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In today’s world, increasing population and water demand is affecting both rural and urban areas. Water scarcity has become a global issue in recent years as a result of population growth and the rapid exploitation rate of water resources. Previously, the issue of water scarcity only affected metropolitan regions, but it has recently begun to affect rural areas as well. Even Himachal Pradesh, a predominately rural state is not exempted to this issue. Every year from March to June, a significant water crisis arises in the capital city Shimla. Due to rising water demand and lack of water supply schemes, many other areas of the state are also encountering scarcity of water during this period.Suketi river basin located in district mandi of Himachal Pradesh, has been chosen as a study area in this study. Due to dried up water sources, there is a water shortage in many villages of the basin. Nevertheless, the problem will be madeworse by population growth and rising household water demands in upcoming years. In this study, an analysis of population and water demand in the basin’s villages has been done for two decades from 1991 to 2001 and 2001 to 2011 and also the projections for 2021 and 2031 have been made. In addition, a household survey has been carried out to determine household level water scarcity

The following two objectives have been taken into consideration while conducting the current study: 1. To analyse the population and drinking water demand in the basin from 1991 to 2011. 2. To determine household experiences related to water supply system in the basin.

 The interlinkage of population expansion and natural resources affects both the disruption of the climate and human capacity to adapt to it, particularly in developing nations with quick-changing demographics and economies that depend deeply on natural resources (Maja, 2021). A number of factors, including an increase in freshwater consumption for drinking, agriculture, recreation, and industrial activities are impacted by human population growth on the Earth. Water scarcity issues on a regional and global scale have become worse ever the past few decades due to shifting hydroclimatic and socio-economic conditions. These global water scarcity situations are anticipated to get worse due to predicted population expansion, future climatic change and rising water consumption (Y. Wada, 2014). Pressure on the water resources that are available to serve a growing population is one of the effects of overpopulation. By 2030, over half of the world's population will reside in "water stressed" areas (Altieri, 2016). Future growth to 2050 is only expected to come from developing countries where the population growth rate is highest. Unfortunately, these areas also have the most severe water shortages (Igeogers, 2019). 

In the 1980s, barely 1% of India's rural areas had access to safe and useable water, according to government figures. By 2013, this figure has increased to 30%, with the majority of rural India continuing to live without easy access to clean drinking water. According to a WaterAid analysis, 76 million Indians are thought to lack access to a safe water source. India is currently listed as one of the nations with the largest percentage of residents without access to clean water. According to data from the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, 45,053 villages had access to handpumps and piped water by the end of 2016–17. However, nearly 19,000 villages across the nation still lack a regular water supply, with some residents having to walk up to 15 km to fetch water manually. In India, 87 percent of the country's total usable water resources are used for agriculture, 15 percent are used for industry and electricity, and 7 percent are used for home needs. A change in the availability of water can be made with proper education, training, and incentive-based programmes for Panchayats and villages as well as grassroots campaigns for water conservation, recycling, and rainfall collecting in both urban and rural regions.

As the population of Himachal Pradesh has grown over the years, there has been an increase in demand for water, and people now rely more on piped water supply systems than they did in the past on springs and baories. Less snow and rain have been recorded in the state in recent years. Following the winter, groundwater as well as other downstream water sources like springs, wells, baories, lakes, rivulets, streams, and rivers are regularly nourished by melt-water from glaciers and the snow cover. However, a lack of snowfall has caused water supplies to begin drying up. The patterns of rainfall have also changed due to which drought and flood like conditions occurred in the basin. In some areas, particularly in the Shiwalik hills where the soil has a low water-holding ability, water sources often dry up quickly during dry spells.

In Suketi river basin, the population has increased with a rapid rate due to which water demand has also increased accordingly. Therfore in the present study population and water demand has been analysed from the year 1991 to 2031 by using the data provided by Census of India. In addition to this, field work has also been carried out to investigate the household wise status of water supply system in the basin.

Study Area

The Suketi River basin, which is located in the lower Himalayan mountains in the Himachal Pradesh district of Mandi, is the study area of the present study(Map 1). The basin is located between the two largest towns in the Mandi district: Sundernagar to the south and Mandi to the north. The basin is 422 square kilometres in size and is situated between latitudes 31°27'08" and 31°45'00" North and longitudes 76°48'20" and 77°03'09" East. The population of the basin is about 2,47,523 people, and it is unevenly spread throughout the basin, according to the data of Census of India 2011.

Data Sources and Research Methodology In the present study, both primary and secondary data has been included. Fieldwork has been used to collect he data on households experiences regarding water supply system in the basin. Villages and households for field study were selected with the help of proportionate random sampling. By using this sampling technique, around 10% of the villages (30 villages) and 10% of the households (458 households) have been surveyed during fieldwork. The District Census Handbook of Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, has been used to collect secondary data on village wise population in the basin for the years 1991, 2001, and 2011. For the same time period, water demand has also been calculated at the village level. The National Rural Drinking Water Programme's (NRDWP's) recommendations for the daily water consumption per person (55 lpcd) were used as a parameter to determine the water demand for the aforementioned time period. And the demand has been projected for 2021 and 2031 based on the growth rate of the past two decades. The results have been graphically explained using the appropriate tables and maps have been created using the Arc Map 9.3 software.

The following headings have been used to discuss all of the significant findings and results:

1. Pattern of Population Distribution in Suketi River Basin (1991-2031)

2. Pattern of Water Demand in Suketi River Basin (1991-2031)

3. Household Experiences Regarding Water Scarcity in Suketi River Basin

1.  Pattern of Population Distribution in Suketi River Basin (1991-2031)

Various factors like demographic attributes, socio-economic conditions, transportation infrastructure, natural resources, land use and development etc. influence population growth or decline in any region over time. Population growth intensifies land use disputes, regional and tribal conflicts, environmental degradation and competition for limited resources like land, water and forests (Entwisle, 2007). There is currently no situation in which a significant problem with water resources has occurred due to population increase in Himachal Pradesh, where the majority of the population lives in rural areas. The Suketi river basin is located in the central part of the district and densely populated because of its fertile Balh Valley. 

Source: District Census Handbook of District Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, 2011.

According to the study, the population of the Suketi river basin has increased by 34% from 1991 to 2011. The basin's population increased from 1,46,942 in 1991 to 1,96,757 in 2011. Additionally, it has been predicted that by the year 2031, this population will rise to 2,61,436 (Table 1). All the villages of the basin have divided into three categories according to their population size i.e., less populated villages (below 500 persons), moderate populated villages (500 to 999 persons) and highly populated villages (more than 1000 persons). The present study has demonstrated that in 1991, the basin had roughly 255 less populated villages. This number dropped to 208 in 2011, and by 2031, it is predicted to drop even lower to 163. Whereas, the number of moderately populated villages in the basin surged from 72 in 1991 to 102 in 2011 and is predicted to reach 107 by 2031.

In the category of Highly Populated Villages, there were only 25 villages documented in 1991; this number had risen to 42 in 2011; and it is predicted that this number will rise even more to 82 by the year 2031 (Table 1).

The trend of decreasing number of less-populated villages and increasing numbers of highly-populated villages shows that the population in the basin is growing at a very high rate which reflects the increasing pressure on the natural resources in this region. The Map 2 makes it clearly evident that the central valley portion of the basin has a higher concentration of highly populated villages than the surrounding hilly region, which has more sparsely populated villages. In addition, villages with moderate population are situated between less and highly populated villages (Map 2). The pattern of decreasing number of less-populated villages and increasing numbers of highly populated villages in the basin indicates that the population in the basin is growing at an extremely rapid rate, reflecting the increasing pressure on the region's natural resources.

2. Pattern of Water Demand in Suketi River Basin (1991-2031)

The increasing population is the primary source of the rising demand for water for drinking and domestic purposes. Pressure on the water resources that are available to serve a growing population is one of the effects of overpopulation. Agriculture is biggest sector of water demand around the globe, however drinking and domestic water demand is also increasing with increasing population. In Suketi river basin, total drinking and domestic water demand in rural areas for the year 1991 was approximately 80,57,060 litres per day which increased to 1,08,21,635 litres per day in 2011. It has also been projected that the total demand for drinking and domestic purposes in the basin will increase to 1,43,79,134 litres per day by the year 2031(Table 2).

All the villages of the basin have divided into three categories according to their water demand i.e., villages with less water demand (below 15,000 litres per day), villages with moderate water demand (15,001 to 29,999 litres per day) and villages with high water demand (more than 1000 persons). According to the present study, there were around 153 villages in the first category i.e.  less water demand in the basin in 1991. In 2011, this number dropped to 105, and by the year 2031, it is expected to reach 62. In contrast, the number of villages in the basin with moderate water demand increased from 115 in 1991 to 122 in 2011, and it is projected that this number will drop to 110 by 2031. There were only 84 villages recorded as villages with high water demand in 1991; this number  increased to 125 in 2011, and it is anticipated that this number would increase even further to 180 by the year 2031 (Table 2).

The trend of decreasing villages with less water demand and increasing villages with high demand for water indicates that the basin's water demand is rising quickly in conjunction with population growth, reflecting the growing pressure on the area's water resources. In contrast to the nearby mountainous region, which includes the villages with less water demand, the central valley portion of the basin has a higher concentration of villages having high water demand. Additionally, villages with moderate water demand are positioned between areas of less and high-water demand (map 3).

3. Household Experiences Regarding Water Scarcity in Suketi River Basin

It is clear from the reports of National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) that a total of 1099 water supply schemes are functional in this area, out of which 832 schemes are based on ground water while 267 schemes are dependent on surface water sources. In summer, water supply gets disrupted due to fall in water level in some of these schemes which is mainly caused by uncertainty of rainfall, lack of water harvesting techniques and climate change.

It has been clearly revealed from the fieldwork that about 63 percent households receives tap water twice a day, 20 percent receives only once, 6 percent once in 3 days, 4 percent once in 2 days and the remaining 7 percent of the households have uncertain supply of water (Table 3.1).In addition, 74% of households have access to water for two hours daily, 15% for two to three hours, 6% for more than three hours, and 5% for less than an hour (Table 3.2). In the area, 82% of the households believes that the water from the tap meets their requirements, whereas only 18% of individuals find it to be insufficient (Table 3.3).

The study also shows that about 41 percent of the households have uninterrupted water supply throughout the year, while 53 percent of the households lack water during the summer and the remaining 6 percent of the households have water problems throughout the year (Table 3.4).Apart from taps in the watershed, people also depend on alternate traditional water sources. It is clear from the survey that 53 percent of the households have wells and hand pumps, 17 percent of the households have wells, bore wells and dug wells, while 20 percent of the households have no alternate sources available near their household premises andonly rely on tap water (Table 3.5). Satisfaction level of households in the basin regarding water supply system has also been investigated during the survey. The survey reveals that approximately 14 percent households are extremely satisfied with the water supply system, 66 percent are satisfied, 12 percent are unsatisfied, 5 percent are extremely unsatisfied and 3 percent households remains neutral (Table 3.6). 

It is clear from the study that the population of the basin has increased 34 percent from the year 1991 to 2011 and it is projected to increase by 78 percent by the year 2031 as compared to the base year of 1991. The drinking and domestic water demand has also increased with the increase in population however the number of available water sources is constant. Central part of the basin is experiencing high population concentration and water demand due to its fertile soil and availability of other facilities, whereas outer hilly areas have less population and water demand. Study also reveals that majority of the households are satisfied with the current water supply system; however, the unsatisfied households cannot be underrated. Some suggestions have been made which can be put into practise to solve the issue of the unsatisfaction of rural households in the basin: 1) Rainwater harvesting practices at household level should be implemented strictly in the basin. 2) To prevent groundwater levels from decreasing and to save other water sources, check dams, trenches, and seepage tanks, and other structuresshould be constructed and maintained properlyat the appropriate locations. 3. People need to be educated on how to utilise water efficiently and waste as little as possible. 4) Traditional water sources should be properly maintained. 5) Water supply schemes should be launched at the Panchayat level if needed.

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