The truth of shrinking water bodies is not hidden. Rivers are dry, ponds have vanished, and Canals have shrunk to Nallas. We all are acquainted of these essential facts. There are multifarious reasons dominant to this scarcity of water in our country and planet earth. 
The reason behind this is the Concrete Jungles covering most of the cities which do not allow water to percolate beneath the surface. Trees ameliorate retention of water and soil.  Trees are felled for construction of buildings, roads, houses, etc. With no subterranean water replenished, the phreatic nappe (subsoil water level) is constantly plummeting, leading to famine and dry lands. 
Groundwater is water that exists beneath the earth's surface in underground streams and aquifers.
About 70% of the water pumped out of underground bore wells is used for agriculture while much of the remainder quenches the thirst of cities. As cities and industrial concrete covering spreads over the surface of earth, those critical reservoirs are emptied at a greater pace than the rate at which they are naturally replenished.
Around 70% of our earth is covered with water, but only 2.5% of the water is drinkable. Naturally the ground water and the streams are replenished by rains. The open grasslands allow the water to penetrate, thus helping in ground water recharge.
Agricultural lands not only produce food but are big ground water rejuvenation places. The water is free to permeate through the layers of the earth not only during rainy season, it happens every time the fields are irrigated.
Dams and other unnatural man made hindrances have stopped the flow of large and small rivers.  This in turn hampered the water table creating barren & dry lands along the path where grasslands and agriculture flourished. This has also lead to paucity of ground water at lower lying areas where a hand pump used to siphon water in every dwelling and common areas, which are dehydrated at this moment, thus, disrupting the agronomics of our harvest.
Natural lakes or ponds usually formed at low lying areas for native community. These natural waterholes usually tend to form in the lowest elevations in a given area. So these sorts of lakes & ponds may also get underground water that flows in from underneath the lake – the lake floor may be a place of water input, rather than a drain for the lake. The disruption to the groundwater table resulted in draining and dehydrating these lakes and ponds as well.
Water pollution is the contamination of water sources by substances which make the water unusable for drinking, cooking, bathing, cleaning, and other activities, by pollutants that include chemicals, fertilisers, construction waste, oil spills, sewage, trash, bacteria, and parasites. All forms of pollution eventually make their way to water. These pollutants penetrate inside the crust of the earth to desecrate water. This in turn destructs aquatic life, wild life, bird species, and Humans. The Industries are the main source of water pollution. Punjab is one such example. The extent of the pollution caused in Sutlej River in Punjab can be gauged from the fact that the state disposes around 2000 kilolitres of sewage in the river per day, along with huge amount of industrial effluents. The highly polluted waters are carried through canals into the Malwa belt (South Western Punjab) where these are used extensively for irrigation and drinking purpose leading to the highest incidence of cancer and kidney diseases. Lives of adults, youngsters, children and even new born babies are at stake. Many unfortunately died.
We humans are quite intelligent in bringing up words for any meteorological condition that occurs. As we look back through time, it becomes quite obvious that we are inevitably indulging in carnage of tree, blocking rivers, expanding asphalt jungle, curtailing woodlands, increasing chemical toxins, mutating nature. Concrete Jungle" evokes the worst aspects of modern urban life. Cold structures of concrete and steel, with manmade towers, casting the earth into shadow, by blocking out the sun.
Carbon credits…a word that has been created to excuse wrong doings of Industries.

What are Carbon Credits ?
Carbon credits are a cap-and-trade system that allow carbon emitters to trade carbon permits on an open market. A carbon credit is a permit that allows the owner to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. One credit permits the emission of one ton of carbon dioxide or the equivalent in other greenhouse gases. Companies that pollute are awarded credits that allow them to continue to pollute up to a certain limit. Carbon credits can be bought from companies that own green projects like large areas of afforested lands, Solar power units, Wind mill systems, etc
Carbon Credit Trading is coming up as another means of Money Market Manipulation.
Carbon offset systems have two people across the table, Carbon Credit Buyers and Carbon Credit Sellers, ending up with no body representing the atmosphere or nature, thus biasing the whole system and just being a distraction from the main issue of annihilation of nature
By funding the preservation of carbon-absorbing forests, in some remote part of the world, how can my city not pollute with Industrial emissions, that tend to pollute air and water every minute. This is just an escape route for the companies to keep on polluting without any legal actions. 
At household level, apart from the concrete house, people have built cemented floors around the house, leaving no open space for garden, trees or even grass. It's high time we initiate to rejuvenate our environs nature instead of sedentary temperament. Break off the concrete around your house and let the grass and plant breathe. A small effort to help ground water recharge will make a big difference for the future generations to come. Plant trees, dig ponds, invest in water harvesting and take measures that will help the earth retain water.
Rehabilitation of nature should be our first priority. I assume that the study of water bodies and the ways to help remove water crisis and drying of rivers is to creating ponds, lakes and rain water collection systems at community levels, planting lots of trees in the surroundings, educating and penalizing the ones who litter waste, destroy nature, uproot trees. Industries should be penalised or even shut down if they throw waste in water bodies or destroy nature by any means.
Water collection and storage centers should be built at various levels of the water stream and around the city. This I think is the best practices for rehabilitation of water streams and ground water recharge.
Time the world learned to respect water, conserve it and put total ban on pollution of large water bodies. Our food chain is Contaminated with carcinogenous  chemicals due to untreated chemical effluent poisoning ground water. This cannot prevail at the expense of the earth. We cannot mess with mother earth. We should all adopt “ Live and Let Live” fundamental in our daily lives. The complete food chain is important for mother earth and for humanity to survive, destruction in any way will hamper our future generations.