Political, economic implications of water
Thursday, 23 July 2009
Mahfuz Ullah
Water, the absconding resource in motion always played an important role in the life cycle of human beings. Frightened by its destructive power, Leonardo da Vinci, who conducted studies on motion of water called it, 'the vehicle of nature'.
Nevertheless, history is replete with examples of the influence of water on the growth of civilisation. Nearly all the great civilisations flourished around water. The Roman, Egyptian and the Umayyad civilisations could develop, and expand because of easy access to water. However, forecasts for the future suggest that water would become more valuable and contentious for human survival and progress in the present century.
The global demand for freshwater, with supply becoming uncertain, is increasing everyday. The struggle for access to water in many areas of the world aptly portrayed by the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace.
Today, more than a billion people do not have enough access to safe water. Half of the countries worldwide, as the United Nations projects, by 2025 would face water shortages or anxiety. By 2050, water scarcity could affect as many as three out of four people around the globe. There are some more alarming scenarios:
l Between 1900 and 1995 the global water consumption rose six times - more than double the rate of population growth - and goes on growing as farming, industry and domestic demand increase.
l Every individual needs a minimum of 50 litres of water a day for drinking, washing, cooking and sanitation, according to UN estimates. In 1990, over a billion people did not have even that. In 1995, about 166 million people lived in 18 countries where the average supply of fresh water was less than 1,000 cubic meters a year-the amount considered necessary to satisfy basic needs for food, drinking water, and hygiene.
l Major rivers, the Colorado in the United States, the Amu Darya in Central Asia, and the Yellow in China run dry for a part of the year for lack of water. The Yellow River, the northernmost of China's two major rivers, first ran dry for a few weeks in 1972. Since 1985, it has been failing to make to the Yellow Sea for part of almost every year. The flow of the Indus River, known as Pakistan's lifeline, is sometimes reduced to a trickle when it enters the Arabian Sea. So is the case with the Padma in Bangladesh. The Colorado River, now rarely makes it to the sea. The Amu Darya-one of the two rivers feeding the Aral Sea-now is dry for part of each year. There is a risk that the Aral could one day disappear entirely, to exist only on old maps.
l In Central Africa, Lake Chad has shrunk by some 95 per cent over the last four decades. Reduced rainfall, higher temperatures, and some diversion of water from the streams that feed Lake Chad for irrigation are contributing to its demise. In China, almost 1,000 lakes have disappeared in Hebei province alone.
l One litre of ethanol, the new brand of fuel, is produced from an amount of corn which is variously estimated to consume 1500-4000 litres of water.
l One kilogram of grain-fed beef needs at least 15 cubic metres of water, while a kilo of cereals needs only up to three cubic metres.
l It takes about 2000 cubic metres of water to produce a ton of rice in sub-tropical regions of Asia.
Water security, of late, has become a matter of great concern requiring sustainable and adequate access to water of acceptable quality for human and environmental uses. Sufficient good quality water is needed for social, economic and cultural uses as well as to sustain and enhance important ecosystem functions.
But whose security? Is it all the nations who share a common river or a state controlling its course from the upstream? History speaks of conflicts between nations over river water disputes.
The linkage between water and security needs no explanation. If people do not have water they have nothing. Ecosystems die when there is no water. If countries lack the water to grow crops, they can take extreme or destructive measures to secure it.
Water is becoming more significant and influential resource today when geopolitics of oil is at the centre stage of world politics. Water can be used as a channel for biological and chemical agents, and water delivery and hydropower infrastructures can be targeted during armed conflict. The Taliban recently threatened to blow up Warsak Dam in Pakistan, which would leave a catastrophic impact on the city of Peshawar.
When water conflicts emerge between sovereign states, sharing a basin, the people and the water course suffer devastating consequences in the absence of understanding between them. But real battles over water may yet be looming in the future unless actions are taken to prevent conflicts over sharing the great rivers, the Nile, the Congo, the Volga, the Ganges, the Indus, the Amazon and 260 other international rivers.
There is no denying that water resources, and the ecosystems sustained by them, are under threat from pollution, unsustainable use, land-use changes, climate change and other factors. The link between these threats and poverty is clear, for it is the poor who are hit first and the hardest. To achieve water security the world faces the challenges of meeting basic needs, securing food supply, protecting ecosystems, sharing water resources, tacking risks and wise water management.
The problem of water security cannot be addressed by traditional concept of national defence. The new approach, which views water scarcity and quality issues through a predominantly environmental lens, is not sufficient either. The U.S. National Intelligence Council in November 2008 highlighted Asian water scarcity in its Global Trends 2025 report and observed: "With water becoming more scarce in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to become more difficult within and between states."
Today, water-related problems are most critical in Asia. The continent, home to more than half of the world's population, has less freshwater-3,920 cubic meters per person per year-than any continent other than Antarctica. Almost two-thirds of global population growth is taking place in Asia, where the population is expected to increase by nearly 500 million in the next 10 years. With its fast population growth and rapid urbanisation, pressure on Asia's water resources is intensifying. Climate change is expected to worsen the situation significantly. This change, which threatens economic growth, availability of fresh water, energy security and even the very existence of nations, raised new questions what should be the response for national security.
The emerging situation, therefore, would require new response to safeguard, in a more holistic way, national security and meet development challenges that countries and communities would face with water becoming more scarce. However, despite the international expectation for an integrative approach to water resources, the establishment of international water dispute mechanisms has been slow. The UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses adopted in 1997, has failed to muster the 35 votes required for it to take effect.
Ecosystems transcend political borders and water is the lifeline for all biological systems. Reduced access to freshwater would cause loss of food production, threaten livelihood security, prompt large-scale migration within and across borders, increase economic and geopolitical tensions and instabilities and other negative consequences. History shows that in all ages people broke barriers in their struggle for survival. Unilateral water and river basin management can lead to disasters, destruction of biodiversity, devastating floods and the nightmare of drought.
Water, especially trans-boundary water, is a political issue, and unilateral diversion and contamination of trans-boundary waters would cause regional tensions and potential conflicts which damage all areas of development and hamper co-operation on other matters of security. Any attempt to contain trans-boundary water within political geographies is bound to have serious negative consequences on its natural system. Now that states have the capacity to abstract or divert the waters of a trans-boundary river or aquifer, it is more essential than ever that they respect the ecological needs of the basin; otherwise, the result would be environmental and social disaster, and even conflict.
Nepal and Bhutan should be able to leverage their disproportionately large water resources against the hegemonic influence of their larger neighbour, India. But the reality is different. India, to meet its demand of water, uses its political weight to withdraw water from a number of South Asian rivers, which originate in the two Himalayan states, also to the detriment of other coriparians, Bangladesh and Pakistan. China plans to control the Brahmaputra, at its origin, prompting a new concern regarding the riparian distribution of the waters of this mighty river, which also passes through India and Bangladesh. The waters of the Tibetan plateau are precisely the contentious resource over which zero-sum conflicts can create fresh irritants in international relations.
The Chinese Ministry of Water Resources published a book in 2005 entitled Tibet's Water Will Save China, which highlight the strategic importance of Tibet. It explains China's South-North Water Transfer Projects -- an ambitious plan to build dams, canals, and waterways that would bring the Himalayan water to the Chinese cities. It could affect China's relations with India and Bangladesh, as the Chinese project envisages no cooperative regime to address riparian distribution of the waters Brahmaputra.
There are also examples of cooperation. The Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan shows how riparian co-operation among adversaries can be facilitated by international agencies such as the World Bank. But India has moved away from that path for its other neighbours. The water sharing problem between Bangladesh and India remains as it was in 1972. Despite the 30-year treaty, signed in December 2006, for sharing of the Ganges-Padma water, Bangladesh has been continuously deprived of the agreed shares.
Water naturally flows disregarding political boundaries. Conflicts resulting between political units due to obstructions to water courses are referred to as trans-boundary water issues. The construction of dam, on the upstream of a trans-boundary river would affect its flows to the lower riparian state. It is bound to act as an irritant. This is the situation going to be created by the proposed Tipaimukh Dam of India.
Today, dam-building is globally controversial. Several large dam projects have engendered conflict with peoples over the best issues of better ways to provide water supplies, protect the environment, and the rights of relocated groups to their homes. These conflicts have also attracted the attention of the environmental and human rights groups. Such conflicts over dam-building are currently brewing within India, Turkey and China. All the three countries have problems with their neighbours.
In the case of Tipaimukh Dam, India should understand that the conflict is between the goals of water supply and hydropower versus the goals of livelihood security, social and environmental preservation. A failure to resolve conflicting goals could prove disastrous for the lower riparian Bangladesh. Probably, an attitude of refusal to accommodate the co-riparian interests prompted the Indian High Commissioner to go out of the way in defending Indian interest and making uncalled for remarks about Bangladeshi experts crossing the limits of diplomatic niceties. The same factor prompted him to say no international law can obstruct India from building the dam. The people of Bangladesh have a natural right to be concerned about a dam that would adversely affect them. If India builds a barrage on the same Barak river at Fulertal, it would only make things worse for Bangladesh.
Disputes over sharing water between the provinces of India are a reality. How can one, in that case, brush aside conflicts between neighbours on the sensitive water issue. The factors contributing to the dispute include the conflicting goals and India's refused to share Tipaimukh information and data. Water disputes could provide future sources of conflicts in Middle East, the subcontinent, and the states that broke out from the former Soviet Union.
But cooperation over trans-boundary water could resolve the disputes to create effective interdependence: a pooling rather than restricting the sovereignty of each riparian nation to share the benefits of the river can enhance regional security. Basin wide cooperation entails opportunities for all by providing the best chance for the protection of international watercourses for the common benefit of future generations.
Resolving conflict requires compromise. And compromise involves a willingness to accept the validity of another party to hold a different perspective, an attempt to understand other perspectives and a search for solutions that will accommodate diverse interests.
Solutions, not difficult to work out, requires honest political will at the highest level, without any desire for hegemony. When this does not happen, people get apprehensive of water conflicts. It can destroy the potential of water for peace. Clearly a matter of national and social security, human rights, economies, gender, culture and environment, it calls for a change in the way of handling the water issue. Water politics is likely to be a serious issue in Asian security, especially in the sub continent in the coming days.
(The writer, a regional councillor of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), heads a think tank called Centre for Sustainable Development (CFSD), based in Dhaka. The opinions expressed in this paper are of his own and doesn't necessarily represent the position of IUCN. The writer would like to express gratitude for the intellectual input acquired from different writers and UN in the process of preparing the article. He can be reached at home@bol-online.com)
Water, the absconding resource in motion always played an important role in the life cycle of human beings. Frightened by its destructive power, Leonardo da Vinci, who conducted studies on motion of water called it, 'the vehicle of nature'.
Nevertheless, history is replete with examples of the influence of water on the growth of civilisation. Nearly all the great civilisations flourished around water. The Roman, Egyptian and the Umayyad civilisations could develop, and expand because of easy access to water. However, forecasts for the future suggest that water would become more valuable and contentious for human survival and progress in the present century.
The global demand for freshwater, with supply becoming uncertain, is increasing everyday. The struggle for access to water in many areas of the world aptly portrayed by the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace.
Today, more than a billion people do not have enough access to safe water. Half of the countries worldwide, as the United Nations projects, by 2025 would face water shortages or anxiety. By 2050, water scarcity could affect as many as three out of four people around the globe. There are some more alarming scenarios:
l Between 1900 and 1995 the global water consumption rose six times - more than double the rate of population growth - and goes on growing as farming, industry and domestic demand increase.
l Every individual needs a minimum of 50 litres of water a day for drinking, washing, cooking and sanitation, according to UN estimates. In 1990, over a billion people did not have even that. In 1995, about 166 million people lived in 18 countries where the average supply of fresh water was less than 1,000 cubic meters a year-the amount considered necessary to satisfy basic needs for food, drinking water, and hygiene.
l Major rivers, the Colorado in the United States, the Amu Darya in Central Asia, and the Yellow in China run dry for a part of the year for lack of water. The Yellow River, the northernmost of China's two major rivers, first ran dry for a few weeks in 1972. Since 1985, it has been failing to make to the Yellow Sea for part of almost every year. The flow of the Indus River, known as Pakistan's lifeline, is sometimes reduced to a trickle when it enters the Arabian Sea. So is the case with the Padma in Bangladesh. The Colorado River, now rarely makes it to the sea. The Amu Darya-one of the two rivers feeding the Aral Sea-now is dry for part of each year. There is a risk that the Aral could one day disappear entirely, to exist only on old maps.
l In Central Africa, Lake Chad has shrunk by some 95 per cent over the last four decades. Reduced rainfall, higher temperatures, and some diversion of water from the streams that feed Lake Chad for irrigation are contributing to its demise. In China, almost 1,000 lakes have disappeared in Hebei province alone.
l One litre of ethanol, the new brand of fuel, is produced from an amount of corn which is variously estimated to consume 1500-4000 litres of water.
l One kilogram of grain-fed beef needs at least 15 cubic metres of water, while a kilo of cereals needs only up to three cubic metres.
l It takes about 2000 cubic metres of water to produce a ton of rice in sub-tropical regions of Asia.
Water security, of late, has become a matter of great concern requiring sustainable and adequate access to water of acceptable quality for human and environmental uses. Sufficient good quality water is needed for social, economic and cultural uses as well as to sustain and enhance important ecosystem functions.
But whose security? Is it all the nations who share a common river or a state controlling its course from the upstream? History speaks of conflicts between nations over river water disputes.
The linkage between water and security needs no explanation. If people do not have water they have nothing. Ecosystems die when there is no water. If countries lack the water to grow crops, they can take extreme or destructive measures to secure it.
Water is becoming more significant and influential resource today when geopolitics of oil is at the centre stage of world politics. Water can be used as a channel for biological and chemical agents, and water delivery and hydropower infrastructures can be targeted during armed conflict. The Taliban recently threatened to blow up Warsak Dam in Pakistan, which would leave a catastrophic impact on the city of Peshawar.
When water conflicts emerge between sovereign states, sharing a basin, the people and the water course suffer devastating consequences in the absence of understanding between them. But real battles over water may yet be looming in the future unless actions are taken to prevent conflicts over sharing the great rivers, the Nile, the Congo, the Volga, the Ganges, the Indus, the Amazon and 260 other international rivers.
There is no denying that water resources, and the ecosystems sustained by them, are under threat from pollution, unsustainable use, land-use changes, climate change and other factors. The link between these threats and poverty is clear, for it is the poor who are hit first and the hardest. To achieve water security the world faces the challenges of meeting basic needs, securing food supply, protecting ecosystems, sharing water resources, tacking risks and wise water management.
The problem of water security cannot be addressed by traditional concept of national defence. The new approach, which views water scarcity and quality issues through a predominantly environmental lens, is not sufficient either. The U.S. National Intelligence Council in November 2008 highlighted Asian water scarcity in its Global Trends 2025 report and observed: "With water becoming more scarce in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to become more difficult within and between states."
Today, water-related problems are most critical in Asia. The continent, home to more than half of the world's population, has less freshwater-3,920 cubic meters per person per year-than any continent other than Antarctica. Almost two-thirds of global population growth is taking place in Asia, where the population is expected to increase by nearly 500 million in the next 10 years. With its fast population growth and rapid urbanisation, pressure on Asia's water resources is intensifying. Climate change is expected to worsen the situation significantly. This change, which threatens economic growth, availability of fresh water, energy security and even the very existence of nations, raised new questions what should be the response for national security.
The emerging situation, therefore, would require new response to safeguard, in a more holistic way, national security and meet development challenges that countries and communities would face with water becoming more scarce. However, despite the international expectation for an integrative approach to water resources, the establishment of international water dispute mechanisms has been slow. The UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses adopted in 1997, has failed to muster the 35 votes required for it to take effect.
Ecosystems transcend political borders and water is the lifeline for all biological systems. Reduced access to freshwater would cause loss of food production, threaten livelihood security, prompt large-scale migration within and across borders, increase economic and geopolitical tensions and instabilities and other negative consequences. History shows that in all ages people broke barriers in their struggle for survival. Unilateral water and river basin management can lead to disasters, destruction of biodiversity, devastating floods and the nightmare of drought.
Water, especially trans-boundary water, is a political issue, and unilateral diversion and contamination of trans-boundary waters would cause regional tensions and potential conflicts which damage all areas of development and hamper co-operation on other matters of security. Any attempt to contain trans-boundary water within political geographies is bound to have serious negative consequences on its natural system. Now that states have the capacity to abstract or divert the waters of a trans-boundary river or aquifer, it is more essential than ever that they respect the ecological needs of the basin; otherwise, the result would be environmental and social disaster, and even conflict.
Nepal and Bhutan should be able to leverage their disproportionately large water resources against the hegemonic influence of their larger neighbour, India. But the reality is different. India, to meet its demand of water, uses its political weight to withdraw water from a number of South Asian rivers, which originate in the two Himalayan states, also to the detriment of other coriparians, Bangladesh and Pakistan. China plans to control the Brahmaputra, at its origin, prompting a new concern regarding the riparian distribution of the waters of this mighty river, which also passes through India and Bangladesh. The waters of the Tibetan plateau are precisely the contentious resource over which zero-sum conflicts can create fresh irritants in international relations.
The Chinese Ministry of Water Resources published a book in 2005 entitled Tibet's Water Will Save China, which highlight the strategic importance of Tibet. It explains China's South-North Water Transfer Projects -- an ambitious plan to build dams, canals, and waterways that would bring the Himalayan water to the Chinese cities. It could affect China's relations with India and Bangladesh, as the Chinese project envisages no cooperative regime to address riparian distribution of the waters Brahmaputra.
There are also examples of cooperation. The Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan shows how riparian co-operation among adversaries can be facilitated by international agencies such as the World Bank. But India has moved away from that path for its other neighbours. The water sharing problem between Bangladesh and India remains as it was in 1972. Despite the 30-year treaty, signed in December 2006, for sharing of the Ganges-Padma water, Bangladesh has been continuously deprived of the agreed shares.
Water naturally flows disregarding political boundaries. Conflicts resulting between political units due to obstructions to water courses are referred to as trans-boundary water issues. The construction of dam, on the upstream of a trans-boundary river would affect its flows to the lower riparian state. It is bound to act as an irritant. This is the situation going to be created by the proposed Tipaimukh Dam of India.
Today, dam-building is globally controversial. Several large dam projects have engendered conflict with peoples over the best issues of better ways to provide water supplies, protect the environment, and the rights of relocated groups to their homes. These conflicts have also attracted the attention of the environmental and human rights groups. Such conflicts over dam-building are currently brewing within India, Turkey and China. All the three countries have problems with their neighbours.
In the case of Tipaimukh Dam, India should understand that the conflict is between the goals of water supply and hydropower versus the goals of livelihood security, social and environmental preservation. A failure to resolve conflicting goals could prove disastrous for the lower riparian Bangladesh. Probably, an attitude of refusal to accommodate the co-riparian interests prompted the Indian High Commissioner to go out of the way in defending Indian interest and making uncalled for remarks about Bangladeshi experts crossing the limits of diplomatic niceties. The same factor prompted him to say no international law can obstruct India from building the dam. The people of Bangladesh have a natural right to be concerned about a dam that would adversely affect them. If India builds a barrage on the same Barak river at Fulertal, it would only make things worse for Bangladesh.
Disputes over sharing water between the provinces of India are a reality. How can one, in that case, brush aside conflicts between neighbours on the sensitive water issue. The factors contributing to the dispute include the conflicting goals and India's refused to share Tipaimukh information and data. Water disputes could provide future sources of conflicts in Middle East, the subcontinent, and the states that broke out from the former Soviet Union.
But cooperation over trans-boundary water could resolve the disputes to create effective interdependence: a pooling rather than restricting the sovereignty of each riparian nation to share the benefits of the river can enhance regional security. Basin wide cooperation entails opportunities for all by providing the best chance for the protection of international watercourses for the common benefit of future generations.
Resolving conflict requires compromise. And compromise involves a willingness to accept the validity of another party to hold a different perspective, an attempt to understand other perspectives and a search for solutions that will accommodate diverse interests.
Solutions, not difficult to work out, requires honest political will at the highest level, without any desire for hegemony. When this does not happen, people get apprehensive of water conflicts. It can destroy the potential of water for peace. Clearly a matter of national and social security, human rights, economies, gender, culture and environment, it calls for a change in the way of handling the water issue. Water politics is likely to be a serious issue in Asian security, especially in the sub continent in the coming days.
(The writer, a regional councillor of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), heads a think tank called Centre for Sustainable Development (CFSD), based in Dhaka. The opinions expressed in this paper are of his own and doesn't necessarily represent the position of IUCN. The writer would like to express gratitude for the intellectual input acquired from different writers and UN in the process of preparing the article. He can be reached at home@bol-online.com)