With increasing water needs, will China dehydrate India?

China—and not Pakistan—is a bigger threat to India simply because it does not have enough water.
Unlike India, which has 9.56% of its surface area covered with water, China has just 2.8%. This did not matter in the past. China’s land mass is so huge that, despite its larger population, it has one-sixth the density of people per km compared with India.

But water consumption increases exponentially with industrialization. Power plants, chemical factories, mining, steel and urban sanitation require huge quantities of water. Hence, China’s water needs have increased dramatically.

That could be one reason why annexing Tibet was crucial to China’s plans. It now controls 1,700km of the Yarlung Zangbo river, the Tibetan part of the Brahmaputra. The remaining 2,900km of the river winds into India through Arunachal Pradesh, and then, through Bangladesh. That, say experts, could be one more reason behind China eyeing parts of Arunachal Pradesh.

More worrisome is the fact that China has already completed feasibility studies for a major hydropower dam at the Tsongpo gorge to generate at least 40,000MW a year, more than twice the output of Three Gorges hydroelectric project. Construction is expected to start this year and the residual waters are expected to be diverted to China’s lands. It would starve India and Bangladesh of their share of the river’s waters.

Moreover, with Left parties winning Nepal’s elections, and China’s proposal last week for no-visa travel between Nepal and China, there are fears that the waters which flow into the Ganga (primarily Kosi), too, may get diverted, because many of India’s northern rivers begin in Nepal. That could parch northern India.

At risk will be India’s agriculture and hydroelectric dams on these rivers. It could revive the saying that the next wars will be fought for water, not land.

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Source: LiveMint.com

Have we reached peak water?

China: Water price ‘needs to shoot up’

The authorities need to push ahead with a price hike, reflecting accurately the growing shortage of water in China and help plug further depletion of the resource, an official has said.

“We must set up a rational water pricing system adapted to the country’s severe shortage of water. So some cities will face a sharp rise in water prices,” Hu Siyi, vice-minister of water resources, told the Beijing Times on Sunday.

The average domestic water price in 36 large and medium-sized cities last year was 3.77 yuan (55 US cents) per ton, an annual increase of 4.7 percent, latest official statistics showed.

“But the price does not reflect the current situation of the severe water shortage plaguing the country, leading to water wastage and pollution,” Hu said, adding that the needs of lower-income residents and industrial usage would be factored in while deciding on the price hike.

In Beijing, authorities have kept water prices at 3.7 yuan per ton, unchanged since 2004, following an increase of 0.8 yuan per ton for household water, official figures showed.

Wang Hao, director of the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, feels water prices in the capital should be at least 11.42 yuan per ton.

Water pricing reform in Beijing is under review and a public forum on any price hike will take place this year, the Beijing municipal commission of development and reform confirmed yesterday.

In 2008, there was a shortage of 40 billion tons, affecting nearly two thirds of the cities in China. About 300 million people were exposed to unsafe drinking water, according to the Ministry of Water Resources. As a result, beginning from November, China faced its worst drought since 1951, affecting 299 million mu (20 million hectares) farmland and leaving 4.42 million people short of water, according to the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

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Source: China Daily

Water: A neglected resource in Taiwan

With the public focusing on plummeting GDP figures and rising unemployment, little attention has been paid to another pressing problem — the plunging levels of the nation’s water reserves.

This winter has been much drier than usual, with many regions receiving less than half their normal rainfall, while other regions have received none at all. Many reservoirs are approaching critical levels. The main store of water for much of the heavily populated north, Taoyuan County’s Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫), has seen less than a fifth of its average rainfall in its catchment area so far this year and is already below half capacity. Officials have reduced the amount of water released daily and are considering enforcing stricter rationing measures should the rain continue to hold off.

Taiwan may be blessed with plentiful rainfall (the annual average is around 2,500mm), but its geography makes storage of large amounts of water difficult. As severe climate change becomes a reality and begins to disrupt traditional weather patterns, who’s to say that in a few years or decades the nation’s abundance of water won’t fade and that serious droughts, such as the one in 2003, won’t become more common?

Solving such a problem in Taiwan — with its water intensive industries and farming — is a huge challenge, but the government needs to formulate a comprehensive management strategy for reducing water usage if it is to avoid a scenario that sees businesses and the public competing for precious water resources.

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Source: Taipei Times

Two-Thirds of the World to Face Water Scarcity by 2025: UN

New York (PTI): The United Nations warned that two-thirds of the world’s population will face a lack of water in less than 20 years if current trends in climate change, population growth, rural to urban migration and consumption continue.

Speaking at a high-level symposium on water security here on Thursday, UN Dy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro stressed that “if present trends continue, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with water scarcity by 2025, and two-thirds of the world population could be subject to water stress.”

“The lack of safe water and sanitation is inextricably linked with poverty and malnutrition, particularly among the world’s poor,” Migiro said at the two-day meeting organised by the World Water Organisation (WWO).

“It limits girls’ school attendance and exacerbates maternal mortality. Yet today about 900 million people still rely on unimproved drinking-water supplies, and 2.5 billion people remain without improved sanitation facilities,” she added.

Unless urgent action is taken the conflict between water supply and demand is set to get worse, Migiro told the symposium’s participants, comprising of experts from the UN, Member States, as well as corporate, medical, scientific, academic and non-government organisations.

Migiro noted that agriculture consumes roughly three quarters of the world’s fresh water supplies and in Africa the proportion is closer to ninety per cent.

“More than 1.4 billion people live in river basins where their use of water exceeds minimum recharge levels, leading to desiccation of rivers and the depletion of groundwater, she said.

The Deputy Secretary-General stressed that achieving water security would mean more effective water management, including enhancing food security through more equitable allocation of water for agriculture and food production. “It means ensuring the integrity of ecosystems, and it means promoting peaceful collaboration in the sharing of water resources, particularly in the case of boundary and trans-boundary water resources.”

“In establishing the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one half, by 2015, the number of people without access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, the United Nations has challenged the international community to work together to improve such conditions,” she said.

The symposium aims to identify specific threats and vulnerabilities to global water security and propose practical solutions for the protection and preservation of water supplies.

Source: The Hindu

China: Poison in the Drinking Water

The thousand inhabitants of Leifeng couldn’t have lived in a more remote spot. The village, near the border with Siberia, is covered in a thick layer of snow during the winter. Not surprisingly, then, it is home to a small alcohol factory, which produces ‘baijiu’, the Chinese version of vodka. But the factory proved to be more of a curse than a blessing, as 14-year-old Zhang Guanghui explains:

“My mother worked in the factory for three months. She treated the bottles with acid, so the glass looked frosted. The work made her ill. Now she’s dead. We had to sell our house. My father now works a long way away and I live with my uncle.”

The acid that Guanghui’s mother used to etch to bottles was hydrofluoric acid. The exposure to it during her work, in combination with the polluted drinking water, proved fatal. Because as Guanghui’s neighbour explains, the factory was also dumping large quantities of the chemical in three disused wells in the factory grounds. And thus it entered the groundwater and the wells for drinking water used by the village’s farming families. Guanghui’s mother is the only person to die of the poisoning up to now, but hundreds of villagers are ill.

Brittle bones
Guanghui looks like a boy of ten. The growth of other children in Leifeng has also been retarded by their exposure to the pollutant. Fluoride seems innocent enough but high concentrations in drinking water can cause brittle bones and damage teeth as well as causing memory loss and eye, stomach and liver problems. Chinese research has also indicated that high concentrations of fluoride in children can lead to a reduction in IQ.

Justice
Zhang Ruwen (pictured below), Guanghui’s uncle, has been fighting for justice since 2002.

“My sister-in-law died, my nephew is handicapped and my brother left the village and he had psychological problems because of that poison.”

There are tears in his eyes as he tells of his sister-in-law’s deathbed request:

“Your brother can’t do it but you have such a strong sense of justice. After I die, you must get justice for me”.

Mr Zhang, working with a retired lawyer, has compiled a dossier detailing the cases of 25 villagers. The x-rays and medical reports were investigated twice by a university in Beijing. Armed with the dossiers, the two men went to Beijing in 2002 to present their case before the highest national complaints commission. The complaints commission ruled in favour of the villagers from Leifeng and local authorities were forced to agree to solve the case within 10 days.

Damages
Very little has happened since then. The director of the regional court has refused to comment on the case. In 2006, free piped water was installed for everybody living within 60 km radius of the factory. A few of the villagers have been awarded damages and even collected the money but only on condition that they will undertake no further legal proceedings. The overwhelming majority of the villagers have received nothing.

The villagers are divided; some of them are too scared to initiate legal proceedings as the director of the factory has got good connections. They say its impossible to win the case as the factory bosses have bribed the authorities and a criminal prosecution as a lost cause despite the strict environmental and pollution laws.

Some of the villagers are still hoping for financial compensation high enough to pay for painkillers. But even their leader is beginning to lose hope. Justice for the residents of Leifeng will only come about as a result of the economic crisis. After all, the global financial crisis has already forced scores of polluting factories to close across China.

Source: Radio Netherlands Worldwide

South Korea: Nakdong Reservoirs Running Dry

The Korea Water Resources Corporation’s inadequate water management is contributing to a water shortage in the Nakdong River. According to analysis of data the Chosun Ilbo obtained with the help of Grand National Party lawmaker Yoon Young, five multi-purpose dams along the Nakdong River can supply 560 million tons of water, including expected rainfalls, until June 20 when the rainy season begins. But the actual amount residents and facilities along the river need is as much as 730 million tons, indicating a crisis in the making even if water is used sparingly.

The Samdeok reservoir bed on the upper stream of the Nakdong River is dry on Sunday due to a fierce drought in South Gyeongsang Province.

According to the corporation’s own regulations, when dams are short of water, it is necessary to reduce supply needed for the maintenance of the eco-systems at streams first; then for irrigation; and finally for people and industrial use.

Dr. Park Ki-wook of the Rural Research Institute said, “Unless we have more rain than in previous years, we will experience shortage of irrigation water from April. Then the southern regions will suffer severe crop damage, and the damage will become worse in May.”

Dr. Kim Sung of the Korea Institute of Construction Technology said, “The basic principle of dam management is to store maximum amounts of water in dams for the three months of the flood season from June 20 to Sept. 20 and to supply water for various purposes for the remaining nine months. But it is doubtful if the corporation has followed the principle.”

Analysis of data on the corporation’s website shows that the five dams stored only 94 million tons of water, about 9 percent of 1,159 million tons that had flown into the reservoirs, during three rainy season last year. The corporation discharged the remaining 91 percent of water under the pretext of flood control.

From 2003 to 2007, the corporation stored 20 to 30 percent of the water that had flown into the reservoirs. But it drastically reduced water storage last year, when there was less rain. The Hapcheon and Namgang dams then discharged about 100 million tons of their stored water. The corporation said, “In case of Namgang Dam, we needed to hastily discharge large amounts of water as we expected torrential downpours last summer.”

Experts say the Nakdong River water shortage is the combined result of long-term drought and the corporation’s careless water management.

Source: Chosun

Bahrain: Water crisis ‘a security threat’

BAHRAIN and its neighbours could face a potential security crisis unless they take steps to protect their diminishing water resources, a government official warned yesterday.

There could be serious threat if the region does nothing to ensure there is enough water to go round, said Works Minister Fahmi Al Jowder, who is also in charge of the Electricity and Water Authority.

His warning echoed an alert raised last week by Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry Under-Secretary Dr Ahmed Mohammed Al Salem, who said a water shortage could spark war in the region.

The struggle for limited resources amid growing demand and rising population levels is likely to end in conflict, Mr Al Salem told the Bahrain Security Forum, at the Ritz-Carlton Bahrain Hotel and Spa.

“Thirty per cent (of the population) in the year 2025 will not find water for drinking or agriculture,” he said.

“What further complicates the situation is that 60pc of the Arab water resources come from outside our homelands.

“This no doubt is a sign of a potential war that could take place in this region as a result of the struggle and strife for its resources.”

Mr Al Jowder was speaking at the opening of the Innovative Water and Wastewater Reuse Technolog-ies conference.

Failure to act could have disastrous consequences for the region’s security, he said.

“We have to work on several fronts to try and manage the demand,” said Mr Al Jowder.

“Management of demand is an issue and we should work on (reducing) leaks from our network.”

Experts from around the world are attending the two-day event, being held at the Gulf Hotel’s Gulf Convention Centre.

It is being organised by the Saudi Arabia Water Environment Association (SAWEA), US-based Water Environment Federation and US-based International Desalination Association.

An exhibition on the sidelines of the event is also showcasing the latest innovations and technologies in water production and conservation systems.

The conference continues today with a series of technical sessions about desalination and sanitary wastewater treatment.

Mr Al Jowder called for campaigns to educate the public on how to avoid wasting water.

“We have to work on awareness programmes,” he said.

“We are not doing enough to educate the young generation, consumers and investors.”

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Source: Gulf Daily News

Parched China to slash water consumption by 60%

As rivers run dry and fields turn to dust, China has announced dramatic plans to cut water use by industry and agriculture.

Water resources minister Chen Lei said it would cut the amount of water needed to produce each dollar of GDP by 60% by 2020. With the economy on course to grow by 60% by then, that effectively means it wants to consume no more water then than today.

The announcement suggests that the government has finally decided that it cannot rely on “supply-side” solutions to water shortages, like the $60-billion south-north water transfer scheme, which is aimed at watering the arid north with water from the giant Yangtze river in the south.

It comes after China’s worst drought in half a century, and increased water shortages caused by industrial pollution that makes river water unfit for drinking, even after treatment.

Official statistics show the country’s urban supply systems and irrigation networks currently lack, on average, 40 cubic kilometres of water a year – not much less than the entire flow of the Yellow River.

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Source: NewScientist

Link Between Climate Change & Water Scarcity

Global climate change is exacerbating water scarcity problems around the world, yet few businesses and investors are paying attention to this growing financial threat, according to the report Water Scarcity & Climate Change: Growing Risks for Businesses and Investors issued by Ceres and the Pacific Institute.

Water drives every industry from agriculture to electric power to silicon chip manufacturing. Beverage, apparel and tourism also rely on supplies of clean, potable water.

Decreasing water availability, declining water quality, and growing water demand are creating immense challenges to businesses and investors who have historically taken clean, reliable and inexpensive water for granted. These trends are causing decreases in companies’ water allotments for manufacturing, shifts towards full-cost water pricing, more stringent water quality regulations and increased public scrutiny of corporate water practices.

Climate change will exacerbate these growing water risks – especially as the world population grows by 50 million people every year. Already, China, India and the western U.S. are seeing growth limited by reduced water supplies from shrinking glaciers and melting snowcaps that sustain key rivers.

Meanwhile, agricultural and power plant production have been cut back due to more frequent and more intense heat waves and droughts in large parts of Australia, California and the southeast U.S.

“The business community needs to wake up to the reality that water is becoming scarcer and will likely become even more so in many parts of the world due to climate change,” says Mindy  Lubber, president of Ceres.”

“For businesses, addressing risk factors of water scarcity and conflict is as urgent as addressing energy security and greenhouse gas emissions,” says Jason Morrison, program director at the Pacific Institute and the report’s lead author.

The report identifies water-related risks specific to 8 key industries, including:

• Electric Power: Drought-induced water shortages have already caused power plant shutdowns in Europe, Brazil and the southeast U.S. that led to price spikes and reduced economic growth. The power industry depends heavily on water and accounts for a staggering 39% of freshwater withdrawals in the U.S.
• High-Tech: 11 of the world’s 14 largest semiconductor factories are in the Asia-Pacific region, where water scarcity risks are especially severe. IT firms require vast amounts of ultra clean water – Intel and Texas Instruments alone used 11 billion gallons to make silicon chips in 2007. A water-related shutdown at a fabrication facility operated by these firms could result in $100-$200 million in missed revenue during a quarter, or $0.02 or $0.04 per share.
• Beverage: Coca-Cola and PepsiCo bottlers lost their operating licenses in parts of India due to water shortages and all major beverage firms are facing stiff public opposition to new bottling plants – and to buying bottled drinking water altogether. Nestlé Waters has been fighting for five years, for example, to build the country’s largest bottling plant in McCloud, CA.
• Agriculture: Reduced water availability is already impacting food commodity prices, as shown by last year’s sharp increase in global rice prices triggered by a drought-induced collapse of rice production in Australia. Roughly 70% of the water used globally is for agriculture, with as much as 90% in developing countries where populations are growing fastest.

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Source: Sustainable Business

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