Join the Tharavai Restoration Campaign • Preserving Heritage Landscapes & Biodiversity • Community Action & Ecological Revival
The crisis today
Across the 12 Panchayats, about 49,520 people face a drinking water crisis: open wells are turning saline, borewells are yielding less, and tanker water has become the main source for many families.
Why it is happening
Prosopis juliflora
Prosopis juliflora has overrun large parts of the belt, blocking water spread and drawing down groundwater.
Blocked channels and silt
Feeder channels are blocked and the water-spread areas are silted, so the belt holds less water for less time.
Why it is happening
Rain runs straight to the sea
Rain runs straight to the sea instead of soaking in.
Salt pans on the old Tharavai belt
Upstream check dams reduce the inflow from the rivers.
Salt pans and conversions
Salt pans and other conversions now occupy parts of the old belt.
No one is responsible
Responsibility gap
No one is responsible: the Tharavai falls outside the Public Works Department and tank systems.
COMMUNITY IMPACT & WATER SECURITY
What it costs families
Households spend around Rs 100 a day on water, money taken from food, health and schooling. Well water in the region has been measured at up to 4,928 mg/L of dissolved salts, nearly ten times the WHO guideline of 500 mg/L. Women carry most of the burden of fetching water. Farming, livestock and inland fishing have declined, and families are leaving.
If nothing is done
Salinity may become permanent, turning the coast into a saline landscape where groundwater is unfit to drink or farm.