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Interbasin Water Transfers and Water Scarcity in a Changing World - a Solution Or a Pipedream?

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Interbasin Water Transfers and Water Scarcity in a Changing World - a Solution Or a Pipedream? Interbasin water transfers and water scarcity in a changing world - a solution or a pipedream? - A discussion paper for a burning issue - Published by: WWF Germany, August 2009 Authors: Jamie Pittock, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Jian-hua Meng, WWF Dams Initiative, Martin Geiger, WWF Germany, Ashok K.Chapagain, WWF UK Case Study Contributions: Samuel Barrêto, Cate Brown, Nuria Hernández-Mora, Tiejun Liu, Jose Luis Mena, Willemijn Nagel, Maria Soledad Gallego, Aldo Soto, João Suassuna, Evangelos Terzis First edition 2007. Editors: W. Nagel, P. Schelle and U. Collier. Second edition August 2009. Editor: J. Pittock, J. Meng, M. Geiger. A. K. Chapagain. This paper includes contributions from many WWF staff and consultants. Layout: astrid ernst, Text- und Webdesign, www.ernst-webdesign.de This document is a work in progress which will be further peer-reviewed and refined before final publication. Feed back would be greatly appreciated and can be submitted to [email protected] © 2009 WWF Germany, Frankfurt am Main. Any reproduction in full or in part of this publication must mention the title and credit the above mentioned publisher as the copyright owner. Cover photo: Acheloos River Narrows © WWF Content Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 4 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 6 2 Interbasin water transfers – the context ............................................................................................ 7 2.1 The escalating demands for water ............................................................................................ 7 2.2 Impacts on freshwater ecosystems ........................................................................................... 7 2.3 Water Footprint and interbasin water transfers ........................................................................ 8 3 What can we learn from existing interbasin water transfer schemes .............................................. 10 Case study 1: Tagus-Segura Transfer, Spain ................................................................................ 10 Case study 2: Snowy River Scheme, Australia ............................................................................ 14 Case study 3: Lesotho Highland Water Project, Lesotho and South Africa ................................. 17 Conclusions and lessons learnt ...................................................................................................... 21 4 “In the pipeline” – interbasin water transfers in the future ............................................................. 23 Case study 4: The Acheloos Diversion, Greece ........................................................................... 23 Case study 5: Sao Francisco Interlinking Project, Brazil ............................................................. 26 Case study 6: Olmos Transfer Project, Peru ................................................................................. 29 Case study 7: The South-North Transfer, People’s Republic of China ........................................ 32 Conclusions and lessons learnt ...................................................................................................... 36 5 Climate change ................................................................................................................................ 37 6 Alternatives to Interbasin Water Transfers ...................................................................................... 40 6.1 IBTs promoting agricultural production in water poor areas ................................................. 41 6.2 IBTs that fail to examine alternatives ..................................................................................... 41 6.2.1 Reducing water demand ............................................................................................... 42 6.2.2 Recycling waste water .................................................................................................. 44 6.2.3 Virtual water trade ....................................................................................................... 44 6.2.4 Supplementing water supplies locally .......................................................................... 46 6.2.5 Desalination .................................................................................................................. 47 6.2.6 Consider IBTs as a last option ...................................................................................... 48 6.3 Governance failures in river basin planning .......................................................................... 49 7 Assessment of Interbasin Water Transfers ...................................................................................... 54 8 Conclusions and recommendations ................................................................................................. 56 9 References and further reading ....................................................................................................... 58 WWF Germany 3 Summary The world is increasingly forced to face the challenge natural flow regimes, sometimes with great ecological of how to ensure access to adequate water resources cost to threatened aquatic species or protected areas, for expanding populations and economies, whilst they alter river morphology, and they contribute maintaining healthy freshwater ecosystems and the vital to salinization, and can also enable the transfer of services they provide. Now the growing impacts of invasive alien species between river basins. IBTs may climate change are exacerbating the problem of water facilitate unwise and unsustainable urban and irrigation scarcity in key regions of the world. One popular way developments. for governments to distribute water more evenly across the landscape is to transfer it from areas with perceived What stands out among the IBT case studies outlined in surpluses, to those with shortages. this report (and elsewhere) is the following: 1. Apart from hydropower generation, a common While there is a long history of water transfers from driver of IBTs is a desire to promote irrigated ancient times, as many societies reach the limits agricultural production in water poor areas. This of locally renewable water supplies increasingly can see unsustainable and subsidized cropping large quantities of water are being moved over long practices promoted by the IBT; distances, from one river basin to another. Since the 2. There is typically a failure to examine alternatives beginning of dam building that marked the last half to the IBT that may mean delaying, deferring or of the 1900s more that 364 large-scale interbasin avoiding the costs (in every sense) of an IBT or water transfer schemes (IBTs) have been established examining options of transferring virtual water that transfer around 400 km³ of water per year rather than real water; and (Shiklomanov 1999). IBTs are now widely touted as the 3. There are a range of governance failures ranging quick fix solution to meeting escalating water demands. from poor to non-existent consultation with affected One estimate suggests that the total number of large- people, to failing to give sufficient consideration to scale water transfer schemes may rise to between 760 the environmental, social and cultural impacts of and 1 240 by 2020 to transfer up to 800 km³ of water the IBT, in both the donor and recipient basins. per year (Shiklomanov 1999). The history of IBTs to date should be sufficient to The wide range of IBT projects in place, or proposed, sound very loud alarm bells for any government has provoked the preparation of this review, including contemplating such a development. Despite the lessons seven case studies from around the globe. It builds from past IBT experiences, many decision makers on previous assessments and examines the costs and today continue to see IBTs as a technical solution to benefits of large scale IBTs. This report assesses restore perceived imbalances in water distribution. related, emerging issues in sustaining water resources and ecosystems, namely the virtual water trade, The development of IBTs usually disturbs the finely expanding use of desalination, and climate change tuned water balance in both the donating and the adaptation. It is based on WWF‘s 2007 publication receiving river basin. Regularly overlooked in IBT „Pipedreams? Interbasin water transfers and water development are the short, medium and longer term shortages“. impacts of moving water from one community (the donor basin) and providing it to another (the recipient The report concludes that while IBTs can potentially basin). solve water supply issues in regions of water shortage – they come with significant costs. Large scale IBTs are As noted above, weak governance is also symptomatic typically very high cost, and thus economically risky, of IBT development, with poor to non-existent and they usually also come with significant social and consultation with affected people commonly being environmental costs; usually for both the river basin witnessed and a lack of consideration at an appropriate providing and the river basin receiving the water. management scale. This failure to look at the impacts of the proposed IBT within a river basin management From an environmental perspective,
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