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

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

India: Deepening water crisis

If we don’t change our lifestyle and careless attitude towards Mother Nature, India will certainly experience severe water stress by 2020.- Satish Kumar Singh

Water catastrophe is now common phenomenon in every nook and corner of India. Day by day its graveness is mounting. Even people are killing one another on the issue of water. As a result, Concept of linking rivers is in limelight now a days. In this connection, a project of bringing water of Narmada at Bhopal is now in full swing. In fact, the upper lake in the heart of Bhopal is about to dry. On account of this, the problem of water availability in the Capital is deepening by the day. As per water supply authorities, lake’s water is not enough to meet out water requirement of Bhoplites even up to April, 2009.

Similar situation is prevailing almost all over India. The underground water level is going downward every year. There is no scope of water recharge, because we are misusing and wasting water every day. The perception of conservation of water is not materializing in the minds of the general people.
Consequently, the farmers are not able to irrigate their fields. In this year, all rivers of Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh have dried up even in mid winter season. Summer season is still ahead. What will happen? We can presume it easily.

If we don’t change our lifestyle and careless attitude towards Mother Nature, India will certainly experience severe water stress by 2020. As per a research paper which has recently presented at a national symposium; India is anticipated to perceptive relentless water strain by 2020 with the per capita accessibility of water predictable to be less than 1,000 cubic meters.

Indian water scenario was a matter of grave concern, as 85 per cent of water was used for agriculture, 10 per cent for industry and five per cent for domestic use.

Being a developing nation with a huge population on the negative side of the poverty line, economic water scarcity (limited access to fresh water due to lower affordability) assumed equal, if not, greater importance as that of physical water scarcity.

According to a World Bank study, of the 27 Asian cities with population of over 10 lakh, Chennai and Delhi were ranked as the most horrible performing metropolitan cities in terms of water accessibility per day, at the same time as Mumbai was ranked as second most terrible performer and Kolkata fourth.
Grave water scarcity had previously led to a number of conflicts across the country, with 90 per cent of India’s province served by inter-state rivers.

The line up over river Cauvery between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, Godavari between Maharashtra and Karnataka, Narmada between Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat are some of the quarrels which are still creating problems on a regular basis.

The conflicts are being acrimoniously fought at all levels, having attendance very high financial ecological expenditure. Atmosphere revolutionize projections showed India’s water problems were only expected to deteriorate and with more precipitation estimated to fall in fewer days and the fast melting of glaciers, particularly in the Western Himalayas, India would need to gear up to embark upon growing frequency of droughts and floods.

Global fresh water supplies were incessantly stressed out by increasing demands from an ever increasing population and its greater stress towards cleanliness, hygiene, food and industrial needs.
Despite the fact that the world’s population tripled in the 20th century, the make use  of renewable water resources has grown six-fold and within next 50 years, the world population would increase by another 40 to 50 per cent.

As per this report, a billion people in the world do not have access to safe water, which was approximately one sixth of the world’s population. On the subject of 1.8 million people die every year as a result of diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation, which amounted to around 5,000 deaths a day.

The straightforward proceed of washing hands with soap and water can diminish diarrhoea cases by over 40 per cent, since water-related infection was the subsequent main killer of children worldwide, following sharp respiratory infections like tuberculosis.

However, water crisis is the biggest dilemma of today. So many other problems are linked with it. It is high time for everybody to ponder over this issue and resort to corrective measures. In that way only, existence of human beings will remain intact in future too.

Source: Central Chronicle

Yangtze River water level at 140-year low

In a new sign of China’s water and environmental crisis, cargo boats on the Yangtze have been stranded on river banks as its levels have fallen to a 140-year low.

Forty boats have run aground since October on the lower stretches of China’s longest river, which is both a water supply and industrial thoroughfare for a region of 400 million people.

Government scientists blamed an extended drought in southern and south-western China, which caused widespread water shortages last autumn.

But they also admitted that too much water had been held up by the giant Three Gorges Dam, which was built not only to generate electricity but also to control the Yangtze’s devastating summer floods.

The river authorities said that the dam was responsible for a drop of 50 per cent in the river’s flow downstream.

Global warming, population pressure, and inefficient use of resources have all contributed to a nationwide water shortage.

The Yellow River, which flows through central and northern China, regularly dries up along much of its course during the dry season, contributing to the growing desertification of the north.

The fate of the Yangtze is particularly disturbing as the authorities are relying on a massive water diversion scheme currently being built at a cost of £32bn to take water from the Yangtze to the Yellow River.

Last week, the water level on the Yangtze at Wuhan, in central China east of the dam, fell to less than 14 metres for the first time since 1866, according to local media.

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Source: The Telegraph

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China’s water prices ticking up

The Ministry of Water Resources of the People’s Republic of China has announced plans to raise the price of water sometime this year.

That announcement triggered a market reaction in which the price of water resources and utilities companies was driven up by some eight to ten percent in an otherwise down market. And the movement in water underlines the deep challenges ahead for China as it builds out on its infrastructure and adopts water technologies.

Companies which reported gains from the announcement included Wuhan Sanzhen Industrial Holding Co. and Jiangxi Hongcheng Waterworks Co., hinting at big investment opportunities ahead for water technology and infrastructure in China.

According to the Research on Sustainable Utilization of China Urban Water Resources, China’s total investment in sewage treatment industry is expected to reach CNY200 billion in the period 2008-2010, indicating China’s sewage treatment industry with huge market potential will be able to have a rapid and sustainable development.

Last week the Shantou municipal government in Guangdong, China said it will invest 920 million RMB (134.70 million USD) to build a new sewage treatment plant that will process 0.12 million tons of waste once the project is completed.

“China is one of the regions of the country that’s experiencing drought, and it’s investing heavily in water infrastructure,” said Richard Stover, Chief Technology Officer for Energy Recovery, a provider of ultra-high efficiency desalination technology that recently went public. “We identify China as one of our largest markets,” he told the Cleantech Group.

To place the water problem in context, one has to understand the inequity of water resources in China. Today, China has 20 percent of the world’s population but only 7 percent of the water supply, according to Summit Global Management Inc, a consulting company.

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Source: Clean Tech

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Taiwan Will Import Water From China

TAIPEI – TAIWAN has put forward a plan to import water from China for residents on a heavily-defended island group off the mainland, authorities said on Tuesday, in a fresh sign of improving relations.

The Water Resources Agency wants to set up pipes linking China’s southeast Fujian province to the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen group, the agency said.

It said construction – pending final approval from the cabinet because of the sensitive nature of the project – would take two years.

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Source: The Straits Times

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China: Saving every drop of water to nourish the corn belt

On a routine stroll in her 11.2 hectares of cornfields one recent morning, farmer Cui Shulan heaved a sigh of relief. This year, she will get a bumper crop of corn.

“Nature has treated us kindly this year,” said the 61-year-old farmer from Dongling village in Jilin province. “We’ve had ample sunshine and adequate rainfall. If all goes well, we could get a yield of 17,500 kg in the fall.”

Like millions of small farmers who eke out a living on small patches of land, Cui’s fortunes are dependent on Mother Nature.

“Crop plantation in Jilin is still at the mercy of weather,” Cui said simply. “One year we have a bumper harvest, while another very poor one.”

Despite being the world’s largest agricultural country with the bulk of its population – 56 percent – in rural areas, China’s farming practices have changed very little throughout the centuries. The country’s rapid urbanization and economic growth in the last few decades have only widened the gap between the rural and urban economies.

The increasing gap in income between city and country has prompted the central government to focus more attention on rural areas, and on agricultural development.

This is especially important for a province like Jilin, which is home to one of the world’s top three corn production belts, the other two being in the United States and Ukraine.

In Jilin, the main factor that has hampered agricultural development is lack of water due to a poor farmland irrigation system. Although the province has had good crop yields for five consecutive years, it is still beset by frequent natural disasters.

“We can raise our grain production capacity if we can improve water conservation,” said Su Zheng of the water resources department of the Jilin province.

Cui, whose village on the edge of the Songnen plain is one of the country’s major corn producers, agreed: “Without a good water conservancy project, droughts and floods still threaten our crops every year. Due to a severe drought last year, our yield was only a little more than 11,500 kg.”

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Source: The China Daily

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Overuse of Ground Water Poses Environmental Threat to Asia

BALI-The overuse of ground water resources is becoming a huge threat to Asian nations, warned environmental experts at a seminar in Bali, Indonesia.

Professor Brahma Chellaney, from the India-based Strategic Studies Centre for Policy Research, said underground water in Asia is being pumped to the surface at such a high rate that the ground water can not be replenished by rain.

“Over-exploitation of aquifers will affect ecosystems, and in turn accelerate global warming,” said Dr Chellaney, speaking at the two-day seminar on the strategic Importance of water in Asia.

The seminar, organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF)last week, aimed to help Asian journalists specialising in environmental issues to better understand the current water shortage in Asia and the ramifications for the future.

An example of the immediate results of ground water overuse was raised by Julian Gearing, correspondent for Asia Times in Bangkok, who said one of the reasons why pavements and sidewalks in Bangkok were sinking was overuse of aquifers.

“A majority of people in Bangkok rely on piped water and don’t pump water from wells,” said Gearing. “They are not aware of the strain being put on the aquifers largely by large and small-scale industry.”

Dr Chellaney said rapid urban expansion in China’s capital Beijing, with a population of 17 million, was exhausting the local water supply. More than two-thirds of Beijing’s water supply is now pumped from subterranean reserves.

In addition to concerns over the over-exploitation of underground water, pollution is also presenting another formidable challenge as levels of heavy metals and arsenic rise in some natural water supplies.

Agricultural pollutants, such as fertilisers and pesticides, and industrial pollutants were also seeping into ground water reserves in many areas.

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Source: Vietnam News

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‘Green Olympics’ help China Conserve Water

BEIJING — Underground water levels in Beijing are rising this year, reversing a nearly decadelong decline, in part because of conservation efforts tied to the Olympics.

Aquifer levels in the Chinese capital have risen about half a meter this year, after having fallen about one meter each year since 1999 due to drought. The shortage had forced the city to dig ever-deeper wells, which provide the bulk of its municipal water.

The increase comes despite warnings from environmentalists that the Olympics would contribute to a greater strain on Beijing’s water resources, with water being diverted from neighboring regions to supply everything from competition venues to the 40 million ornamental flowers around the city.

The government has rejected those admonitions. Officials say the water supply has benefited from unusually plentiful summer rains as well as decreasing demand and greater water recycling that the government pushed as part Beijing’s efforts toward a “Green Olympics.” Overall, water consumption fell to less than 3.4 billion cubic meters last year, from 4.04 billion cubic meters in 2000, officials say. Waste-water treatment rates have passed 90% as the city rolled out new treatment plants in time for the Games.

The data suggest that some of the environmental-protection efforts for the Olympics could have a lasting impact. “I think there’s a real legacy here,” says Deborah Seligsohn, director of the China program at the World Resources Institute.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

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