Chennai, India

Chennai is the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Bay of Bengal’s coast, Chennai’s population now stands at 10 million with an average growth rate of 2.54% per annum. Chennai is home to India’s automobile industry and is a hub for information technology and manufacturing companies. Industry and population growth have strained once-abundant water supplies leading to high government spending on desalination, long-distance water transport via train, and trucks to deliver water to individual neighborhoods. 

City water sources include four reservoirs (Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills, and Chemabarambakkam), variable groundwater sources, and two desalination plants (Paul & Elango, 2018). These sources provide 108 liters per capita per day (lpcd), short of the 150 lpcd recommended by the World Health Organization (Paul & Elango, 2018; Vivek, 2016). The Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) utilizes trains and tankers to transport water from lakes and rivers hundreds of kilometers away to provide for the city during periods of drought (Vivek, 2016; Gupta, 2019).