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1/ Any fans of zombie statistics out there? I have a tale for you… There’s a dramatic figure that has circulated for the past year saying that 21 major Indian cities are expected to run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting 100 million people
2/ Alarming, right? Unsurprisingly, this figure is all over the Indian and international media. Now follow me down the rabbit hole…
3/ At first glance, the statistic looks solid. It comes from an official source: Niti Aayog, the planning arm of the Indian government. Niti Aayog cited the figure in a report that it put out in 2018 on India’s water crisis. Here’s a link: bit.ly/2Xk9Pj3
4/ There’s only one problem: while the water crisis is real, this particular statistic is dubious
5) It's true that some Indian cities already face water scarcity issues. Chennai, a metropolitan area of 9 million people, has all but run out of groundwater this year, forcing residents to rely on trucked-in water and treated seawater washingtonpost.com/world/2019/06/…
6/ It’s a serious situation that does not augur well for the future, to put it mildly. But what is the source of this statistic about groundwater running dry in 21 major Indian cities next year?
7/The footnote in the Niti Aayog report cites the World Resources Institute, the World Bank and two Indian newspapers 
8/ The World Resources Institute is not the source for the 2020 figure (they’re a source for a different statistic cited in the report, namely that 56 percent of the wells they sampled in India showed decreasing levels of water)
9/ Now on to the World Bank. The World Bank has published two major reports on water in India, one in 2005 and one in 2010. Neither of them contains the statistic about groundwater running out in 21 Indian cities by 2020
10/ I reached out to the World Bank. They could not tell me where this statistic came from
11/ I did find two newspaper articles from 2017 and 2018 citing this statistic and saying it came from the World Bank (but again, without citing any particular report… because apparently it does not exist)
12/ On to Niti Aayog. I asked them to point me to the World Bank report cited in the footnote, but they could not
13/ Then they said the World Bank was not the source for the statistic (despite the footnote). Instead, they told me the figures came from India’s Central Ground Water Board
14/ So I reached out to India’s Central Ground Water Board. They said they were not the origin of this statistic and could not verify it
15/ Back to Niti Aayog. They provided a link to a Central Ground Water Board study and said their analysis extrapolated from those figures. One issue: the report doesn’t provide numerical data at the level of cities, only for districts. Here’s a link: bit.ly/2X9KH9s
16/ Leave aside the city/district question for a moment. Niti Aayog provided me with a chart they said illustrated the statistic in question: that groundwater would run out in 21 Indian cities by 2020
17/ But the chart doesn’t show that. Instead, it shows that back in 2013, 20 urban districts – 12 of them major cities – were *already* using groundwater at an unsustainable pace, drawing far more water each year than was being replenished
18/ Does this mean they’re out of groundwater? We don’t know. These figures exclude deeper aquifers. They also don’t take into account surface water, which refers to sources like lakes and reservoirs.
19/ I confirmed the above interpretation of the figures with the person who prepared the statistics
20/ If you’ve stuck around this far, my thanks for your patience. To recap: India has a water crisis marked by unsustainable depletion of groundwater. But this statistic is not the way to illustrate it
21/ I’m grateful to the folks at Niti Aayog for engaging with me on this question
22/ PS, welcome input from water experts (and anyone else) on this topic!
