Falkenmark indicator
Also called: Water stress index · Topic: Water Resources of India: Availability, Use and Conservation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Falkenmark indicator measures how short of water a country or river basin is. It looks at the renewable water available per person per year. Malin Falkenmark, a Swedish water scientist, proposed it in 1989. Below 1,700 cubic metres per person a year is water stress, below 1,000 is water scarcity and below 500 is absolute scarcity. It is simple to work out, so it is widely used to compare regions.
Example
India as a whole is water-stressed: its availability was about 1,486 cubic metres per person in 2021 (verify current). Some basins are already water-scarce, including the Sabarmati, Pennar and Cauvery, and the rivers of Kutch and Saurashtra in Gujarat.
Don't confuse with
- Per capita water availability: the actual amount of water per person. The Falkenmark indicator is the set of thresholds used to judge whether that amount means stress or scarcity.