Thursday, May 5, 2011

Turning water into wine - ooops, sorry, I meant dollars...


Each one of us needs a few litre of water for drinking and cooking. To that we need some 25-50 litres for hygiene and laundry. 3.4 billion people had to do with less than 50 litres per day 1991 and many with much less. I have seen women in Mozambique in the mid 1990s doing their laundry in potholes in the road after a rain. The average American used 350 litres per day and the Australian 570 litres, ironically, as Australia is the driest continent of all (Tansey and Worsley 1995). These figures don’t tell the full truth as countries that import water consuming raw materials are importing ‘embedded’ water from other places. For instance, direct consumption of water in the UK is only half of the quantity that has been used to produce things imported to the UK (BBC 2010). 

At the moment, humans are directly using some 10 percent of all fresh water. Indirect we use almost all of it. We certainly draw benefit from the rainfall on our forests, farms and rangelands. In the Middle East and North Africa 120 percent of all freshwater is used annually. That one can use more than 100 percent is explained by that there is a substantial use of fossil water, water left from earlier epochs, which is not recharged by rain in our times, and that groundwater is depleted quicker than it is re-charged. Agriculture scientists tend to believe that water use by human society, be it for households, industry or farming, of more than forty percent is problematic, while ecologists tend to think that this is already far too much.
The tapping of water from rivers and lakes for irrigation and for city and industrial use was doubled between 1960 and 2000. Seventy percent of all water use is for farming. The irrigated area has increased from 210 million hectares to 277 million hectares between 1979 and 2003 (MEA 2005). The drawing of water leads to rapidly falling ground water tables, in great parts of China and India with 1-3 meters per year (FAO 2003). In Australia, the situation is precarious and the government’s program Water for the Future allocates some AUD12.9 billion to secure water resources for all Australians, but also for the environment. Just in the Murray-Darling basin, AUD3.2 billion will be used to buy back water rights from farmers so that the water can be used for other purposes, mainly to maintain fragile and threatened ecosystems (Australian Government 2008).  

The word “rival” comes from Latin rivalis, meaning a person sharing the same water. Thirty-nine countries are currently getting most of its water from sources outside their territory (UNEP 2009). In many cases there are tensions between countries that share the same resources, and conflicts over water are likely to increase.  

Table countries with high dependency on water from outside
Region
Countries getting 50 %-
75 % of its water from outside
Countries getting more than 75 % of its water from the outside
Middle East and North Africa
Iraq, Israel, Syria
Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait
East Asia and the Pacific
Kampuchea, Vietnam

Latin America and the Caribbean
Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay

South Asia

Bangladesh, Pakistan
Africa south of Sahara
Benin, Chad, Congo, Eritrea, Gambia, Mozambique, Namibia, Somalia, Sudan
Botswana, Mauritanian, Niger
Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Azerbaijan, Croatia, Latvia Slovak republic, Ukraine Uzbekistan
Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkmenistan
The OECD countries
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Source: UNEP 2009

Irrigation plays a big role for our food production. There is probably no single investment in farming that so clearly ‘pays off’ both economically and in increased productivity. In the end of 1990s, irrigated area represented a fifth of all agriculture area, but produced around two fifth of all crops and almost three fifths of all grain. FAO estimates that there is 402 million hectares of land in developing countries which could be irrigated of which only half of it is irrigated today. In Africa south of Sahara, only four percent of the farmland is irrigated and the area has only increased with four percent the last forty years (World Bank 2007). Approximately, two thirds of all rivers in the world are used for irrigation or hydro-electricity; in the USA, only 2 percent of the rivers flow freely. Great rivers like the Colorado, the Nile and the Ganges have almost no water left when the reach the sea. Great lakes such as Lake Chad and the Aral Sea have shrunk tremendously. In the case of the Aral Sea, this affected both the fisheries and the whole climate around the lake with sand storms and disease following (Vitousek 1997). There are several limitations to the expansion of irrigation, however, one is simply access to water; the other one is the loss of biodiversity from the land that can be irrigated, which today mostly are swamps or other wetlands. If wetlands are drained they will normally also be converted from carbon sinks to carbon emitters. In areas of high evaporation, salinization can be an additional problem. So there are reasons to believe that irrigation will not expand as much as theoretically possible. There are also many opportunities to improve water stewardship in existing irrigation schemes or to introduce small-scale technologies such as rainwater harvesting[1] in farming systems.

Be paid to waste

Pricing of water in most countries represent an actual subsidy of farming over other sectors. In the end of last century, the global water subsidies were estimated to 33 billion dollars, a fact that certainly reduces the incentive of farmers to save water (Worldwatch Institute 2000). Only the Netherlands and Austria of twelve OECD-countries priced water at any rate that could be called commercial[2]. Household and industries paid between US$0.5 and US$3 per cubic meter while farmers paid a few cents or even fractions of a cent. Now, irrigation water and drinking water are two different qualities of water, but the difference in price doesn’t represent that quality difference. Even in a dry country like Australia, households paid almost hundred times as much for their water than did farmers (OECD 2001).
That water subsidies are neither sustainable for the environment nor for financial reasons is shown again and again. In the 1970s, Saudi Arabia supported massive expansion of grain production based on subsidized irrigation. It was, by and large, very successful. In the 1990s, it became clear that it wasn’t sustainable. In some areas, ground water table dropped 5 meters per year and some farmers were drilling at 1000 meters to reach water. In response to this production of wheat was reduced from 4.5 million tons 1992 to 1.8 million tons 1993 and the production of barley dropped from 2.2 million tons to just 100,000 tons by year 2002. In 2002 the ministry of agriculture announced that it would cease feed production altogether because of its negative effect on water resources. (USDA 2002). In Santa Fe, New Mexico, the local government recently began requiring home builders to retrofit six existing houses to offset the added water use for each new house built (Ruddiman 2005). Las Vegans are paid to rip out their lawns and opt for (chic) desert landscaping (The Economist 2011a).
While a human need a few litre of water to drink, at least thousand times as much water is used for production of our food (Kijne and others 2009). The water need for foods vary tremendously and they vary for the same product under different conditions. From Australia, the following quantity of water is reported to be needed to produce a kg of a product.
1 kg of wheat, 715-750 litre of water
1 kg of corn, 540-630 litre of water
1 kg soy, 1,650-2,200 litre of water
1 kg rice, 1,550 litre of water
1 kg beef, 50,000-100,000 litre of water
1 kg wool, 170,000 litre of water[3]
(Meyer 1997)
Other figures are reported elsewhere; from the UK, a kg of beef is said to embed 15,000 litres of water (BBC 2010). The fact that a certain food needs a lot of water is as little as with energy an absolute reason to avoid a certain food. Nevertheless, a discussion on embedded water, or virtual water as it is also called, is obviously more and more relevant the more scarce water resources are seen to be. One weakness in water discussions and the concept of embedded water is that it equals all sorts of water. There is ‘blue’ water – water in rivers and lakes; there is ‘green’ water – water in rainfall and in the soil; there is ‘grey’ water – i.e. waste water and there is also fossil water in aquifers. Concentrated water in a lake is a more useful resource than rain[4]. All in all global water supply is strained and locally water is already now a very limiting factor for development. There are many ways to improve water management and the efficiency of water use, ranging from simple solutions such as rainwater harvesting to high-tech recirculation of irrigation water in green houses. To reduce wasteful consumption, subsidies should be abolished and perhaps water use itself should have a price tag.

Turning water into property and money

“The fluid nature of water has always made it difficult to turn into private property” writes Radkau (2008), but then what increasingly are turned into property is water rights. The oil tycoon and investor T Boone Pickens has bought up water rights of the Ogallala aquifer in the USA for some US$100 million and expects to sell water for some US$165 million per year once the thirst of Dallas is big enough (Bloomberg 2008). Not surprisingly, this has triggered public outrage, regulatory responses and lawsuits. Parallel to private encroachment on water rights. Maintaining the water catchment areas is rapidly turned into a commodity by means of "watershed service payments". In 2008 there were some 300 schemes with payments of a total of  US$ 10 billion (Ecosystem Market Place 2010). 
(Extract from Garden Earth).  

In additon, the waterworks have increasingly been privatized last decades
Currently there is a rush to privatize water services around the world. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are pushing for the privatization of water services by European and U.S.-based companies. They are pushing privatization through stipulations in trade agreements and loan conditions to developing countries. These privatization programs started in the early 1990’s and have since emerged in India, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Nigeria, Mexico, Malaysia, Australia, and the Philippines, to name a few. In Chile, the World Bank imposed a loan condition to guarantee a 33 percent profit margin to the French company Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux while the company insisted on a margin of 35 percent.
writes Water is life, which also have a lot of useful resources about water.  A complication in the discussion is that public utilities in many developing countries have grossly mismanaged their task and failed to deliver, similar as many of the public telecom and elecrticity utilities:

The truth is that many of the world’s poorest people are, perversely, already paying three to 10 times the global average price for water, due to the failure of public utilities to provide any access at all, says Caroline Boin, a director at London think tank the International Policy Network. In Kibera, a sprawling Nairobi slum—the biggest in Africa—the only way to get water is through a network of porters that provide water to 500,000 people a day, hauling it in canisters on their backs or by donkey. By some estimates, more than half the population of cities in the developing world get their water this way.
writes McLeans Canada
 
Another aspect is that water pricing, or lack of pricing has not promoted a sustainable use, and lack of pricing also means that faucets can stand running for day. I have often been struck by this phenomenon. In Sweden which is blessed with water resources (and where the public sector runs the utilities) you very rarely hear the constantly dripping faucet or the noise from a constantly flowing WC. But in many poor countries that is a very common situation. Water is a badly managed commons. I don't think privatisation is the cure, and I don't think we should cling to corrupt utilities. Where the public sector isn't doing its job properly, I think the local communities can take care of it instead. They will most likely also ensure better and wiser use. But, in addition, we need to set some kind of "price" on water itself to encourage responsible use.

some eartlier posts: Why Free is the wrong price for water


[1]       Rainwater harvesting is the collection of rainwater to provide drinking water, water for livestock or water for irrigation.
[2]       Which still in this case only means that the costs for extraction and distribution is recovered, not that a price has been allocated to water itself.
[3]       Notably the figures for meat and wool also include water that is falling as rain on the grazing areas and the feed producing areas for the animals. Most of the grazing areas are far too dry to be used for any farming.
[4]       A bit similar like discussions about energy where one can’t equal heat energy with electricity.

3 comments:

  1. Water,Water everywhere,but not a drop to drink. [after Coleridge]
    July, 2010.
    UN General Assembly declares access to clean water and sanitation is a human right.
    Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, the General Assembly declared today, voicing deep concern that an estimated 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water and a total of more than 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. Studies also indicate about 1.5 million children under the age of five die each year and 443 million school days are lost because of water- and sanitation-related diseases. Water covers about two-thirds of the Earth's surface. Most is too salty for use.2.5% of the world's water is not salty, and Two-thirds of that is locked up in the icecaps and glaciers. Of what is left, about 20% is in remote areas, and much of the rest arrives at the wrong time and place, as monsoons and floods.;Humans have available less than 0.08 of all the Earth's water. We use about 70% of this water in agriculture. One person in six across the world has no access to safe drinking water . One in two lacks safe sanitation. Adequate, safe water is key to good health and a proper diet. It is important that access to clean water and sanitation is declared a human right.
    The declaration enables the UN General Assembly to apply pressure to member countries to provide safe water and sanitation for all their citizens.
    The declaration is not concerned with the fact that global water supplies are not secure. The UN Declaration is made, and welcomed, despite a continuing fresh water crisis due to [a] the rise in global population: {at the moment estimated to be 6.87 billion, and projected to be 9 billion by 2050}; [b] the desire for better living standards, as countries like Brazil, China, India, Russia increase their GDP; [c] the inefficiency of the way we use much of the available water e.g. irrigation wastes water on a prodigal scale, with the water trickling away or simply evaporating before it can do any good; Pollution makes more of this water unfit for use; Increasingly, governments are seeking subterranean supplies of groundwater; [d] about 80% of the world's population live in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure.
    Businesses/Investors concerned by water use[ref: BBC Environment Watch]
    Future water shortages are a growing concern for business, according to a global survey published today, November 13. The research was organised by the Carbon Disclosure Project, which does research on behalf of 137 institutional investors representing US$16 trillion of holdings. Sectors reporting the greatest exposure to water risks include food, drinks, tobacco and metals mining. And today's report from consultants ERM was requested by institutional investors who want to know how much risk their investments face from water problems. The research shows that more than half of the 147 firms responding expect problems with water in the next 1-5 years. Some 60% of firms have already set performance targets on the way they use water. It shows that 39% of the firms are already suffering from water related issues - including disruption from drought or flooding, declining water quality, and increases in water prices. The report predicts that the issues will get much worse as the world demand for water is projected to soar over the next few decades.
    The UK's chief scientist John Beddington has warned that water scarcity will form part of a perfect storm of environmental problems. The challenge lies in managing what we have among competing users, whether they are firms, communities or natural systems.
    This comment was sent to me by Kelvyn Richards,
    http://www.kelvynrichards.com/ it is continued below (comment size limits)

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  2. Jacqueline McGlade, director of the European Environment Agency, welcomed the disclosure initiative. Climate change is altering global water availability, meaning greater scarcity in some regions and more flooding in others. We must adapt our infrastructure and our consumption, she said.

    A new report issued by the City University of New York, CUNY, October 2010, identifies water threats. .The threats may occur in nature as a result of too little/ too much water and too many people with excessive demands {as in conditions of monsoons, floods, tornadoes, drought.} The threats can arise from managed human intervention involving trillions of dollars, in response to pollution, dams and reservoirs, canals and aqueducts, water pipes, [the concrete and steel solutions], water overuse, agricultural runoff, loss of wetlands and introduction of invasive species: all of which may control water supplies, but they damage biodiversity as well. The CUNY report shows that up to 3.4 billion people are subject to the most severe water threats in developed and developing nations around the world, including much of the United States, virtually all of Europe and large portions of Central Asia, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and eastern China. The report suggests that the costs of managing the water infrastructure in the G20 countries will be up to $800 billion a year : a cost likely to go unmet! and totally beyond the resources of most of the world. In the CUNY report, it said, that in the industrialized world, we tend to compromise our surface waters and then try to fix problems by throwing trillions of dollars at the issues. We can afford to do that in rich countries, but poor countries can’t afford to do it.
    We have to confront the facts that with a global population of 6.87 billion, there is not enough safe water to go round; up to a billion people today have no access to safe water. The more we try to manage the supplies, the more we disrupt biodiversity and destroy the environment. For example, reservoirs convey few negative effects on human water supply but they significantly challenge aquatic biodiversity by impeding migration routes and changing water flow regimes. We can no longer look at human water security and biodiversity threats independently, said the CUNY Environmental Crossroads Initiative. We need to link the two. It goes without saying that to link the two makes the management of water supplies more difficult .The more we try to conserve water by concrete and steel solutions, the more animals and fish and birds we disrupt. We have to deal with a number of dilemmas: 1. there is an abundance of water on earth, but a shortage of safe fresh water; 2. fresh water is used to grow foods, and wasted by irrigation and chemical pollution; 3. rich, industrial countries manage supplies of water and disrupt aquatic biodiversity;4. ;concrete and steel solutions solve the water insecurity of the rich countries, but are too expensive for the poor; 5.some people consume 400 litres a day while 1 billion poor have no access to safe water; 6.at 2010, we are at a tipping point, there is not enough safe water for 6.87 billion people, and there will not be enough for 7/8/9 billion! In 2010 the CUNY report indicates that 3.4 billion people suffer water insecurity.

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  3. The implications of the UN/Water Aid/CUNY/Earth Watch evidence is that if we attempted to achieve the UN declaration of access to safe water and sanitation, water security for all 6.87 billion by 2011, we would be confronted by a catastrophic water crisis. In fact such water security is impossible in the short term.
    Are there any ways to secure access to safe water and sanitation for all? And protect biodiversity? One way, and the most controversial, is to control demand, growth in population - a no child or one child strategy, as pursued by the Chinese; or specific family planning education, to avoid couples generating 6+ children in a drought zone where all of them will suffer a short disease ridden life
    Another way is to conserve the sources of fresh water and reduce wastage to a minimum. Other ways would ensure that dams and reservoirs are built to protect the migration patterns of fish, birds, and animals; and the viability of poorer communities
    Of course, greater funding could be made available for research into making sea water potable at a low cost.
    [with acknowledgements to the UN Newsletters July, September 2010; WaterAid; the CUNY report ; Richard Black [ Earth Watch.]
    The implications of the UN/Water Aid/CUNY/Earth Watch evidence is that if we attempted to achieve the UN declaration of access to safe water and sanitation, water security for all 6.87 billion by 2011, we would be confronted by a catastrophic water crisis. In fact such water security is impossible in the short term.
    Are there any ways to secure access to safe water and sanitation for all? And protect biodiversity? One way, and the most controversial, is to control demand, growth in population - a no child or one child strategy, as pursued by the Chinese; or specific family planning education, to avoid couples generating 6+ children in a drought zone where all of them will suffer a short disease ridden life
    Another way is to conserve the sources of fresh water and reduce wastage to a minimum. Other ways would ensure that dams and reservoirs are built to protect the migration patterns of fish, birds, and animals; and the viability of poorer communities
    Of course, greater funding could be made available for research into making sea water potable at a low cost.
    [with acknowledgements to the UN Newsletters July, September 2010; WaterAid; the CUNY report ; Richard Black [ Earth Watch.]
    http://www.kelvynrichards.com/

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