Water Crisis Uproots Syrian Farmers

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

SHAIZAR CASTLE, Syria (Reuters) – Only a few decades ago, fish were plentiful in the Orontes river which for thousands of years has provided water to the lush Syrian plains, at the crossroads of the ancient world.

These days the Orontes’s 12th century norias, enormous water wheels famous for their distinctive creak, barely turn in the weak tides. Algae covers the river’s surface and the desert has been closing in.

“The river has become so polluted. The quality of our produce has suffered and there is barely enough now to feed my family,” said 80-year-old farmer Mohammad al-Hamdo.

Syria’s worst drought in decades has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and raised calls for a coordinated water policy for the Middle East as the region faces a dryer climate and water supplies depleted by damming and water well drilling.

Yet whether a coordinated water policy is even possible is in doubt in a region riven by tensions and rivalry and where water politics is often seen as a zero-sum game.

The Euphrates River, which flows from Turkey through Syria and Iraq, is polluted and salinized. Damming by Turkey and demands for water by ballooning populations have drastically reduced its flow.

Mohammed Okla is among an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Syrian farmers and their families who in the past three years have been forced to abandon their land due to drought, according to a recent United Nations study.

“I lost two-third of my cattle after the water wells dried up,” said Okla, who fled the badly-hit eastern Hasaka province five months ago and now lives in a tent with his two wives and 15 children next to the main garbage dump in Damascus.

Okla’s family have turned from wheat and cattle farmers into virtual refugees. Flies cover the faces of his barefooted children who play among scraps of metal and trash pulled from the dump as substitute toys

A recent United Nations study said the drought now covers over 60 percent of Syria’s land mass and 1.3 million people have been affected so far, with regions around Damascus, Aleppo and Hamah receiving the bulk of the displaced.

Read full article

Source: Reuters

California: Let’s all get wet

As I write these words, rain is hammering my apartment building and rivers of fresh water — hundreds or perhaps thousands of gallons per minute — are gushing down the streets and the sidewalks, filling rain gutters, overwhelming the storm drains and rinsing the City relatively clean, and you think, ahh yes, rain, bring it on, so healthy, so good, so desperately needed.

Maybe you also think: Surely all that water is going somewhere helpful, yes? Surely at least some of those drains feed into some grand network of reservoirs and tanks that, in turn, replenish the supply and nourish the community and come back through our taps and get recycled for irrigation, and it’s all glorious and helpful, right?

Wrong.

Truth is, the vast majority of that glorious water is merely flushed away by a system of conduits and drainage pipes and sent straight out into the bay, all in an effort to avoid urban flooding because, well, we are simply not equipped to handle too much of it at once.

Meanwhile, I read the same dire stories as you. Despite the rain, despite weeks of snow and storms and pounding amounts of water crashing down on the region for hours on end, we are still in very serious drought conditions. Long-starved state reservoirs aren’t even half full. The governor declared a state of emergency. The Colorado River is long overtaxed, lakes are drying up, the besieged Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta is being siphoned off at a record pace. We do not, they say, have nearly enough water. And it’s getting worse.

It seems to prompt one ridiculously obvious, but still increasingly urgent question: How can this be? How is it that tens of thousands of gallons of fresh water are pouring through the city streets right now, but we are only able to capture and use but a fraction? Why do we not have better systems in place? Why is this not more imperative?

Is that too naïve to ponder aloud? Hardly. Sure, we all know the state has its grand reservoirs, the spring snowmelt is the lifeblood of the aquifers, the rainfall feeds the starving, overbled rivers and deltas. But what about what’s right here, right now? What about what every single city, every single person, every single household isn’t doing in the slightest?

Why do we not, for example, have in place regulations similar to what much of drought-plagued Australia’s already done, mandates requiring that every homeowner cut their usage in half and every home and building be fitted with a basic water-capture and storage apparatus — along with solar panels and compost and so on — aiming toward at least some semblance of self-sustainability? How is it we are still stuck with the archaic, centralized models of water and energy supply that, unless we start changing it fast, will likely spell California’s doom?

I know: simple questions. Simplistic, even. But as we get more desperate, we sure as hell don’t seem to have very many satisfying answers.

Read full article

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Water conservation bill gets House OK

ST. GEORGE – Pushing to make water conservation and efficiency more of a priority, Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, introduced a bill designed to protect the world’s most precious resource.

The Water-Use Efficiency and Conservation Research Act, passed on a voice vote in the U.S. House on Wednesday, authorizes $100 million over five years to create a research and development program on water-use efficiency and conservation within the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development.

“Many experts are starting to see water as the ‘new oil’ in terms of what a precious commodity it is,” Matheson said in a statement Tuesday. “The key to avoiding future scarcity is more efficient use, reuse and distribution. We need the best minds tackling the challenge, and then we need to ensure the information is readily available to the public.”

For arid western states such as Utah, water conservation has always been a hot topic, and the region’s rate of population growth portends more obstacles to come.

“Fast-growing urban areas in arid or drought-stricken regions are looking at water shortages unless we get smarter about using technology to be more efficient,” Matheson said. “It will also save money.”

Read full article

Source: The Spectrum

Government, Planning and the Politics of Water

In addressing the issue of water in the Southwest we must be willing to recognize that prior solutions have not addressed the core problem. We have been basing solutions on simply increasing supplies.

Reservoirs and dams were built with wide surface areas resulting in huge evaporative losses, aquifers were pumped to the maximum, urban water conservation was voluntary and private wells were unmetered. Supply was there. Sometimes new sources, such as Owens Lake in California, or the San Juan /Chama diversion in NM were piped to urban centers to increase supply.

Supply solutions are still available. Desalination of ocean waters, dredging reservoirs and deep aquifer drilling are playing a new role in the discussions as the old sources dry up or prove unable to address increased demand. New deep water, low surface area, high altitude reservoirs can be built. Brackish water can still be tapped from deep aquifers and desalinated. Water pumped in rural areas with low demand can still be piped to urban areas. In other words, there remains the capacity to continue to address water management and administration in the same old way.

Current droughts in the SouthWest have raised new concerns. Is the drought caused by climate change? Is the drought a periodic historical episode of decreasing regional precipitation? What about the new risks of geological subsidence, ocean water intrusion into the water table and the reduction of groundwater flows to surface waters? These issues raise their raise their heads as aquifers are mined and groundwater levels decline and precipitation decrease.

That being said, it is worth our while to compare the current financial crisis with the impending water crisis that has already manifested in many areas of the US. For years, business as usual for urban residents has been to assume that municipal governments and state governments are up to the task. The water budgets of our regions have been overextended based on presumed maintenance of water supply from aquifers and surface water flows. Decisions are made based on short-term supply projections that no longer stand the test of reality. Water users are not included in the decision-making processes. Water planning is often projected as an ancillary process removed from the actual political decisions by governmental entities.

Read full article

Source: OpEdNews

Federal water supply may be cut off from California

Federal water managers say they might have to cut off water supplies to some of California’s largest farms, thanks to the state’s severe drought.

This would be the first time in more than 15 years such a move was taken. The state predicts a loss of more than $1 billion and an elimination of as many as 40,000 jobs if this takes place.

The Western Growers Association says as of December 2008, the drought has cost California’s agriculture industry more than $308 million. Local city leaders say the Central Coast water supply is OK, but across the state it is a different story.

“Well, it’s the lifeblood of agriculture. We irrigate virtually all of our crops with water,” said Richard Quandt, president of the Grower-Shipper Association.

Read full article

Source: MSNBC

SOMALIA: Child deaths linked to acute water shortage

NAIROBI, 24 February 2009 (IRIN) – An acute water shortage has hit central Somalia’s Galgadud region, with local leaders linking the deaths of two children to a lack of water and food.

“We buried two children, aged four and one-and-a-half, yesterday; they died of lack of water and food,” Yusuf Guled, the deputy district commissioner of Dhabad, told IRIN on 24 February.

He said the problem was most acute in Dhabad, 130km north-west of the regional capital Dusamareb, in Hanan Buuro, 30km west, and in Ada Kibir, 150km north-east.

Guled said the local administration was receiving reports from outlying villages of more deaths. “There are more dying out there but we cannot help them.”

The region has had no rains in the past two years and the district’s only functioning borehole has broken down, he said.

He added that livestock – the economic mainstay of the area – and the population were equally affected by water shortages.

“We have been trucking water from as far as 40km away,” Guled said. “People in the diaspora have been helping but it is not enough and we need more help.”

He appealed to aid agencies, saying the Dhabad area was safe.

“We have an administration and police who are capable of protecting anyone who comes here,” he said. “If help does not come soon, a lot more people and livestock will die.”

Read full article

Source: IRIN

State: Californians Must Conserve Water Now

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The state on Friday made a renewed call for water conservation in California, adding that the lingering drought means state water contractors will only get a small part of the water they requested this year.

Dry conditions are preventing the Department of Water Resources from increasing its State Water Project delivery allocation for the first time since 2001. This year’s allocation will remain at just 15 percent of SWP contractors’ requests.

“Despite recent storms and more rain expected later this week, water conditions in the state remain severe,” DWR Director Lester Snow said in a prepared statement. “Californians must conserve now to ensure there is enough water to meet the state’s basic water needs for the future.”

Read full article

Source: MSNBC

Expert: Europe ‘unaware’ of its water footprint

While Europe may take better care of its water resources than other continents, it in fact uses larger quantities via imports of goods such as cotton, beans or wood, which often come from regions that already suffer from water scarcity, argues a UN expert in an interview with EurActiv.

The notion of “virtual water” embedded in a commodity or a product, is an essential part of the ’water footprint’ theory but has not yet received much attention, argued Maude Barlow, a special adviser on water issues to the president of the UN General Assembly.

However, she warned: ”You are going to hear about this virtual water trade a lot more in the next few years.”

A water footprint is the total amount of water a country needs to sustain its population and industry. But while Europe tries to take good care of its own resources, it uses water from other places via its agribusiness imports. “I think it is important to find out about each country’s footprint, how much of your water comes from outside the country and what was the energy needed to bring that water here,” she said.

Barlow called into question European consumers’ way of life, with some wanting strawberries all year round. Meanwhile, African lakes are dying, because the berries suck up water which is then shipped out of the country, she said. Great Britain alone “imports two thirds of its water footprint. And it imports it from Africa, Latin America and from places which don’t have any water,” she noted.

As for biofuels, she noted that while there is a drive to grow biofuels to combat CO2 emissions, ”we don’t stop and ask what biofuels might do to other parts of nature. They are water guzzlers. Biofuels and corn ethanol use a huge amount of water”.

Water and climate change

Barlow thinks that the chance of getting water high up the agenda of the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen are “slim”, as “Copenhagen is already so contentious and there are so many issues”. However, she thinks that water may well become part of the post-Copenhagen talks once people become more water conscious.

“The water crisis is where climate change was five years ago. It is just starting to get into the media and people’s heads, and in five years it will be what people talk about,” she said.

Barlow also argued that the water crisis must no longer be considered a result of climate change, but rather as another side to the equation of what causes climate change. “You’ve got to get the analysis right if you’re going to get the answer right,” she said.

Read full article

Source: EurActiv

California taps sea for water needs: Drought, demand renew debate over desalination

SAN FRANCISCO — Is it time to stick a straw into the Pacific Ocean?

About 20 water agencies up and down the California coast seem to think so.

From Marin County to San Diego, small and large projects that turn seawater into tap water are gaining favor, propelled by events unprecedented in California’s history: worsening drought, dwindling species of freshwater fish, crumbling plumbing systems and unyielding demand.

“People are worried about water supply,” said Michael Carlin, assistant general manager of water at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. “Desalination is for drought supply, for an emergency, and it augments existing supply — it’s another tool in our toolbox.”

But critics argue that desalination is an expensive, environmentally questionable last resort in a sprawling state that misuses one of its greatest assets.

“People are looking for an easy solution, and they look to the ocean,” said Linda Sheehan, executive director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance, a watchdog group. “They’re ignoring the opportunities we have for conservation, storm-water reuse and water recycling.”

Read full article

Source: Seattlepi.com

Learn more about water conservation

Water- Another Global Crisis?

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News

Last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) took an in-depth look at how the raw availability of water might alter in the future as climatic patterns change.

Its projections are derived from computer models of the Earth’s hugely complex climate system, and as such are far from being firm forecasts.  A warmer climate overall means a wetter climate; warmer air can hold more moisture.

Mountain glaciers act as “natural reservoirs” Himalayan glaciers alone store water used by more than a billion people Scientists measure the volume of glaciers in “mm SLE” – the amount that sea levels would rise if the ice melted

But weather patterns are likely to shift, meaning that water will be deposited in different places with a different pattern in time.

“In general we see drying in the sub-tropics and mid-latitudes, from southern Europe across to Kazakhstan and from North Africa to Iran,” recounts Martin Parry, who as co-chair of the IPCC’s working group on climate impacts oversaw the water report’s compilation.

“And the drying extends westwards into Central America. And there are equivalents in the southern hemisphere – southern Africa, Australia.”

In some populated parts of North Africa and Central Asia, he says, people may struggle simply to get enough to drink.

Other areas, meanwhile, are projected to receive more rain – considerably more, in some cases.

The question then is whether societies can make use of it.

“If you look at India, Bangladesh and Burma, there are indications of an increase in water availability,” says Professor Parry.

“But when you look in more detail you see that monsoonal precipitation will become more intense – there’ll be a heavier downpour but over fewer days – so you might just end up with more runoff, which could actually mean less availability of water to the community.”

Thirsty work

A changing climate is only one of the factors likely to affect the amount of water at each person’s disposal in future.

A more populated world – and there could be another 2.5 billion people on the planet by 2050 – is likely to be a thirstier world.

Those extra people will need feeding; and as agriculture accounts for about 70% of water use around the world, extra consumption for growing food is likely to reduce the amount available for those basic needs of drinking, cooking and washing.

Industry can also take water that would otherwise have ended up in peoples’ mouths.

FUTURE WATER STRESS Interactive map: Water stress in a changing world

On the other hand, as a society industrialises it tends to become less reliant on farming – which could, in principle, reduce its local demand.

It is a tremendously complex picture; and forecasting its impacts makes simple climate modelling look a trivial task by comparison.

Researchers at the University of Kassel in Germany, led by Martina Floerke, have attempted it.

Their projections suggest that some regions are likely to see drastic declines in the amount of water available for personal use – and for intriguing reasons.

“The principal cause of decreasing water stress (where it occurs) is the greater availability of water due to increased annual precipitation related to climate change,” they conclude.

“The principal cause of increasing water stress is growing water withdrawals, and the most important factor for this increase is the growth of domestic water use stimulated by income growth.”

The modelling suggests that by the 2050s, as many as six billion people could face water scarcity (defined as less than 1,000 cubic metres per person per year), depending, most importantly, on how societies develop – a significant increase on previous estimates.

Read full article

Source:  BBC News

Next Page »