Ooty stares at water crisis as tourism surges
The total amount of water available in dams and water bodies supplying Udhagamandalam town is less than 40 per cent of the total storage capacity, as per data from the Udhagamandalam Municipality (UMC).
The depleting water table in the district has led activists as well as local residents to call on the municipality to ration water by limiting supply to tourist resorts and to ensure that the district’s residents are first supplied with drinking water.
The amount of water stored in Parsons Valley, Marlimund, Tiger Hill, Gorishola, Doddabetta Upper, Kodappamund Upper, Doddabetta Lower, Kodappamund Lower, Old Ooty and Glenrock is startlingly low, especially when compared with 2023, when the water bodies stored 52 per
A view of the Parsons Valley Dam near Udhagamandalam in the Nilgiris.
cent of their total capacity during the same time last year.
According to the data, water levels are at 34 per cent of the total capacity at Parsons Valley, a key source of drinking water for Udhagamandalam residents. The situation is even bleaker at Marlimund Lake and Gorishola Reservoir, where water levels are at 16 and 17 percent of their total capacities respectively,
while Tiger Hill is a more than half full.
Activists state that the impending water crisis in the Nilgiris calls for a multipronged strategy to prevent such crises in the future. “With the effects of global warming and climate change only set to increase in the coming decades, it is imperative to implement strategies to ration water for the tourism sector and also recycling
little water are implemented in the Nilgiris,” said G. Janardhanan, an activist.
Mr. Janardhanan also said that water bodies that are being increasingly overrun with invasive and exotic species, or are being destroyed by encroachments and constructions, some of which are being undertaken by the government itself, need to be restored if water security for the Nilgiris’ residents is to be improved in the coming years.
Better planning in the months leading up to the summer could have ensured that the situation isn’t as bleak as it currently is, said Godwin Vasanth Bosco, a restoration ecologist and Founder of ‘Upstream Ecology.’ Mr. Bosco said that the rains in 2024 continued from the end of last year, well into 2024, but no efforts were undertaken to store the water for use in summer.