Wars over water in future?
By Jyotsna Pandit
The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has warned that the next war will not be waged over oil, but over water, which is becoming the scarcest natural resource. His predictions are echoed by a World Bank study, which says: "Be under no illusions: the impact of general water shortages is going to hit our cities. In the 21st century, wars will be fought over water." India is not a stranger to these conflicts, both internally - as witnessed over the sharing of the river waters between states and across frontiers, in the ongoing dispute with Bangladesh and Pakistan.
West Asia, chronically deficient in water, was a potential flashpoint, with Israel occupying the Golan Heights, source of some of the tributaries of the Jordan River, and thus controlling supplies to Palestine and Jordan itself. For the last 15- years, however, there have been negotiations between the three countries over "trading" water for money. Turkey has been damming the Tigris and Euphrates and thereby depriving Syria and, further downstream, Iraq. To complicate matters, the Kurdish separatists occupy the headwaters of the Twin Rivers in Turkey and are fighting to claim their homeland. On the Nile, there are disputes between Egypt, the Sudan and Ethiopia, with the downstream state - Egypt - being dominant, economically and militarily. Closer home, Bangladesh has been claiming with justification that India has cut off its supplies with the Farakka barrage. At the same time, it does not explain how Bangladesh, which witnesses very heavy rainfall, cannot conserve its own water. India has problems with Pakistan over the Indus waters too.
The tragedy is that the world has taken the availability of water for granted: it is wasted with impunity, either by squandering this precious resource or using it for the wrong purposes. By 2004, there were 1.62 billion people in the world without drinking water - probably the biggest number in this country - and 1.7 billion without sanitation. Considering that something like 80 per cent of all disease in developing countries is water-borne, the human and economic costs of this scarcity are truly awesome. By 2050, it is estimated that two-thirds of the world's people will be short of water.
It is sobering to remember that only three per cent of the world's water is fresh, the remainder being salt. What is even less commonly known is that of this three per cent. 99 per cent is either trapped in glaciers or is underground and therefore not economically assessable. In other words, only 0.03 per cent of the world's water resources are available for all uses -in homes, farms and factories. There is simply not enough to go around unless there are drastic changes in the present consumption levels throughout the globe. Humans feel thirst after loss of only one per cent of body fluid and are in mortal danger near 10 per cent.
At a recent international symposium in Stockholm, held to coincide with the annual water festival there, participants pointed to agriculture being one of the prime culprits.
To add insult to injury, water is subsidised in agriculture almost everywhere. In the US, the average price paid for this resource is less than one-thirtieth of it cost. Of course, the production of meat and dairy produce accounts for a great deal of water use. If people stopped eating meat - in Europe today, there is a 20 per cent drop in beef consumption in the wake of Britain's "Mad cow Disease" - a tremendous amount of water would be freed for other purposes. On the other hand, the new elites of China, India and other developing countries are developing a taste for meat, which is considered essential for modern living. Experts are debating whether such consumption can be discouraged by raising the price of meat or that of water, or both.
Industry is a voracious consumer too. When the Communist Party was in power in Kerala in the late 'fifties, it offered the Birlas free supplies for its Gwalior Rayon plant near Kozhikote. Today, "white goods" manufacturers in the West are one step ahead in the effort to cut down drastically on consumption in appliances, just as automobile manufacturers are streamlining the design of new models. In Sweden, Electrolux has reduced the consumption of energy and water by 75 per cent in its appliances. A dishwasher uses just 15 litres, which is less than a person would use by hand, and a washing machine employs 40 litres for 5 kg. However, this does not answer the fundamental question of whether the water resources of the world permit every family to own such devices, even assuming that they could afford to.
Indeed, the question was raised at the Stockholm meet as to whether people had a fundamental right to water, just as they have to life itself. One speaker stressed that international organisations, national and local governments should adopt a basic human requirement of 50 litres per day and, what is more, guarantee access to it independently of an individual's status. Half of this goes towards drinking water and sanitation, and the remainder for other basic needs like cooking and washing.
The most water-deficient countries are in sub-Saharan Africa: Gambia has just 4.5 litres per day for domestic use. Among our neighbours, Bhutan has less than 15 litres and Bangladesh a little over 17. India and China have reported over 50 litres a head each, but this hides enormous regional variations, as well as class distinctions. It is true that India is blessed with some of the highest rainfall and snow melt in the world, but it is geographically badly distributed and seasonally erratic.
The emphasis today is on "water markets": the World Bank estimates that in a decade, around $ 700 billion will be invested in water-based projects in developing countries. In the West, the service is even being privatised, like the UK, and French and British companies are bidding for global contracts, like that to provide Buenos Aires its water! There is thus a growing "water industry", which assesses the cost of cleaning up water in 2020 at $ 150 billion.
At the same time, there is need for users to band together and decide priorities for themselves, particularly in poor rural societies. Water ought to be managed at the lowest appropriate levels by local people. India already has some outstanding examples, like the Pani Panchayat system in villages outside Pune, where even the landless have a right to water from the canal and can barter or lease such rights. Only by recognising that even the poorest or the weakest have a right to this precious resource can conflicts at every level be avoided. INAV
Effects of global warming:
Melting glaciers will reduce the amount of water available for agriculture in some areas of the world in the future, while rising sea levels will contaminate coastal groundwater supplies, according to scientists studying the effect of climate change on freshwater resources.
Water experts gathered in Stockholm for the international World Water Week conference have been discussing the likely effects of climate change on the availability of fresh water for agriculture and sanitation.
In areas as diverse as California, South America, Uganda and the Himalayas, farming communities often rely on melt water descending from glaciers or snow caps to replenish their rivers and streams in the springtime. But as glaciers retreat in many parts of the world due to global warming, this source of water may no longer be reliable in decades to come.
However, climate change is also expected to increase the amount of rainfall around the world, according to a study published on Friday in the peer-review journal Science, timed to coincide with World Water Week. This effect of this could offset some of the problems of melting glaciers. But if the rain comes in the form of storms, it may further disrupt agriculture.
The study, from the University of Tokyo in Japan, also warned that the timing and volume of spring floods would change substantially. This could lead to more floods, mudslides and dam breaks, with damaging consequences.
Meanwhile, nearly half of the world’s population depends on groundwater sources for drinking water and other uses, found the study, but: “Sea level rise will cause saline water intrusion into groundwater aquifers near the coasts and will decrease the available groundwater resources.”
The Tokyo scientists warned that these effects, and other problems such as the fact that “the risk of floods and droughts will increase, sometimes in the same region of the world”, had not been properly considered in assessments of the world’s future water supplies.
A study by the Australian Lowy Institute, released earlier this week, noted that Bhutan and parts of the Andes had already experienced flash flooding where lakes formed from melting glaciers collapsed. In Kenya, the disappearing snows of Mount Kilamanjaro would soon begin to cause problems for agriculture in the highlands, which are dependent on melt water to irrigate crops.
Research from WWF, the environmental campaigning group, suggested that under the future influence of climate change, rivers in the Himalayas, where glaciers are retreating at 10 to 15 metres per year, could be changed into seasonal streams as the area warms. This effect would give rise to freshwater scarcity in the summer months when melt waters contribute the about three quarters of the volume of water in Himalayan rivers.
The group found that in the Ganga river alone, the loss of glacier melt water would reduce river flows from July to September by two thirds, causing water shortage for 500m people and 37 per cent of India’s irrigated land. But effects like this are probably still several decades away.
In Tajikistan, in central Asia, ice cover is projected to reduce by a fifth, and ice volume by more than a quarter by mid-century. At first, glacier melting will increase the volume of rivers, but a catastrophic reduction of water flow in rivers will follow, with serious effects on agriculture.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/338cd438-3454-11db-bf9a-0000779e2340.html
Misuse and abuse of the existing water resources:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060803/ldh2.htm
Ludhiana, August 2
There is no justification for sustaining the present rice-wheat rotation as rice has ruined Punjab ecology and depleted its water resources.
The hydrological data produced by Punjab Agricultural University indicates that water table is going down by 70 cm per annum in central districts of Punjab and this decline takes place exactly during the rice growing period.
Even the data collected by the Central Ground Water Board has rung an alarm bell because of over withdrawal of water from these districts.
These views were expressed by the Vice-Chairman of the Punjab Planning Board, Dr S.S. Johl, in an interaction with students of PG diploma in agricultural journalism and mass communication here today.
While outlining the qualities of a good journalist, he emphasised that a positive attitude was important for focusing on socio-economic needs and problems of the people. In this context, development journalism based on social issues plays a great role in transforming the life of the people.
Since agriculture is the foundation of state’s economy, it is imperative for students to understand the intricacies and implications of what is happening in agriculture and allied sector.
Dr Johl responded to the questions by the students over the recent media reports that there was no danger to the sustainability of rice-wheat rotation or that crop diversification was no solution to the farm crisis.
“There is no question that the present rice-wheat rotation can serve the purpose. Those who were making misplaced observations have not taken into account the individual and social cost while calculating the MSP, the farmers should be paid for the foodgrains.”
Contradicting the argument that there was no threat to depleting water table, Dr Johl said the decline is visible to the naked eye.
