Morung Express News
Kiphire | March 22
World Water Day was observed at DCs Conference Hall Kiphire on March 22 which was attended by HODs and NGOs.
Giving an in-deep presentation about the idea behind observing World Water Day, District Soil & Water Conservation Officer (DSCO) Kiphire Chumei Yanlem stated that the theme for World Water Day 2019 is ‘Leaving no one behind’ which is the central promise of 2030 agenda for sustainable development; as sustainable development progresses, everyone must benefit. She added that marginalized groups-women, children, refugees, indigenous people, disabled people and many others- are often overlooked and sometimes face discrimination as they try to access and manage the safe water they need.
The DSCO stated that an international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.
Listing out the challenges and availability of water resources in Nagaland, Chumei stated that though Nagaland has largely monsoon climate with an average annual rainfall of 1800-2500mm concentrated in the months of May to September, villages in Nagaland are located at hilltop and their population has been increasing and as such existing water resources are unable to meet both for drinking and sanitation.
The DSCO also pointed out that climate change impact due to global warming has resulted in incidents of water related disasters such as loss of soil fertility, landslide, flash floods and river meandering. DSCO mentioned that water resources in Nagaland are rather oblique, with underground exploitation increasing at an alarming rate with no recycling.
“Inorder to mitigate all these problems the State Land Use Board (SLUB) has been envisaged at the State level with four water user departments which is PHED, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Soil & Water Conservation and Water Resources,” DSCO informed.
Chumei said that the main vision is to manage the water resources through multi-disciplinary approach involving all stakeholders for optimum utilization of available Water resources through community participation.
DSCO further called upon the gathering for better water resources management in the State which needs to be undertaken on an urgent basis.
Citing the statistic, Chumei stated that 700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense Water Scarcity by 2030.
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