Water: The World’s #1 Security and Health Concern

By Zachary Shahan, Ecoworldly

Water scarcity resulting from climate change is the number one issue the world will have to grapple with in the future, according to chief climate scientist and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri.

On the one hand, we will have more water around us with sea level rising. Drought caused by climate change, on the other hand, will leave billions of people without clean water.

Speaking yesterday at the 2009 Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN, Pachauri said: “At one level the world’s water is like the world’s wealth. Globally, there is more than enough to go round. The problem is that some countries get a lot more than others.”

Pachauri went on to describe the global imbalances in short detail. “With 31 percent of global freshwater resources, Latin America has 12 times more water per person than South Asia. Some places, such as Brazil and Canada, get far more water than they can use; others, such as countries in the Middle East, get much less than they need.”

Countries around the world share water resources. As these resources disappear, huge peace and security problems could arise. Pachauri said: “Over 260 river basins are shared by two or more countries. As the resource is becoming scarce, tensions among different users may intensify, both at the national and international level. In the absence of strong institutions and agreements, changes within a basin can lead to trans-boundary tensions.”

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Source: ecoworldly.com

Ken Salazar Helps Mediate Water Wars

By Kristi E. Swartz, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in Georgia to discuss the longstanding water war between Georgia, Alabama and Florida, waged a tri-state water war of his own out West, he said.

As a former attorney general for Colorado, Salazar helped hash out a water-allocation plan between Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, which had been feuding since 1984. The combatants spent $60 million on lawyers and engineers — efforts that “did not yield a single drop of water,” Salazar said.

But the western states’ success in finding a solution makes Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue optimistic about doing the same here, Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said. “The governor sees wide opportunity for us to make some real progress,” Brantley said.

Georgia, Florida and Alabama have been fighting over who controls the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River — an argument tied to how metro Atlanta manages its water.

At a court hearing in Jacksonville, Fla., earlier this month, Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson criticized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for taking decades to determine how to allocate water from Lake Lanier. The lake is the source of drinking water for more than 3 million people living in North Georgia and metro Atlanta. Magnuson predicted it would take some time before he issues a ruling.

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Source:  ajc.com

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

Nevada: Lawyers eye looming water wars

RENO — As the specter of climate change looms ever closer, it has become more likely that Southern Nevada municipalities will have to fight for their lives — and those fights will be over water.

Municipal and regional water managers are recruiting an army of lawyers and preparing to go to war for resources. At stake is the West’s main water supply — a sum of water that most climate models expect to shrink as greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb and the temperatures of the Earth’s surface and seas rise.

And some battles have already begun.

CLE International, a company that prepares continuing legal education sessions for lawyers across the country, held a session Feb. 26-27 in Reno to share with water lawyers, water managers and concerned citizens the latest laws, strategies and problems facing Nevada and the West.

Nevada is home to numerous disputes over who owns and who should own the water in more than 230 hydrologic basins, water managers at the event said.

In Northern Nevada, locals are hammering out agreements that would protect property owners’ water rights while allowing rivers to run freely.

Negotiations on some of these water allotments have been going on for decades.

At the same time, ranchers and environmentalists are fighting the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s plan to pump hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water it has acquired rights to out of rural eastern Nevada and pipe it hundreds of miles to Las Vegas.

On both sides are those battling to preserve a way of life for local residents — ranchers need water for cows, sheep and their fodder; environmentalists are trying to save animals and wild lands and the Water Authority is trying to save the Las Vegas Valley from the threat of doom should its measly portion of the Colorado River peter out.

There are more than a dozen bill draft requests in the Nevada Legislature proposing changes to water law.

Nowhere in the West is water such a key issue as in Las Vegas.

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Source: Las Vegas Sun

Why Water Could be Worth Fighting For

Over one billion people – 18% of the world’s population – lack access to safe drinking water worldwide. Only 56% of Africa’s 800 million population have access to clean water. About 700 million people in 43 countries are affected by water scarcity, according to the UN.

In another few years – in 2025 to be precise – the number could swell to 3 billion driving back gains in the fight against poverty and under-development, otherwise known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

For many people around the world, safe drinking water is a scarce resource and out of necessity, they resort to what’s available – polluted water.

But contaminated water isn’t just dirty—it’s deadly. Some 1.8 million people die every year of diseases like cholera, caused by poor sanitation. Tens of millions of others are seriously sickened by a host of water-related ailments—many of which are easily preventable.

A child dies of a water-related illness every 15 seconds. This translates to 2 million children dying each year due to a lack of clean water and inadequate sanitation, a situation that can be changed by just providing access to clean water and sanitation. If this was done, it would reduce the risk of a child dying by as much as 50%.

Africa is one continent caught squarely in the middle of potential conflicts over this precious commodity among other scarce resources. Africa has two of the world’s longest rivers – the 6,400-kilometer Nile River and the 4,370-kilometer Congo River, but it suffers from a perennial shortage amidst potentially plentiful supplies. It also has 21 of the world’s most arid countries, in terms of water per person.

Water scarcity is defined as less than 1,000 m3 of water available per person per year, while water stress means less than 1,500 m3 of water available per person per year.

According to a 1999 UN Development Program report, the possible African ‘water wars’ flash points are the Nile, Niger, Volta and Zambezi basins. The report says that by 2025, another 12 African countries will join the 13 that already suffer from water stress or water scarcity.

Yet UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, admits that the state of the world’s waters remained fragile, with the need for an integrated and sustainable approach to water resource management pressing as ever.

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Source: Eco Worldly

For more information about water conservation, visit our LEARN section

Spain sweats amid ‘water wars’

Spain is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years. Climate experts warn that the country is suffering badly from the impact of climate change and that the Sahara is slowly creeping north – into the Spanish mainland.

Yet in Spain itself there is little consensus about what is to be done. Indeed, such is the disagreement that journalists and politicians alike are calling it “water wars”.

A farmer and politician, Angel Carcia Udon, said: “Water arouses passions because it can be used as a weapon, a political weapon, just as oil is a political weapon.”

And water in Spain has set region against region, north against south and government against opposition.

When the city of Barcelona nearly ran out of water earlier this year, the fountains were switched off and severe restrictions were introduced.

The government of Catalonia pleaded for water to be transferred from rivers like the Ebro – causing a furious row between the regions.

Instead, the city shipped in millions of litres of water from France and accelerated work on the giant desalination plant on the edge of Barcelona, which promises to provide 180,000 cubic metres of water a day.

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Source: BBC News

For more information on water conservation, visit our LEARN section