For three years monsoon rains have been inadequate. The October-December monsoon, a dud last year, accounts for roughly 60 percent of Chennai’s water supply, says Nisha Priya of The Nature Conservancy India. The emergency is partly a failure of weather. ![]() Tanker trucks, an expensive alternative, dole out water by the bucketful to desperate crowds. Piped water reaches households once a week or less. The shortfall has crippled the piped distribution network, which is now meeting just half of typical demand through a mix of secondary sources: desalinated water, groundwater, and the impoundments from nearby stone quarries. The city’s main reservoirs are dry, depleted by the failure of successive monsoons to provide replenishing rains. Residents of Chennai, by all accounts, are miserable and anxious. Photograph © Circle of Blue/Dhruv Malhotra ![]() Land use activists are pushing Chennai officials to preserve the city’s flood-absorbing, water-storing wetlands. The Pallikaranai Marsh, the city’s largest wetland, is being filled in with residential towers and other construction projects.
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