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India's cities are running out of water.
But at the same time, India is the world's biggest exporter of water.
That's the topic of my latest column and this quick thread:
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
But at the same time, India is the world's biggest exporter of water.
That's the topic of my latest column and this quick thread:
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
India is in the grip of a brutal drought right now. Chennai's reservoirs have all but dried up, leaving the whole city dependent on water tankers to slake its thirst:
Chennai is India's motor city but it's running out of the most basic of resources.
There's been reports of people killed in fights about water, while restaurants are going back to serving food on plantain leaves to avoid washing up:
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
There's been reports of people killed in fights about water, while restaurants are going back to serving food on plantain leaves to avoid washing up:
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
The irony is that no country in the world exports more water than India, in the form of "virtual water" locked up in exported goods or rendered unusable because of production of those goods: 
The 95.4 billion cubic metres exported each year, per @WaterFootprintN, is nearly four times the 25 billion cubic metres consumed by the country's entire industrial and domestic sector.
@WaterFootprintN The vast majority of this is due to crops.
India's biggest farm exports, rice and cotton, use 1000s of litres for each kg of product. Sugarcane is pretty wasteful too.
Beef (mainly water buffalo, in India's case) consumes more than 15,000 litres/kg:
India's biggest farm exports, rice and cotton, use 1000s of litres for each kg of product. Sugarcane is pretty wasteful too.
Beef (mainly water buffalo, in India's case) consumes more than 15,000 litres/kg:
@WaterFootprintN The world is not desperately in need of these products. Prices have been pretty flat for a decade. Sugar hit a decade low last August (figures in this chart are rebased):
@WaterFootprintN My colleague @mihirssharma wrote a great column about this last month: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
@WaterFootprintN @mihirssharma Thread continues:
