India’s freshwater systems — from lakes and ponds to ancient stepwells — are under increasing strain from pollution, neglect and rapid urbanisation, sparking a nationwide urgency to conserve these critical resources. Environmentalists like Arun Krishnamurthy have become central figures in this movement, quitting corporate careers to lead grassroots conservation efforts. Krishnamurthy’s Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI) has restored water bodies across multiple states using a blend of modern science and traditional ecological knowledge, mobilising tens of thousands of volunteers to clean eutrophic lakes, remove garbage, and rebuild habitats for wildlife. His work was recently featured in a CNN documentary series highlighting the importance of water conservation and restoration as essential to India’s future.

Water scarcity itself is a looming crisis: despite India’s population of 1.4 billion, available fresh water represents less than 4 percent of global freshwater resources. Rapid depletion of groundwater, drying rivers and polluted lakes are now common across rural and urban landscapes. These ecological pressures have encouraged innovative conservation like rainwater harvesting, stepwell restoration and community-led recharge projects — blending heritage water structures with modern sustainability approaches. Ancient stepwells historically provided rainwater storage and passive cooling, and recent efforts have unearthed, desilted and revived them to help manage water and revive groundwater.