Water mains in cities in India?

Factual Questions
1

The Big Thirst, by Charles Fishman, copyright 2011:

“India’s economy has grown between 5 and 9 percent per year in the last five years, a stunning rate of modernization. And yet, not one of India’s major cities provides twenty-four-hour-a-day water. In fact, the cities most associated with India’s modernization – including Bangalore, Mumbai, and the capital, Delhi – provide just one or two hours of water a day to their tens of millions of residents.”

Talk about little-known facts … ever heard of that? Did tourist hotels and rich people have wells? Do they still? The city has mains that work for an hour or two, but that empties the reservoirs?

2

I haven’t head that but I just saw a youtube doc by The B1M about the opposite problem. Dubai has seen an incredible amount of growth in the last 20+ years. The problem they’re having is that they have three million people using a sewage system meant for a million.

3

Sounds like Dubai will have to go through London’s Great Stink of 160 years ago before things will happen. People are the same everywhere, ignoring a problem until it bites them on the butt.

4

That’s what these are for:

5

If there is inadequate rainfall, the lakes do not fill. They monitor the water levels, so it is not a sudden big surprise, and then they plan cuts if necessary.

If you (as an individual, or neighbourhood, or business) do not have enough potable water, you will have to pay for some to be trucked in (from a privately owned well or some other source).

If it starts happening every year due to climate change, that is when the city needs to think about desalination plants:

6

That’s interesting, I’ve never even thought about this. I wonder what a wastewater analysis would look like for a city of that size.

7

It’s not just a problem for India. I heard on NPR this morning that Lagos, the second largest city in Africa also has out grown it’s potable water infrastructure. Here’s what Google AI says about it. “Lagos, Nigeria faces a severe water crisis driven by rapid population growth, inadequate public infrastructure, and environmental contamination. An estimated 90% of the city’s 24 million residents lack access to reliable piped water. Millions are forced to rely on expensive private water vendors, unsafe boreholes, and contaminated wells.”

8

It could be that there’s always water flowing somewhere, but that different parts of the city get it at different times.

9

Mexico City is another place (in)famous for failing inadequate potable supply and sewerage. Whole lotta truckin’ of clean & dirty water goin’ on.

Which is hideously wasteful of water, fuel, time, and labor. And adds a lot to traffic and roadside congestion.

Taxpayer-funded civic infrastructure is expensive. But not nearly as expensive as the lack of it.

10

Yup, QFT. This is what I do at work very day. I manage about $40-50 million of water and sewer projects every year.

The metropolitan area I work in has an extensive water and sewer network, typical of a major U.S. city. But like other older cities, the infrastructure is also pretty old, with a typical utility age of 50-100 years old or more.

This is right about the expected lifespan of the existing cast iron water mains and clay tile sewers. I have spent the last 20+ years of my career replacing this aging infrastructure with modern cement-lined ductile iron pipe for water mains and PVC or concrete pipe for sewers along with cured-in-place-pipe (CIPP) lining to rehabilitate sewers without needing to dig up the street.

Along with random other projects involving upgrades/repairs to our dams, water treatment plants, and wastewater treatment plants.

It’s enough work for many lifetimes—certainly mine.

My son has followed in my footsteps as well—although he works for a consultant engineering firm instead of a public utility like me. When he was trying to decide on an engineering major in college a few years ago, I told him that “civil/environmental engineering may not be glamorous, but you’ll never be out of work.”