Iceout --
"If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the
next century will be fought over water" were the words that appeared
in Newsweek magazine in 1995 of Ismail Serageldin, a vice-president at
World Bank. Serageldin's apocalyptic words were noted widely by the
media and often quoted by environmental groups but often without
completing the phrase:
" -- unless we change our approach to managing this precious and vital
resource."
As much as any single person, the Cairo and Harvard
University-educated Serageldin has become associated with the notion
that water in this century will become as valuable as oil was to the
20th Century or gold in the 19th Century.
Serageldin's complete quotation is on the website:
Ismail Serageldin
"Water"
http://www.serageldin.org/water.htm
THE THREAT
----------
Serageldin, who is director of the Alexandria Library in Egypt,
remains active in water quality issues, primarily through work with
the World Water Commission (WWC). As he and the WWC see it, the
problems are that current ways of managing water mean that users will
require 56% more water by 2025.
Already, the WWC contends that 1.4 billion people live without clean
drinking water; 7 million die yearly from water-borne diseases; half
the world's rivers and lakes are seriously polluted; and 450 million
people in 29 countries face water shortage problems.
The World Water Commission's prime effort since 1999 has been to link
global water scarcity with food production, which they believe raises
the likelihood of conflict.
There has been continual conflict over water, even in the United
States. In the western states, California and Colorado both have
continued political struggles over water rights. At this writing,
taking water from the agricultural Imperial Valley for use in urban
communities is a hot issue within California. But the fear is that
water will become so important that it will trigger international
conflicts.
For the past 30 years, food production has risen due to the Green
Revolution, but it's primarily been on irrigated lands. Food
production has doubled, but in the next 20 years irrigated cropland
will be required to provide 70 percent of the food supply – up from 45
percent today. Meeting this need will require at least 17% more water
than is available today, argues the WWC. "Competition for water from
growing cities, industry and the environment means that irrigated
agriculture is not likely to get any additional water, even though our
best-case estimates call for a 17% increase," says Serageldin.
The fight for agriculture water is being compounded by depletion of
cities' groundwater aquifers in Mexico City, Beijing, Buenos Aires,
Dhaka, Lima and other cities. Often, as in Bangkok, Houston and parts
of Florida the aquifer is not just being depleted but being invaded by
salt water. Both Indian and Chinese agriculture are under strong
pressure because almost all of each country's fresh water is used for
growing food.
"Severe conflicts due to competing claims for water may erupt from
what are increasingly rancorous disputes over water, Serageldin warned
in 1999, and Indian and Pakistani conflicts have included those
issues.
THE SOLUTIONS
--------------
Two-thirds of the earth is covered with water, most of it seawater,
which is 97.5% of the available water. Fresh water is 2.5% and
two-thirds of it is in ice (ice caps and glaciers). About 80 percent
of the rainwater that falls is in areas near humans, but 75% of it is
lost in monsoons, hurricanes or floods. Avoiding conflict over the
increasingly valuable water means both finding new sources and
managing existing water better – the same challenges faced today in
the use of oil.
Though 20th Century conflicts often have been over access to oil,
Serageldin and the WWC contend that water wars can be prevented.
Solutions include:
* getting governments out of active management of water projects.
"The public sector proved not to be efficient," Serageldin said at an
international conference in 2000, though it manages 94% of the water
supply. The core problem is the failure to treat water as an economic
good, like oil.
Multiple problems result from having state agencies run the water
supplies, including loss due to theft, leakage and poor accounting.
Additionally, state-owned factories are often prime polluters of water
supplies, he argues. Yet another source of waste are major
hydro-electric projects which prove to devour capital and change the
ecology.
Embassy of Jordan
Jordan Times (March 20, 2000)
http://www.jordanembassyus.org/03202000007.htm
* closely related to getting governments out of the water business is
the halting of subsidies for water. Serageldin argues basically that
water is too cheap, leading to waste. "Our attitudes on managing
water must change," Serageldin said in an interview. "In the name of
the poor, we've been defending these absurd pricing policies that
result in the poor not getting any access to water because they get
rationed out." Where subsidies are required, he argues that they
should go to consumers and not the utilities.
* preventive measures to avoid costly environmental damage, as in the
case of the Aral Sea (Russia) or moving the Shanghai water supply
(China) or construction of the Awan Dam (Egypt).
Ourplanet.com
"Beating the Water Crisis" (October, 1996)
http://www.ourplanet.com/imgversn/83/serag.html
* investment in innovations in managing water. These include
wastewater management; reducing the energy costs for desalinization;
and finding more useful ways to collect rainwater; and deploying
toilets that don't use water.
* using bio-technology to breed drought-resistant plants that use less
water.
* managing water environments – whether groundwater, rivers, lakes or
coastal areas – in a coordinated manner.
* dramatically reducing water consumption in certain industries.
Today the production of computer wafers uses 1.5 trillion liters of
water per year and produces 300 billion liters of wastewater,
according to Corporate Europe Observer.
* finding ways to manager groundwater better, particularly by finding
ways to replenish aquifers more rapidly. In the eastern U.S. where
groundwater is widely used, industry estimates are that use is taking
water out of the ground 8 times faster than it's being replenished. In
certain areas, such as Florida, it's leading to salt water invading
the aquifer. In other areas, such as the Midwest, nitrate runoff from
fertilizers is contaminating wells.
PRICING SOLUTIONS
------------------
The most-controversial portion of the principles for water management
is the repricing of water so that it does resemble "blue gold." Among
the potential problems with "fair market pricing" are religious
concepts that make water a common entitlement. But it's a key portion
of the 1992 Dublin Principles that are driving thought on how water
should be managed.
There are four key principles:
1. Freshwater is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to
sustain life, development and the environment;
2. Water development and management should be based on a participatory
approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels;
3. Women play a central part in the provision, management, and
safeguarding of water;
4. Water has an economic value in all its competing uses, and should
be recognized as an economic good.
But scarcity of water as a resource is already repricing water,
excluding poorer consumers – or both. And failing to understand the
economic value only makes environmental problems worse by allowing
polluters to shift costs onto the rest of society.
With the data on the lack of people with clean drinking water and the
level of pollution of fresh water sources, it could easily be argued
that water is already the most-important environmental issue. What's
clear is that without major changes in water management, the problem
can only become worse.
Sources:
The Water Page
Dublin Principles for Water (December, 1999)
http://www.thewaterpage.com/SolanesDublin.html
Water Industry News
"Cost of Water Around the World" (Aug. 5, 1999)
http://www.waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/water-world.htm
World Bank
"The World Water and Climate Atlas" (nov. 3, 1998)
http://www.worldbank.org/html/cgiar/press/watatlas.html
World Water Council
"The World Water Gap" (March 20, 1999)
http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/Vision/84430C6FE8D4EAD8C12567C4002C248D.htm
Water Environment Federation
http://www.wef.org/
National Water Resources Association
http://www.nwra.org/index.cfm
International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes
"10th Biennial Report on the Great Lakes Water Quality"
http://www.ijc.org/comm/10br/en/indexen.html
Google search strategy:
"water resources"
"United Nations" + water
"water rights"
"Ismail Serageldin"
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA |
