The best writer of National Geographic.
At the beginning of 20 13,
Start the planned seven-year hiking trip,
※ Due to the epidemic situation, the time may be extended. )
He will walk 34,000 kilometers,
Spanning four continents.
Paul Salopek arrived in India at the end of 20 18.
Start a 3,900-kilometer hike.
He said,
After seven years on foot,
Environmental problems encountered anywhere on earth,
Can't be compared with the water crisis in India.
Author: Paul Salopek
India, Rajasthan,
We walked through thar desert in the scorching sun,
Sweating,
We're dirty and dark,
The local people mistakenly think that we are wandering artists,
So he asked us an absurd question:
"Can you do magic?"
But the answer is, yes, we have magic,
Everyone has,
Magic is hidden in the water.
In the desert state of Rajasthan, women struggle to pump precious water from wells.
Photography: John Steinmeier
The ocean accounts for about 71%of the earth's area;
And human body water accounts for about 70%.
The ratio of human body to water in the earth,
It seems that some wonderful coincidence has been reached.
We were born on a planet full of water,
It is an animal that depends on water.
A couple lies on a wooden boat by the Tista River in West Bengal, which is a local wedding custom.
Photography: John Steinmeier
Water,
It is everywhere, but sometimes it is nowhere to be found.
The ocean accounts for 97% of the earth's total water;
The polar regions and glaciers lock about 2% of the water;
Only 1% liquid fresh water can be used for human survival.
But even this 1%,
We're still wasting it—
The country in front of me, India,
That's right.
I've been hiking for seven years,
Environmental problems encountered anywhere on earth,
Can't be compared with the water crisis in India.
Indian factories dumped chemical wastes along the yamuna river (the longest tributary of the Ganges), which has formed a "bubble iceberg".
Photography: Giulio di Stucco
India is the second most populous country in the world.
The home of 65.438+300 million people.
India,
From the Greek word "indos";
Derived from Persian "hind";
Made in Sanskrit "Sindh"
It means river.
A country named after water,
There is the most serious water problem in the world.
now
70% of India's fresh water resources are polluted.
About 600 million people live in polluted water sources;
At the end of this year,
2 1 India's big cities are about to run out of groundwater;
(Including New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad, etc. )
By 2030,
40% of the population has no access to adequate drinking water.
Data from NITI Aayog. ※
Sagar Island, where the Ganges River joins the Bay of Bengal, is regarded as a religious shrine, and flocks of stray dogs are accompanied by garbage on the beach.
Photography: Peter McBride
I spent a year and a half hiking in the alluvial plains of northern India, canoeing on one river after another. There are hundreds of rivers in the country. According to Hinduism, each river is sacred and even regarded as a god.
But what is the real situation of these "sacred rivers"?
Farouk Habad, India, is a city in central Uttar Pradesh, India, near the right bank of the Ganges River.
Photography: Keller Kane Marcus
Indus: a river among rivers
Indus,
Originated in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau;
Huge, soft and flowing;
The basin area is 6.5438+0 million square kilometers;
Ancient civilization cultivator;
The lifeline of millions of farmers in India and Pakistan.
Boatmans have been carrying people and food across the Pisces River, a tributary of the Indus River all the year round, and now their scale is shrinking day by day.
Photography: John Steinmeier
A 25-year-old boatman is on the Bias River.
Photography: John Steinmeier
I searched for the Indus River in Punjab (Punjab means "Land of Five Rivers", which refers to the confluence of five tributaries of the Indus River: Jie Hellem River, chenab river River, Ravi River, Buys River and Satleji River), but I soon got lost in the complex industrial farm. The intersection of five tributaries is simply a maze. Has the spectacular water body of the Indus River really disappeared?
In Batinda, Punjab Province, a coal-fired power plant that had been in operation for 43 years was closed in 20 17, which provided power demand for irrigation, while Batinda was covered with coal ash all the year round.
Photography: John Steinmeier
Later, I finally woke up. We are already in the Indus River! In our search for weeks, the Indus River has been by our side. However, its water is diverted, discharged, channeled and dispersed into countless canals, pipelines, dams and ditches. As complicated as dividing the vast water body into capillaries by manpower, the ancient and huge Indus River has long been broken and changed.
Rasham, a 59-year-old carpenter in Punjab, suffered from arthritis and his hands were deformed. The doctor said that this may be caused by long-term contact with chemically polluted water.
Photography: John Steinmeier
Beitwa River: Sand Miners
After walking eastward for several months,
Through Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh,
The slow brown current of the Beitwa River,
I met a sand picker.
They were ragged and thin,
Dig the riverbed with shovels and excavators,
Most sand mining operations are illegal.
People use heavy machinery to dig sand on the river bed.
Photography: John Steinmeier
Indian sand is very profitable.
Promote the prosperity of the construction industry and even black market transactions;
At the same time, it also destroys aquatic habitats and interferes with hydrology.
A study by the United Nations calculates that the demand for construction sand is increasing day by day, reaching 40 billion tons per year, which is twice the total natural replenishment of river sediments in the world.
Women in a village in India have bricks on their heads. They carry 200 bricks on their heads every day, each weighing 32 kilograms.
Photography: John Steinmeier
The Beitwa River was looted,
The rainy season is even more unpredictable,
The flood is becoming more and more irregular.
People dug thousands of small ponds,
Used to collect rainwater to irrigate dry land.
In the hot season, the tributary of Ganges River near Hariva, India dries up.
Photography: Giulio di Stucco
But the local government dramatically tried to introduce the whole Ken River into the Beitwa River to supplement its poor water flow. (Ken River, one of the major rivers in central India) In addition, India has reserved 2 billion dollars to implement this controversial plan: India intends to connect 30 major rivers through a concrete canal with a length of 65.438+0.5 million kilometers to alleviate the water crisis. But this project will be carried out on the basis that other places are flooded. For example, once the project is implemented, the nearby Tiger Nature Reserve will be flooded.
Ganges: the holy river of India
I passed the banks of the Ganges River in varanasi.
The holiest city in Hinduism is shrouded in brick ash.
Numerous workers smashed the old city wall with sledgehammers,
For a city beautification project,
Ancient buildings were razed to the ground,
Residents were expelled and compensated.
Houses, temples and narrow alleys in the old city of varanasi were demolished due to the municipal beautification project, which was designed to facilitate pilgrims and tourists to the Ganges River.
Photography: John Steinmeier
People wash away their sins with muddy rivers,
But the fecal bacteria in the river have exceeded the standard by 3000 times.
A man washes his sins in the Ganges River, but the nearby river is mixed with marigold, plastic garbage and excrement.
Photography: John Steinmeier
Indian cauldron festival, once every three years. At the intersection of Ganges and yamuna river, thousands of people cross this temporary bridge day and night.
Photography: John Steinmeier
We were allowed to film this scene. The deceased will be cremated in yamuna river, and the ashes will flow into the Ganges.
Photography: John Steinmeier
Over the years, the flow of the Ganges has been decreasing. Environmentalists blame most of the blame on wanton exploitation. Coupled with the excessive pumping of groundwater, the groundwater level in the flooded plain has dropped sharply. There are more than 300 irrigation stations, hydropower dams and diversion weirs on the main stream of the Ganges River, which is close to 1000 if all tributaries are counted.
Chemicals from a tannery in Campr leaked into the Ganges River.
Photography: Giulio di Stucco
Large and small dams and weirs further divert the water from the Ganges. In addition, the climate is changing, and it is increasingly difficult to predict the monsoon rainfall that can replenish water. The Ganges River is facing an unprecedented complex dilemma, and many governments are helpless about it.
The Gosi River has been flooded for several years (Gosi River is a river in China, Nepal and northern India, which flows into the Ganges River in Bihar, northeastern India). People's homes were destroyed, food was flooded, and some people developed liver ascites due to severe malnutrition. At the same time, they had to rebuild their homes, and the people in the disaster area were on the verge of collapse.
"I used to fish longer than my arms.
It's lucky to find fish longer than fingers now. "
Dewei is a local fisherman with 35 years of experience.
She knows that the "small fish residue" caught now is far from enough to eat.
Only suitable for "watching" in a fish tank.
A homeless boy is fishing in yamuna river, Delhi. yamuna river is the longest tributary of the Ganges River.
Photography: Giulio di Stucco
"Our rivers are drying up,
Our fish will never come back. "
Devi shrugged his shoulders wearily and helplessly.
On 20 18, an extremely endangered puffer fish was killed by fishermen in Bilatnagar.
Photography: BHIM· Guimil, AFP/Getty.
On that day, we walked through thar desert. In the hot sun, we are dirty and black. The locals mistakenly thought that we were wandering artists, so they asked us some ridiculous questions:
"Can you do magic?"
"Will there be a magic show?"
Magic show? Of course there is-
It's this magic,
We call it "the great disappearance of rivers".
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