page_title: Water politics
section_title: India
hierarchical_section_title: Water politics / Water politics by country / India
caption_attribution_description: The Ganges River Delta (fig. 5) is the largest inter-tidal delta in the world. With its extensive mangrove mud flats, swamp vegetation and sand dunes, it is characteristic of many tropical and subtropical coasts. The vegetation cushions the shoreline from wind and wave action while the mangrove trees provide a habitat and food for aquatic and terrestrial plant and animal life. The increasing demand for lumber and firewood is outpacing the natural re-growth of the mangrove trees. Space Shuttle photographs, taken over time, permit monitoring of environmental changes in the delta caused by population pressures, and allows mapping of geological changes caused by shifting distributaries and delta growth. As seen in this photograph, the tributaries and distributaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers deposit huge amounts of silt and clay that create a shifting maze of waterways and islands in the Bay of Bengal. Українська: Супутниковий знімок мангрових лісів Сундарбану в дельті Гангу, 6 листопада 1994 року.
context_page_description: Water politics, sometimes called hydropolitics, is politics affected by the availability of water and water resources, a necessity for all life forms and human development.
  Arun P. Elhance's definition of hydropolitics is "the systematic study of conflict and cooperation between states over water resources that transcend international borders".
  Mollinga, P. P. classifies water politics into four categories, "the everyday politics of water resources management", "the politics of water policy in the context of sovereign states", "inter-state hydropolitics" and "the global politics of water". The availability of drinking water per capita is inadequate and shrinking worldwide. The causes, related to both quantity and quality, are many and varied; they include local scarcity, limited availability and population pressures, but also human activities of mass consumption, misuse, environmental degradation and water pollution, as well as climate change.
  Water is a strategic natural resource, and scarcity of potable water is a frequent contributor to political conflicts throughout the world.
caption: Ganges river delta, Bangladesh and India
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