater. In contrast to building recharge wells and pits, this method uses materials from nature, making it sustainable. It is more cost effective and requires minimal maintenance, and is therefore a befitting response to the problem of water scarcity for any demographic area.With the war-cry of the 'Jal Shakti Abhiyan' (Water power campaign)and the recently launched nation-wide initiative of 'Catch the Rain' by the Central and Delhi government, the hope is that this approach will be transposed onto a wider set of action areas.