Looming Water Crisis IS the WORLD RUNNING out of WATER?

FEBRUARY 2008 VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2 PAGES 27-56 WWW.GLOBALRESEARCHER.COM Looming Water Crisis IS THE WORLD RUNNING OUT OF WATER?

n the past decade drought has marched across much of the globe, hitting China, the Mediterranean, south-

east Australia and the U.S. Sun Belt. The amount of water used by humans has tripled since 1950, and irri-

gated cropland has doubled. About one-fifth of the world’s population lacks sufficient water, a figure that

could reach 40 percent by 2025 by some estimates, in part because of growing world economies. In the Ipoorest societies more than a billion people lack access to clean water, and dirty water kills 5,000 children — enough to fill 12 jumbo jets — every day. By century’s end drought is expected to spread across half the Earth’s land surface due to climate change, causing hunger and higher food prices. The United Nations says it would cost an extra $10 billion or more annually to provide clean water and sanitation for all. Some recommend privatizing water supplies, while others suggest that charging more for water to encourage conservation would help to avoid future crises.

Children play in the dried up bed of the Jialing River near the booming city of Chongqing in central China. The country’s worst drought in a half-century prompted Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to warn that the crisis threatens “the survival of the Chinese nation.”

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THE ISSUES Water Consumption Varies 31 Americans use the most. • Are we running out of 29 water? Sanitation and Water Access February 2008 • Should water be priva- 32 Improves Worldwide Volume 2, Number 2 tized? But access is still limited. MANAGING EDITOR: Kathy Koch • Will water scarcity lead [email protected] to conflicts? Irrigation Doubled in 35 Developing Nations CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Thomas J. Colin BACKGROUND But rate of increase is slowing. [email protected] CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Brian Beary, Taming Water 37 Mountain Snowpack Is Peter Behr, Roland Flamini, Sarah Glazer, 38 The 20th century was the Shrinking Samuel Loewenberg, Colin Woodard heyday of dam building. Melting threatens crucial, replenishing water flows. DESIGN/PRODUCTION EDITOR: Olu B. Davis Regulating Water ASSISTANT EDITOR: Darrell Dela Rosa China Leads in Dam 42 Ancient codes established WEB EDITOR: Andrew Boney 38 Building water-sharing rules. It has three times as many dams as the U.S. Misusing Water 43 Dirty water kills nearly Chronology 2 million children a year. 39 Key events since 1848.

Ocean Waters Empowering Women May A Division of 45 Desalination is growing 40 Quench Thirst Congressional Quarterly Inc. but expensive. ‘Should girls be kept home SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER: from school to collect water?’ John A. Jenkins CURRENT SITUATION Water Schemes Range DIRECTOR, LIBRARY PUBLISHING: 44 from Monumental to Zany Alix Buffon Vance Melting Snows Many are controversial. CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY INC. 45 Shrinking snowpack indi- CHAIRMAN: Paul C. Tash cates climate change may 47 At Issue already affect scarcity. Should water be privatized? VICE CHAIRMAN: Andrew P. Corty PRESIDENT/EDITOR IN CHIEF: Robert W. Merry Wasted Water 56 Voices From Abroad 48 Headlines and editorials from Copyright © 2008 CQ Press, a division of A water-conservation ethic around the world. is emerging. Congressional Quarterly Inc. (CQ). CQ re- serves all copyright and other rights herein, FOR FURTHER RESEARCH unless previously specified in writing. No part OUTLOOK of this publication may be reproduced elec- tronically or otherwise, without prior written For More Information permission. Unauthorized reproduction or Thirst and Hunger 53 Organizations to contact. 48 As water demand outstrips transmission of CQ copyrighted material is a supply, both water and Bibliography violation of federal law carrying civil fines of food prices will rise. 54 Selected sources used. up to $100,000. CQ Global Researcher is published monthly 55 The Next Step online in PDF and HTML format by CQ SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS Additional articles. Press, a division of Congressional Quarterly Inc. Annual full-service electronic subscrip- Water Scarcity Projected Citing CQ Global Researcher tions start at $500. For pricing, call 1-800- 55 Sample bibliography formats. 30 for Many Regions 834-9020, ext. 1906. To purchase CQ Glob- China and the U.S. face big al Researcher electronic rights, visit www. changes. cqpress.com or call 866-427-7737.

Cover: AP Photo/Color China Photo

28 CQ Global Researcher Looming Water Crisis BY PETER BEHR

While drought and expanding populations visibly THE ISSUES affect the world’s lakes and s 2007 came to a close, rivers, a less-visible problem the steady drumbeat also threatens water supplies. A of headlines about Accelerated pumping of China’s worst drought in a groundwater for irrigation is half-century affirmed Prime depleting underground Minister Wen Jiabao’s earlier aquifers faster than they can warning that the crisis threat- be refreshed in densely pop- ens “the survival of the Chi- ulated areas of North China, nese nation.” 1 India and Mexico. And land The alarming develop- and water resources there and ments included: beyond are being degraded • The drying up of 133 through erosion, pollution, reservoirs in burgeoning salination, nutrient depletion Guangdong Province, and seawater intrusion, ac- leaving a quarter of a cording to the institute. million people facing A United Nations task force water shortages. 2 on water predicted that by • The lowest levels since 2025, 3 billion people will 1866 on portions of the face “water stress” conditions, Yangtze River, restricting lacking enough water to meet barge and ship traffic and all human and environmen- reducing hydroelectric tal needs. 8 By that time, there output on China’s largest will be 63 major river basins

river, even as pollution AFP/Getty Images/Simon Maina with populations of at least from 9,000 industrial Kenyan children play in raw sewage in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest 10 million, of which 47 are slum. Each year 1.8 million children — 5,000 a day — plants along its course die from waterborne illnesses due to a lack of either already water-stressed, jeopardizes drinking access to sanitation and clean water. will become stressed or will water supplies. 3 experience a significant de- • Near-record low levels in vast many places, particularly in the poor- terioration in water supply, according Lake Poyang, restricting water sup- est nations. But despite an unending to a separate study by the World Re- plies for 100,000 people. 4 series of international water conferences sources Institute incorporating the “My house used to be by the side — attended by thousands of experts U.N. data. 9 (See map, p. 30.) * of the lake,” villager Yu Wenchang told — no consensus has emerged on how As water depletion accelerates, the Xinhua News Agency. “Now I have to make adequate clean water available drought is undermining nature’s ca- to go over a dozen kilometers away to all people in affordable, environ- pacity to replenish this essential re- to get to the lake water.” 5 mentally sustainable ways. 6 source, punishing the planet’s mid- Similar woes are being reported across A fifth of the world’s population — section — from eastern Australia and the globe, as one of the worst decades 1.2 billion people — live in areas ex- northern China through the Middle of drought on record afflicts rich and periencing “physical water scarcity,” or East and sub-Saharan Africa to the poor nations alike. While scientists hedge insufficient supplies for everyone’s de- U.S. Sun Belt, the Great Plains and their conclusions about whether long- mands, according to a 2006 study by northern Mexico. term climate change is causing the dry the International Water Management spell, many warn that Earth’s gradual Institute that draws on the work of * “Water stress” occurs when less than 1,700 warming trend unquestionably poses a 700 scientists and experts. Another 1 cubic meters (448,000 gallons) per person of growing threat to water supplies and billion face “economic scarcity,” in new fresh water is available annually from food production in arid regions. Already, which “human capacity or financial re- rainfall or aquifers for human use, making population growth and economic ex- sources” cannot provide adequate water, populations vulnerable to frequent interrup- pansion are straining water supplies in the report found. 7 tions in water supply.

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Serious Shortages Projected for Many Regions Water shortages are expected to afflict much of the Earth by 2025, as growing populations use vastly more water for daily life and farming. Areas likely to be hardest hit include China, Western Europe, the United States, Mexico and a wide swath of the globe’s midsection from India to North Africa. In the most severe cases, humans are expected to use up to 40 percent of the available water, compared with the current average withdrawal, or use, rate, of 10 percent. Projected Water-Use Rates, 2025 *

Water Withdrawal as Percentage of Total Available More than 40% 20% to 40% 10% to 20% Less than 10%

* Based on data from 1996-2000 Source: World Meteorological Organisation, Global Environment Outlook, U.N. Environment Programme, Earthscan, www.unep.org/dewa/assessments/ecosystems/water/vitalwater/21.htm#21b

In the United States, chronic climate change are felt, many scien- ern public water systems are designed alarms over depleted water resources tists warn. 11 Climate change is ex- to protect users from biological agents in the Southwestern states have pected to expand and intensify drought and toxins, but deliberate contamina- spread to the Southeast. The water in traditionally dry regions and disrupt tion by terrorists could kill or sicken level in giant Lake Sidney Lanier water flows from the world’s moun- thousands, he said. Since the Sept. 11, outside Atlanta has dropped about tain snowcaps and glaciers. 2001, terrorist attacks most major U.S. a dozen feet in this decade, caus- Finally, a new threat to global water cities have sent the federal govern- ing an intense struggle among supplies has emerged: terrorism. “The ment confidential reports on the vul- Georgia and neighboring Alabama chance that terrorists will strike at water nerability of local water supplies, and and Florida over rights to the lake’s systems is real,” said Peter H. Gleick, the Environmental Protection Agency’s diminished flows. 10 president of the Pacific Institute for (EPA) Water Sentinel Initiative is de- And drought conditions worldwide Studies in Development, Environment signing a water-contamination warn- are likely to worsen as the effects of and Security in Oakland, Calif. 12 Mod- ing system. 13

30 CQ Global Researcher Perhaps the grimmest long-range perts advocate “environmental flow” prediction on water availability was World Water policies — the release of enough issued by the Met Office Hadley Cen- Consumption Varies water from dams to sustain the envi- tre for Climate Prediction and Research ronment of rivers, wetlands and un- in London. Using supercomputer mod- The average American uses nearly derground aquifers. 18 eling, the center projected that if cur- 160 gallons of water per day for And their efforts seem to be paying rent trends continue, by this centu- drinking, cooking, bathing and off — at least in some areas. Between ry’s end drought will have spread sanitation — more than any other 1990 and 2002, more than 1 billion peo- across half the Earth’s land surface nationality and more than twice the ple in the developing world gained ac- due to climate change, threatening amount used by many Europeans. cess to fresh water and basic sanitation. millions of lives. Moreover, “extreme People in sub-Saharan Africa use But because of population growth, the drought” — which makes traditional total number of people still lacking safe only about a quarter of the 13 agriculture virtually impossible — will water remained more than a billion, and affect about a third of the planet, ac- gallons the United Nations sets as a there was no change in the number cording to the group’s November minimum basic standard. lacking basic sanitation. 19 2006 report. (gallons) Average In 2003, the U.N. General Assembly “Even though (globally) total rain- 200 Household designated the period from 2005 to fall will increase as the climate warms, 2015 as the International Decade for Water Use the proportion of land in drought is 158.5 Action on “Water for Life.” And the 150 (Per capita per day) projected to rise throughout the 21st U.N.’s new Millennium Development century,” the report said. 14 Goals include a campaign to cut in half “There’s almost no aspect of life in 100 66-92 by 2015 the proportion of people with- the developing countries that these out sustainable access to safe drinking predictions don’t undermine — the water and basic sanitation — at a cost ability to grow food, the ability to have 50 of more than $10 billion per year. 20 13.2 a safe sanitation system, the availabil- 2.6-5.2 Currently, governments and international ity of water,” said Andrew Simms, pol- 0 agencies like the U.N. and World Bank Sub- U.N. Europe* U.S. icy director of the liberal London-based Saharan Recom- provide only $4 billion a year in aid New Economics Foundation. 15 The Africa mended for water and sanitation projects. 21 consequences will be most dire for Minimum “We will see these issues play out the planet’s poorest inhabitants, he * Consumption among European countries silently: dry rivers, dead deltas, de- added. “For hundreds of millions of ranges from 66-92 gallons stocked fisheries, depleted springs and people for whom getting through the wells,” wrote Margaret Carley-Carlson, Source: World Water Council day is already a struggle, this is going chairwoman of the Global Water Part- to push them over the precipice.” nership in Stockholm, and M. S. Swami- Access to safe, fresh water separates to the United Nations. “That’s equiv- nathan, president of the Pugwash Con- the well-off — who can treat water as alent to 12 full jumbo jets crashing ferences on Science and World Affairs if it were air — from the world’s poor- every day,” said U.N. water expert in Chennai, India. 22 “We will also see est, who hoard it like gold. In the Unit- Brian Appleton. “If 12 full jumbo jets famine; increased and sometimes vio- ed States, the average consumer uses were crashing every day, the world lent competition for water, especially nearly 160 gallons of water per day, would want to do something about it within states; more migration; and en- summoned by the twist of a faucet. In — they would want to find out why vironmental devastation with fires, dust, much of Africa, women often trudge it was happening.” 17 and new plagues and blights.” for hours to and from wells, carrying Policymakers are trying various ways Averting that future will require fun- the two to five gallons per person used to solve the global water challenge, damental changes in governmental by the typical person in sub-Saharan including contracting with private firms policies and human practices govern- Africa. (See graph, above.) 16 to operate urban water and sanitary ing the use, conservation and value of But the lack of clean water is not systems, adopting new conservation water, experts agree. only inconvenient. It can also be dead- technologies, enacting multination pacts As water experts and policymakers ly. Each year 1.8 million children — to manage regional watersheds and discuss how to conserve and protect 5,000 per day — die from waterborne increasing funds for water projects in future water supplies, here are some illnesses such as diarrhea, according the world’s poorest regions. Water ex- of the questions they are debating:

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 31 LOOMING WATER CRISIS

cubic kilometers flows into rivers and Poorest Lag Far Behind in Access is absorbed into groundwater, and the rest evaporates. Although progress has been made since 1990, only 37 percent of the residents Much of the water used by hu- in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia had access to sanitation services in 2004. mans is returned to watersheds as Sub-Saharan Africa lags behind the rest of the world in access to reliable wastewater, farm runoff or discharges sources of clean water. Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of those living in the from energy and industrial plants, industrialized countries, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, the with only a small fraction used for Caribbean and the former Soviet republics had access to water in 2004. drinking and cooking. 24 Irrigation claims 70 percent of total water with- Percentage of Population with Access to: drawals, 22 percent is used by in- (1990-2004) dustry and the rest goes for homes, personal and municipal uses. 25 Water isn’t running out everywhere, Sanitation Water said Canadian journalist Marq de Villiers, author of Water: The Fate of Our Most 61% 84% Precious Resource. “It’s only running Arab states Arab states 71% 86% out in places where it’s needed most. It’s an allocation, supply and manage- 30% East Asia and 72% East Asia and 26 the Pacific 50% the Pacific 79% ment problem.” It’s also a demand problem: Over the Latin America, 67% Latin America, 83% past half-century, millions of people have Caribbean 78% Caribbean 91% migrated from colder, wetter, northern 18% 72% South Asia South Asia climates to warmer, drier, southern lo- 37% 85% cales such as the American Southwest Sub-Saharan 32% Sub-Saharan 48% or southern France, putting new pres- Africa 37% Africa 56% sure on those expanding “Sun Belt” communities to build irrigation systems, tap Average, least- 22% Average, least- 51% developed developed 37% 59% into groundwater supplies or rechannel countries countries large amounts of river water. Central, Eastern n/a Central, Eastern 93% Experts agree that the world should Europe; former Europe; former not be facing an overall water-scarcity Soviet republics n/a Soviet republics 94% crisis. But water supplies in much of 94% 97% OECD* OECD* Africa, parts of China, southern Europe, 96% 99% northern Mexico and the American 0% 20 40 60 80 100 0% 20 40 60 80 100 Southwest and high plains aren’t meeting demand, and climate change may * Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, made up of the 1990 be accelerating the problem, the ex- worlds’ industrialized countries perts say. 27 The issues add up to what 2004 Source: “Human Development Report 2006,” UNDP the World Commission on Water calls the “gloomy arithmetic of water.” 28 Are we running out of water? of the International Water Management In addition, man has transformed Amid the growing alarm about water Institute in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Every most of the world’s great rivers. For ex- shortages, water expert Frank Rijsber- year, about 110,000 cubic kilometers * ample, the Danube — Central Europe’s man offers a contrarian perspective. of rain falls on Earth’s surface, of which “lifeline” — has been dredged, deep- “The world is far from running out of humans withdraw just over 3 percent ened, straightened, channelized and ob- water,” he says. “There is land and — about 3,700 cubic kilometers — from structed by dams and fishing weirs. It human resources and water enough rivers and groundwater to use in cities, is now “a manufactured waterway,” to grow food and provide drinking industries and farming. About 40,000 says de Villiers, with more than a third water for everyone.” 23 of its volume withdrawn for human The issue is how efficiently water is * 1 cubic kilometer would cover an area of use, compared to an average of about used, says Rijsberman, former director about 810,000 acres with one foot of water. 10 percent for other rivers. 29

32 CQ Global Researcher Pollution is also reducing the world’s supply of potable water. In Asia, many rivers “are dead or dying,” according to Rijsberman. The Musi River near India’s Hyderabad technology center has become “a dwindling black wastewater stream,” he writes. “[Y]et the cows that produce the curd and the dairy products for Hy- derabad are bathing in that black and stinking water.” 30 In China, 265 billion gallons of raw sewage is dumped into the Yangtze River every year. 31 The depletion and despoiling of the world’s reservoirs, rivers and watersheds also contribute to the problem. During the 20th century, more than half the wetlands in parts of Australia, Eu- rope, New Zealand and North Ameri- ca were destroyed by population growth and development. The loss of wetlands increases water runoff, which exacer- bates flooding, reduces the replenish- ment of aquifers and leaves rivers and lakes more vulnerable to pollution. 32 Aquifers — the immense storehous- es of water found beneath the Earth’s surface — are the largest and fastest- growing source of irrigation water. De- pleting those underground rivers will have deleterious effects on the 40 percent of AP Photo/Xinhua, He Fenglun the planet’s agricultural output that relies Dead plants in a parched field attest to the ravages of the worldwide drought in Liujiang, a 33 county of southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in November 2006. on irrigation from groundwater. Ex- Nearly all of the region’s 84 counties were affected by the drought, which was caused by perts say some of that water — which unseasonably warm temperatures, according to the Xinhua News Agency. dates back to past ice ages — would take eons to refresh but is being con- ward from South Dakota to Texas. It “There was an explosion of irrigated sumed in less than a century. has two distinctions, he wrote, “one agriculture, particularly on the high “Large areas of China, South Asia of being the largest discrete aquifer in plains, and in California.” and the Middle East are now main- the world, the other of being the fastest- In 1937, West Texas had 1,116 irri- taining irrigation through unsustain- disappearing aquifer in the world.” 36 gation wells. Thirty years later it had able mining of groundwater or over- In the 1930s a farmer on the Great 27,983. By 1977, Texas was withdraw- extraction from rivers,” said the U.N. Plains could raise a few gallons per ing 11 billion gallons of groundwater a “Human Development Report 2006.” 34 minute from the Ogallala, using a day to grow corn, cotton and other crops The problem is widespread in Mexico, windmill-driven pump. After the New in what once had been part of the Great India and Russia, as well, although Deal brought electricity to the region American Desert, Reisner wrote. 37 precise data are not available for and oil and gas discoveries provided Now, experts say the Ogallala — a many countries. 35 plenty of cheap fuel, electric pumps resource that could have lasted hundreds In his seminal 1986 book Cadillac raised 800 gallons per minute. of years — will be virtually depleted Desert, the late Marc Reisner warned “All of a sudden, irrigation became within the lifetimes of today’s farmers. about the long-term effects of water very energy- and labor-efficient. You Yet during the optimism and op- policies in the Western United States, turn on the switch and let it run,” says portunism that characterized develop- including the depletion of the giant Robert M. Hirsch, associate director for ment of the modern American West, Ogallala Aquifer, which runs south- water at the U.S. Geological Survey. Continued on p. 35

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Is Access to Clean Water a Human Right? The question is at the heart of a global debate.

hould all humans have guaranteed access to clean water, And the world’s poor cannot compete with either farmers or is water an increasingly scarce commodity that should or business for water at market prices, said the report. About Sbe priced according to its value? a third of those without access to clean water live on less than The question stands at the center of a global debate over $1 a day. Twice that many live on less than $2 a day. “These threats to the world’s water resources, as competition for water figures imply that 660 million people lacking access to [safe] increases among industry, farming and households. It is also water have, at best, a limited capacity to pay more than a small critical in efforts to protect the long-term environmental via- amount for a connection to water service,” the report said. bility of rivers, lakes and aquifers. “People might lack water because they are poor, or they might The debate goes back at least to 1992, when an international be poor because they lack water.” The end result is the same: commission on water and the environment meeting in Ireland a limited ability to pay for water. 7 issued the “Dublin Principles,” which were later adopted by a U.N. panel. The commission concluded: “Water has an economic value . . . and should be recognized as an economic good.” Only by recognizing that economic value can water “be prop- erly conserved and allocated to its most important uses.” 1 But the principle also declared it a “basic right of all human beings to have access to clean water and sanitation at an affordable price.” Poor households cannot compete with industry for scarce water supplies. Nor could most farmers, who typically receive subsidized prices for irrigation water. The U.N. Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights declared in 2002 that all people are entitled to an essential minimum amount of clean water. “Water is fundamental for life and health,” it said. “The human right to water is indispens- able for leading a healthy life in human dignity.” 2 Canadian activist Maude Barlow says, “You can’t really charge for a human right; you can’t trade it or deny it to someone because they don’t have money.” Barlow is co-author of Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World’s Water. 3

The other side in the debate argues that until water is priced AP Photo/Julie Plasencia and valued as a scarce resource it will be wasted and billions of A man protesting the privatization of water in Cochabamba, Bolivia, dollars required annually to extend water service to the poor and waves a sign saying “what is ours is ours and it cannot be taken away.” fix leaking water systems will not be forthcoming. Two years be- American water expert Peter H. Gleick calls for a truce in the fore the U.N. declared clean water a human right, the World Water water rights dispute in favor of problem-solving. Workshops on Council — which reflects the views of international lenders and privatization standards and principles for implementing a human the water-supply industry — called for “full pricing” of water to right to water “would be far more likely to produce progress,” reflect its “economic, social, environmental and cultural values.” 4 he writes. 8 Farmers in dry regions throughout the world get water at preferential rates — or at no charge at all — as a matter of 1 “Dublin Statements and Principles,” Global Water Partnership; www.gw- government policy. But if farmers were required to pay the pforum.org/servlet/PSP?iNodeID=1345. 2 Meena Palaniappan, et al., “Environmental Justice and Water,” The World’s full price for water, they could not compete with industry, Water 2006-2007, p. 117. which would be willing and able to pay market price. 3 Jeff Fleischer, “Interview with Maude Barlow,” Mother Jones, Jan. 14, 2005, In industrial countries, 60 percent of the water withdrawn www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/01/maude_barlow.html. from freshwater sources is used by industry, mainly to gener- 4 “Ministerial Declaration of The Hague,” World Water Forum, March 22, 2000. ate electricity. The developing world is moving rapidly in the 5 Palaniappan, op. cit., p. 125. 6 same direction. China’s industrial water use, for example, is pro- See “Summary, Human Development Report 2006: Beyond scarcity: Power, 5 poverty and the global water crisis,” United Nations Development Pro- jected to grow fivefold by 2030. gramme, p. 17, http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr2006_english_summary.pdf. “As urban centers and industry increase their demand for 7 Ibid., pp. 49-52. water, agriculture is losing out,” said the U.N. “Human Devel- 8 Peter Gleick, “Time to Rethink Large International Water Meetings,” The opment Report 2006.” 6 World’s Water 2006-2007, p. 182.

34 CQ Global Researcher Continued from p. 33 worries about future water supplies evap- Irrigation Doubled in Developing Nations orated. “What are you going to do with all that water?” the late Felix Sparks, for- The amount of irrigated land more than doubled in developing countries in mer head of the Colorado Water Con- the past four decades, increasing faster than in the developed world. But the servation Board, asked in the mid-1980s. rate of increase for both has slowed in recent years because of heavy draws “When we use it up, we’ll just have to on groundwater aquifers and competition from industry for water. get water from somewhere else.” But today, “somewhere else” is not an (millions of acres) answer, say authors Robin Clarke, 600 editor of climate publications for the Amount of Irrigated Land United Nations and World Meteorolo- 500 gal Organization, and environmental 400 author Jannet King. The co-authors of The Water Atlas insist water must be 300 considered a finite resource. 38 200 Should water be privatized? 100 In 2000, street fighting broke out between government forces and political 0 activists, rural cocoa farmers and resi- 1961 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2003 dents of shantytowns on the hilly out- skirts of Cochabamba — Bolivia’s third- Developed Countries Developing Countries largest city. The dispute was over privatization of the city’s water supplies. The year before, Cochabamba had Source: Peter H. Gleick, et al., "The World's Water: 2006-2007," Pacific Institute, 2006 turned its water and sanitation system over to Aguas del Tunari, a coalition the water company’s officials fled and accelerate the search for private-sector of multinational and Bolivian water and their contract was rescinded. 41 The support. engineering corporations whose biggest government reclaimed the water op- The percentage of the world’s pop- stakeholder was Bechtel Corp., based erations, and Cochabamba became a ulation served at some level by pri- in San Francisco. 39 This was the high- rallying cry against privatization and vate firms has grown from 5 percent water mark of a global, pro-market globalization for the political left. in 1999 to 11 percent — or 707 mil- movement toward deregulation and pri- Elsewhere, however, corporate in- lion people — in 2007, according to vatization of state-owned monopolies volvement in water and sanitation sys- Pinsent Masons Water Yearbook, a in water, electricity and other services. tem operations has not ceased. Veo- widely consulted summary of private- 40 The World Bank and other interna- lia Water, a subsidiary of the French sector water projects. 43 tional lenders had been supporting pri- firm Veolia Environment SA — the Opponents of privatization argue that vatization strategies in hopes that in- world’s largest water-services firm — safe drinking water and adequate san- vestments and better management by signed a $3.8 billion, 30-year, contract itation are essential human rights, oblig- private industry would help bring water in 2007 to supply drinking water to ating governments to provide them at and sanitation to more than a billion 3 million residents of the Chinese affordable rates or free if necessary. “If poor people whose governments river port city of Tianjin. Since 1997, it’s a human need, it can be delivered couldn’t or wouldn’t do the job. Veolia has signed more than 20 water by the private sector on a for-profit But Cochabamba’s privatization in- and sanitation contracts in China, and basis. If it’s a human right, that’s dif- cluded a costly dam and pipeline to supplies more than 110 million peo- ferent,” says Canadian anti-globalization import more water, which required ple in 57 countries worldwide. 42 activist Maude Barlow, co-author of Blue sharp rate increases starting at 35 per- These projects, and smaller-scale ver- Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft cent. Some customers’ water bills dou- sions in poorer nations, suggest that of the World’s Water. “You can’t really bled. Farmers outside the city, who while the inflamed debate over water charge for a human right; you can’t had enjoyed free water, suddenly had privatization continues, threats of water trade it or deny it to someone because to pay. The city erupted in protest, scarcity and climate change may help they don’t have money.” 44

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Bringing in private firms to run pears to have improved water quali- privatization has declined in Latin Amer- water and sewer operations does not ty in urban areas but not in rural com- ica and sub-Saharan Africa but in- make the services more efficient or munities, said the study. After privati- creased in Europe and Asia, accord- affordable, opponents also argue, but zation began, water bills for the poor ing to the Water Yearbook. 50 The forces the poor to pay for corporate rose about 10 percent but declined for average contract size also has dimin- profits, shareholder dividends and high the wealthy, reflecting a scaling back ished since the 1990s, it said, due to executive salaries. “The efficiencies in government subsidies to poorer con- a trend away from mega-contracts don’t happen,” asserts Wenonah sumers. Similar shifts occurred in both with multinational water companies in Hauter, executive director of Food privatized and non-privatized cities. 48 favor of “local and possibly less con- and Water Watch, a Washington anti- In central cities, water-rate subsi- tentious contracts.” 51 globalization group. “The companies dies tend to favor the wealthy and A U.N.-sponsored analysis cites Chile simply lay off staff members until they middle classes, who are usually con- and parts of Colombia among the suc- don’t have enough people to take nected to municipal water systems, cessful examples of collaborative care of the infrastructure. And they while the poor often are not, says water and sanitation services. In Carta- raise rates. We’ve seen this all over American journalist Diane Raines Ward, gena, Colombia’s fifth-largest city, the the world.” Last year Hauter’s orga- author of Water Wars: Drought, Flood, local government retains control of the nization issued a study claiming pri- Folly, and the Politics of Thirst. And pipes and facilities and raises invest- vatized water operations in California, by keeping water rates artificially low, ment capital, but a private firm runs Illinois, Wisconsin and New York utilities typically collect only about a the service. Today, nearly all the city’s residents have water in their homes, up from only one-quarter in 1995. 52 Chile’s water program offers subsidies to the poorest households, guarantee- ing an essential minimum of supply of up to 4,000 gallons per month. De- liveries are monitored to limit cheat- ing, and every household must have a water meter to verify usage. 53 Experts say the political problems of water privatization cannot be managed without effective government reg- ulation and consumer involvement at all levels. Both elements were miss- AP Photo/Peter Lorimer AP Photo/Peter The outlook is bleak for rancher Andrew Higham’s parched land in Gunnedah, in northwestern ing in Cochabamba but are present in New South Wales,Australia, in October 2006. Scarce winter rains caused drought across Chile, the U.N. report says. 54 much of the continent last fall and led to severely reduced wheat and barley harvests. Will water scarcity lead to con- charged more for water than compa- third of their actual costs, so they don’t flicts? rable publicly owned systems. 45 raise enough money to expand In 1995 Ismail Serageldin, a World Privatization advocates dispute pipelines to unserved poor neighbor- Bank vice president, predicted that Hauter’s claims, and facts to settle the hoods, she says. 49 “the wars of the next century will be issue are illusive. A 2005 survey by the The rural poor or those living in urban over water.” 55 AEI-Brookings Center for Regulatory slums often must haul water home from The reality has been different thus Studies found “no systematic empirical public wells or buy it from independent far. “Water resources are rarely the sole evidence comparing public and private merchants — delivered by truck or burro source of conflict, and indeed, water is water systems in the United States.” 46 — at much higher prices. In Cairo, Egypt, frequently a source of cooperation,” A study by the Inter-American De- for instance, the poor pay 40 times the writes Gleick, of the Pacific Institute for velopment Bank of water rates in real cost of delivery; in Karachi, Pakistan, Studies in Development, Environment Colombia said prices charged by pri- the figure is 83 times; and in parts of and Security, in the new edition of The vatized systems were not significantly Haiti, 100 times, Ward says. World’s Water 2006-2007. 56 The sur- different from those charged by pub- In the years since Cochabamba gal- vey of reported conflicts over water in lic systems. 47 And privatization ap- vanized the left against privatizing water, the past 50 years, compiled by Oregon

36 CQ Global Researcher State University researchers, found 37 cases of violence between nations, all Mountain Snowpack Is Shrinking but seven in the Middle East. 57 In 1964, Israel opened its massive The amount of snow covering the globe’s highest mountains has been National Water Carrier canal to carry shrinking over the past half-century, upsetting crucial seasonal water flows water from the Sea of Galilee and that restock rivers, lakes, reservoirs and aquifers. Scientists think short-term the Jordan River to its farms and climate conditions like El Niño and long-term warming caused by climate cities. Syria retaliated to maintain its change are to blame. By century’s end, only 16 percent of New Zealand’s access to the Jordan by starting two current snowpack will remain. canals to divert Jordan flows for its uses. Skirmishes by military units and Snowpack Now and Projected in 2100 raids by the newly established al- Fatah forces escalated until Israeli air Current Snowpack Himalayas Andes strikes halted the diversion projects. Alaska New Zealand Western USA Alps By then, Israel and the Arab League Scandinavia were on the road to the Six-Day War of 1967. 58 “The attacks by Syria, Egypt, and Jor- dan that eventually followed had many causes, but water remained a priority for both sides,” says author Ward. 59 Percentage Remaining in 2100 Still, more than 200 water treaties have been negotiated peacefully over Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, http://picturethis.pnl.gov/picturet.nsf/by+id/ the past half-century. The Partition of AMER-6PWV.V?opendocument. India in 1947, for instance, could have led to war between India and newly Except for such instances, coop- beginning in about 1700 B.C. with the created Pakistan over control of the eration over water resources is com- Sumerians’ efforts to dam the Tigris River mighty Indus River basin. Instead, the mon today, even if sometimes to block retreating rebels. two nations were brought together grudging and incomplete, says Un- In the future, climate change is with World Bank support over a per- dala Alam, a professor and special- expected to extend and intensify ilous decade of negotiations, signing ist in water diplomacy at Britain’s drought in Earth’s driest regions and the Indus Water Treaty in 1960. Three Cranfield University. “Turkey was re- disrupt normal water flows from rivers were given to Pakistan, and leasing water for Syria and Iraq; the mountain snowcaps in Europe, North three to India, with a stream of in- Nile countries are preparing projects America and Central Asia. “Climate ternational financial support for dams jointly to develop the river; the Niger change has the potential to exacer- and canals in both countries. Even countries have a shared vision for bate tensions over water as precipi- when war raged between the two na- the basin’s development, and the tation patterns change, declining by tions in later years, they never at- Zambezi countries are working with- as much as 60 percent in some tacked water infrastructure. 60 in the Southern African Develop- areas,” warned a recent report by a “Most peoples and even nations are ment Community,” she notes. 62 panel of retired U.S. generals and ad- hesitant to deny life’s most basic ne- But analysts warn that growing stress mirals convened by CNA, a think cessity to others,” Ward wrote. Two on water supplies, coupled with the tank with longstanding ties to the modern exceptions occurred during impact of climate change, will create military. “The potential for escalating the Bosnian War (1992-1996), when combustible conditions in the coming tensions, economic disruption and Serbs “lay waiting to shoot men, women years that will undermine collabora- armed conflict is great,” said the re- and children arriving at riverbanks or tion over water. port, “National Security and the Threat taps around Sarajevo carrying buckets There is plenty of precedence for of Climate Change.” 64 or bottles,” and during Saddam Hus- the concern, notes Gleick, who de- On the simplest level, the report sein’s regime in Iraq, when he diverted scribes the history of violence over fresh said, climate change “has the poten- the lower waters of the Tigris and Eu- water as “long and distressing.” 63 The tial to create sustained natural and hu- phrates rivers to destroy the homes latest volume of The World’s Water lists manitarian disasters on a scale far be- and livelihood of the Marsh Arabs. 61 22 pages of historical water conflicts — yond those we see today.” Already, it

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 37 LOOMING WATER CRISIS said, Darfur, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, States, the opening of the Niagara Falls Angola, Nigeria, Cameroon and West- China Leads World in hydroelectric power station in 1896 — ern Sahara have all been hit hard by Dam Building built by American entrepreneur and in- tensions that can be traced in part to ventor George Westinghouse and environmental causes. 65 If the drought China has three times as many backed by financier J. P. Morgan and continues, the report said, more people dams as the United States and others — inaugurated water’s use to gen- will leave their homelands, increasing more than all the next 11 countries erate electric power. 74 migration pressures within Africa and combined. Dams typically generate But these early accomplishments 66 into Europe. electricity, control flooding and were dwarfed in the 20th century by The impact will be especially acute provide water for irrigation. nearly 100 years of massive dam pro- in the Middle East, where about two- jects that have transformed most of thirds of the inhabitants depend on Countries with the Most Dams the world’s major rivers. Between 1950 water sources outside their borders. and 2000, the number of dams high- Water remains a potential flashpoint 1. China 22,000 er than 50 feet increased sevenfold — between the Israelis and Palestinians, 2. United States 6,575 to more than 41,000 structures im- who lack established rights to the Jor- 3. India 4,291 pounding 14 percent of the world’s 75 dan River and receive only about 10 4. Japan 2,675 average river runoff. By 2000, large percent of the water used by Israel’s dams were supplying nearly a fifth of 5. Spain 1,196 West Bank settlers. 67 “Only Egypt, Iran all electrical power worldwide. and Turkey have abundant fresh water 6. Canada 793 Dams also have been critical in the resources,” the CNA report said. 7. South Korea 765 rapid expansion of irrigated farming. The military advisers urged the Unit- 8. Turkey 625 “Half of the world’s large dams are ed States to take a stronger national 9. Brazil 594 built exclusively for irrigation, sup- and international role in stabilizing cli- 10. France 569 porting about 12 to 16 percent of mate change and to create global part- world food production, according to 11. South Africa 539 nerships to help less-developed nations the World Commission on Dams.” 76 confront climate impacts. 68 12. Mexico 537 About 12 percent of large dams Currently, there is only a weak in- Source: Peter H. Gleick, et al., “The World's were constructed specifically to pro- ternational foundation for water col- Water: 2002-2003,” Pacific Institute, 2002 vide drinking water and sanitation (and laboration, according to the U.N. a similar percentage were built to con- Human Development report. While a trol flooding), and many have multi- 1997 U.N. convention lays out principle uses. Whether used for energy, ples for cooperation, only 14 nations community water, flood control or agri- have signed it, and it has no work- BACKGROUND culture, dams have been a key tool able enforcement mechanism. In 55 of economic growth, according to the years, the International Court of Jus- commission. Typically, however, the tice has decided only one case in- full consequences of such giant pro- volving international rivers. 69 Taming Water jects were not taken into considera- It is possible, however, that as the tion, the commission said. In the past awareness of climate impacts on water he ruins of irrigation canals 8,000 century, the world built, on average, supplies deepens, so will the urgency Tyears old have been found in one large dam per day without ask- for governments to respond. “Unlike the Mesopotamia. 71 Remains of water-stor- ing whether it was getting a fair re- challenges that we are used to dealing age dams 5,000 years old survive in turn from the $2 trillion investment, with, these will come upon us extremely Egypt and Jordan. Humans have been said South African Minister of Educa- slowly, but come they will, and they using waterwheels for milling and tion Kader Asmal, who chaired the will be grinding and inexorable,” said threshing since the 1st century B.C., and commission. 77 former Vice Adm. Richard H. Truly, a by 1291 China had completed its Grand The dam-building blitz was enabled former astronaut who headed the U.S. Canal running nearly 1,800 kilometers by political bias in favor of dams. National Aeronautics and Space Ad- between Beijing and Hangzhou. 72 Water From the Aswan High Dam in Egypt ministration (NASA) and served as a power drove mining, metal drilling, tex- to the Hoover Dam on the Colorado CNA consultant. 70 “They will affect every tile and milling industries at the dawn River, big dams have stood as pre- 73 nation, and all simultaneously.” of the Industrial Age. In the United Continued on p. 40

38 CQ Global Researcher Chronology

cation and innovations in pumping country’s four major rivers to 19th Century and irrigating technology. bring water from the south to the The industrial age and urban- arid north. ization create critical need for 1986 municipal water treatment and Major dam construction has largely 2005 sanitation services. stopped in the U.S. but continues Group of Eight industrialized na- in Asia. tions pledge to double their aid 1848 for water, sanitation and other de- The Public Health Act, followed in velopment projects in poorer na- • 1852 by the Metropolitan Water Act, tions by 2010. lead to investments in water treatment and sanitation that dramatically Britain’s public 2006 reduce waterborne illnesses in 1980s utilities are sold to private firms Waterborne-disease epidemics strike Britain by the end of the century. in the late 1980s, triggering a Karachi, Lahore and other Pakistani wave of water-system privatiza- cities, caused by the leakage of 1876 tion worldwide. sewage and industrial wastes into Berlin city planner James Hobrecht damaged water-distribution starts work on drainage system 1994 pipelines. . . . U.N. Human Devel- and waterworks that channels Construction begins on the Three opment Report warns that without sewage to fields as fertilizer. He Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtze a major increase in investment, im- designs similar systems for River, designed to be the largest provements in water and sanitation Moscow, Cairo and Tokyo. in the world. More than 1 million services will fall far short of the people will have to be relocated Millennium Development Goals. • as the river rises. 2007 Multi-year drought afflicts China, 1900-1980 • the Horn of Africa, Turkey, Aus- Governments around the globe tralia, Spain and the U.S. Sun Belt. launch major dam construction. . . . A director of the Three Gorges 2000s Drought spreads Project warns that rising waters 1902 worldwide, heightening concern behind the dam could cause The Aswan Dam on the Nile River about climate change’s impact on “water pollution, landslides and in Egypt is completed to control water scarcity. Privatization other geological disasters,” but flooding and regulate water flow strategies shift. other officials later say environ- for agriculture. mental problems will be amelio- 2000 rated. . . . The Intergovernmental 1910 Violent public protests against Panel on Climate Change predicts Chlorination begins in the United higher water rates force cancella- that freshwater resources will de- States. Typhoid fever from polluted tion of a water-privatization plan crease in large river basins over the drinking water falls from 25 deaths in Cochabamba, Bolivia. But priva- next decade due to drought. . . . per 100,000 people to almost zero. tization continues in China, India Drought prompts several Australian and other parts of the world. . . . cities to commission new desalina- 1936 U.N. adopts the Millennium Devel- tion plants. Algeria also has a Hoover Dam on the Colorado River opment Goals calling for halving major plant in construction. is opened, fulfilling an agreement the number of people without ac- among Southwestern states and cess to safe water and adequate 2008 cities to share the river’s flow. sanitation by 2015. The scarcity of water in key agricultural areas has contributed to soaring 1945 2002 world prices for wheat, soybeans, Large-scale groundwater irrigation China approves massive South-to- corn, rice and poultry, and the trend begins expanding in the Western North Water Diversion Project, is likely to continue this year, say United States, aided by rural electrifi- which will eventually link the agricultural forecasters.

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 39 LOOMING WATER CRISIS

Continued from p. 38 and irrigation water, they also attract harm caused by dam construction. In eminent symbols of governments’ en- population expansion that eventually the industrial world, “it is now more gineering prowess and the use of strains the new resources. And until likely that a dam will be torn down state power to control devastating recently, the commission said, policy- than a new one will go up,” says Ward. floodwaters and feed economic ex- makers have not fairly considered the But in China, South Asia and South pansion. “Colossal engineering works damaging impact dams have on America, dams are “multiplying like bestow big contracts and big bene- downstream rivers and aquifers and mushrooms,” she writes. 79 If China’s fits, divide up waters, hold them fast, the populations that are forced to move new Three Gorges Dam — the world’s channel them away from some and to make room for reservoirs. largest hydroelectric project — had been give them to others,” says author Ward. Resistance to major new dam pro- built midway through the past century, “It has always been politics that start jects emerged with the rise of the en- it might have been considered one of the bulldozers moving.” 78 vironmental movement in the 1970s, the world’s great engineering feats. The While dams helped expand sup- particularly in Europe and the United main wall of the massive, 60-story struc- plies of drinking water, hydropower States, as advocates pointed to the ture spanning the Yangtze River was Empowering Women May Quench Thirst ‘Should girls be kept home from school to collect water?’

or millennia, the nomadic Tuareg people have lived by “Should a woman care for a sick child or spend two hours herding, migrating across vast rangelands south of the collecting water?” asks the latest U.N. human development re- FSahara Desert to water and graze their animals. But port. “Should girls be kept home from school to collect water, decades of drought are destroying the traditional Tuareg way freeing time for mothers to grow food or generate income? Or of life — killing herds, drying up grazing lands and forcing should they be sent to school to gain the skills and assets to many to settle in villages. escape poverty?” 3 “We used to saddle the camel and put all the nice things But despite having to bear the greatest burden caused by a on its back and put on our nice clothes and go,” Tuareg chief lack of water, women “play no role in the decision making for Mohamed Ag Mata told a reporter last year. “We were afraid their communities,” said Margaret Mwangi, a specialist in forestry of nothing.” 1 and environmental issues who has worked for UNESCO. 4 But the changes, paradoxically, offer hope for a better ex- Women’s lack of property rights prevents them from having istence to women and children in the male-dominated Tuareg a say in how water is distributed in their provinces. Women culture — giving them access to the employment, education own less than 15 percent of the world’s land and in many coun- and social rights that will give them a greater say in commu- tries cannot legally own property separately from their husbands. nity water policy. “Lacking rights to land, millions of women in South Asia and Increasingly, educating and empowering women is seen as sub-Saharan Africa are denied formal membership rights to par- an effective way to expand access to clean water across the ticipate in water-user association meetings,” according to the U.N. developing world. Virtually every major international organi- “Human Development Report 2006.” 5 And even those who are zation dealing with water scarcity is calling for change in welcomed at irrigation-association meetings often cannot find the women’s decision-making roles, including The World Bank, time. “Meetings are on Friday nights. At that time, after cook- the U.N. Human Development Programme, the World Health ing for my husband and the kids, I still have a lot of work to Organization, the World Water Forum, the World Commission do around the house,” said a woman in Ecuador. “Even if I go on Dams and the Stockholm-based Global Water Partnership. to the meeting, it’s only to hear what the men have to say. Men In the developing world, the job of hauling water rests, lit- are the ones who talk and discuss.” 6 erally, almost entirely on women’s shoulders. A UNICEF study Unless both water and gender policies are reformed, water in 23 sub-Saharan countries found that a quarter of women scarcity threatens to worsen women’s plight, says the Sri Lanka- spent 30 minutes to an hour each day collecting and carrying based International Water Management Institute. 7 Studies rec- water, and 19 percent spent an hour or more. In Mile Gully, ommend a wide range of strategies to strengthen women’s roles an impoverished rural area of Jamaica, hauling the family’s in gaining access to water and sanitation services, including water can take a woman two to five hours a day. 2 micro-credit and micro-insurance programs that target women; The high incidence of waterborne disease caused by the training programs in rural irrigation and sanitation processes; lack of clean water further burdens women in poor, rural com- creating rural women’s councils and broadcasting radio pro- munities, because they are the primary caregivers for the sick. grams on women’s issues. 8

40 CQ Global Researcher But gender traditions can prove hard to change. Along the Bay of Bengal coast, decision-making and financial control over irrigation systems in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, has been decentralized, giving more authority to local communities. Nevertheless, only 4 to 5 percent of the women surveyed in two districts believed they could influence decisions in village meetings. “Women, and particularly poor women, rarely par- ticipate,” the human development report concluded. 9 Experts say progress for women requires a push from the bottom and pressure from the top. Legislation in Uganda, for instance, requires that all agencies — from national to village levels — include at least 30 percent female representation. “Affirmative action may not remove cultural barriers,” the U.N. report said, “but it does challenge their legitimacy.” 10 That may even be happening among the Tuaregs, says Hadi- jatou, describing her new life in a village near Timbuktu in Mali. “Before, everything was given to us by the men. When you are given what you need by other people, you are de- pendent on them. But when you are producing what you need, you depend on nobody. So life is far better now.” 11

1 Richard Harris, “Drought Forces Desert Nomads to Settle Down,” National Public Radio, July 2, 2007. 2 Polioptro Martinez Austria and Paul van Hofwegen, “Synthesis of the 4th World Water Forum,” Mexico City, 2006 p. 4, www.worldwaterfo- rum4.org.mx/files/report/SynthesisoftheForum.pdf. 3 “Human Development Report 2006 — Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis,” U.N. Development Programme, 2006, p. 87; http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2006/. 4 Margaret Mwangi, “Gender and Drought Hazards in the Rangelands of the Great Horn of Africa,” Women & Environments International Magazine, Adil AP Photo/Shakil Spring 2007, p. 21. Women and girls in poor countries, like these in Pakistan, 5 “Human Development Report,” op. cit., p. 194. bear the greatest burden from a lack of potable water. 6 Ibid. 7 David Molden, ed., “Summary,” Water for Food, Water for Life: A Compre- 8 Austria and Hofwegen, op. cit., pp. 43, 63, 96. hensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, International Water 9 “Human Development Report,” op. cit., p 193. Management Institute, p. 10, www.iwmi.cgiar.org/assessment/files_new/syn- 10 Ibid., p. 194. thesis/Summary_SynthesisBook.pdf. 11 Harris, op. cit. completed in 2006, and by the end of the water rose behind the dam. The most of India’s rainfall occurs in about 2008 it is expected to deliver up to 18 rising water levels have triggered some 100 hours during the monsoon season. million kilowatts per hour — nearly a massive landslides on the riverbanks, While reservoirs capture some of these tenth of the electricity needs of China’s and a senior government official warned torrents, most escape to the sea. 83 surging economy. 80 But in today’s per- last September that if such ecological The 4th World Water Forum in Mex- spective, the monumental structure sym- and environmental dangers are not ico City in 2006 cited Norway as a bolizes the threat of environmental de- dealt with, “the project could lead to role model for the value of dams. “Elec- struction caused by major dam a catastrophe.” 81 But more recently, tricity from hydropower was the key construction. Chinese officials have insisted the pro- factor in transforming Norway from The gargantuan project’s human and ject will be operated safely. 82 one of the poorest countries in Eu- environmental costs have alarmed op- Some water experts still advocate new, rope a century ago to the industrial- ponents. According to the Chinese gov- smaller dams in developing countries to ized and wealthy nation of today,” said ernment, more than a million river- control flooding, store irrigation water Anita Utseth, Norway’s deputy minis- side residents were forced to move as and generate electricity. For instance, ter for petroleum and energy. 84

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 41 LOOMING WATER CRISIS

filled first, in the interests of peace,” said the 12th-century Jewish theologian and philosopher Maimonides. 87 Eventually, the doctrine of “riparian” rights — giving those living closest to water the first claim on its use — became merged with a “public trust” doctrine, holding that water was a common resource to be managed by the state for the common benefit. One person’s use of water could not infringe on a neighbor’s reasonable needs. The doctrine was embraced by many countries in Europe — including Britain, France and Spain — which then exported the principle to their colonies abroad. 88 But in the Western United States, Chile and Mexico, private water rights were recognized, particularly after the 1848 gold rush in the United States. A miner finding a gold seam would claim water from the nearest creek to wash dirt away from precious nuggets. His claim established a “first-in-time, first- in-use” priority allowing him to take as much as he needed. 89 This “prior appropriation” doctrine was a starter’s gun for unchecked diversion and exploita- tion of water resources to create farms and cities in the arid West. 90 Imaginechina via AP Images Imaginechina via China’s 60-story Three Gorges Dam — the world’s largest hydroelectric project — is Of course, in most legal debates expected to deliver up to 18 million kilowatts per hour by the end of 2008, nearly a tenth of about water, individual rights are sub- China’s electricity needs. Critics say the Yangtze River structure symbolizes environmental merged by political elites, rulers and dom- destruction that can be caused by major dam construction. More than a million inant factions. For instance, Senegalese riverside residents were forced to move as the water rose behind the dam. law provides for a democratic distribution of irrigated lands. But in practice, As Ward notes, “In some places, if Under Roman law, water resources were tribal nobles’ descendants still claim the no reservoirs are built, poor people the property of the state, which was lion’s share of the land and allocate rights will be denied the means to improve responsible for their development and to powerful outsiders, including military their lives.” 85 protection. Islamic water law in the leaders, politicians and judges. 91 parched Middle East followed a simi- In Central Asia during Soviet rule, lar path — irrigation canals and ditch- for instance, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Regulating Water es had to be adequately planned and Uzbekistan — which abut the Syr Darya spaced to prevent infringement on oth- and Amu Darya river basins — shared ho owns water? What rights do ers’ water sources. 86 the reservoir and hydropower output Wwater users have? How should But ancient codes also recognized from Kyrgyzstan’s largest reservoir. conflicts be resolved? that landowners did not have to share Now, as separate states, their cooper- The globe’s oldest recorded societies well water in times of scarcity, and ation has virtually ended, according to were formed not only for defense but people living closest to rivers and lakes a U.N. report. Kyrgyzstan is holding also to try to control the flow of water had first claim on their waters. “The on to more of its reservoir volume in in rivers that were crucial to farming. cistern nearest to a water channel is order to increase its hydropower ex-

42 CQ Global Researcher ports, severely reducing irrigation flows in the other two countries. A con- structive dialogue “has been conspic- uously absent,” according to the U.N. Human Development Report. 92 Two international treaties — the Helsinki Rules of 1966, adopted by the International Law Association, and articles adopted by the U.N. Interna- tional Law Commission — specify how cross-border water disputes should be resolved. Rivers that divide nations, according to the treaties — must be considered common resources, not under any one nation’s control. They also advocate a policy of “no harm” — each riparian nation has the right to “equitable utilization” of a shared water supply, and a nation’s water use should not damage its neighbors’ water needs. Prior appropriation claims are not allowed, and countries are called on to share accurate information on water resources. 93 Before fair water-use policies can be expected, governments must con- sider the needs of the poor and po- litically weak, whose water needs are usually greatest, says water expert San- dra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project in Massachusetts. That means “adding seats around the table,” 94 Mwanki AFP/Getty Images/Tony she says. For example, Ghana suc- A Masai herdsman in Kenya’s Rift Valley tends to a dying sheep in January 2006.Today 850 cessfully expanded its water and san- million people live in areas where adequate food supplies are at risk because of drought — itation services in recent years after two-thirds of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where the water policy was decentralized, and impact of climate change on food production is expected to be worst. village and district water councils were formed. The result: improved planning Such unsanitary conditions in devel- “At the start of the 21st century one and more reasonable priorities for water oping countries contribute to a plague of in five people living in the developing funding, according to the U.N. 95 diarrhea that not only kills an estimated world — some 1.1 billion people in all 1.8 million children across the globe each — lack access to clean water,” and year but also repeatedly sickens many nearly half the developing world has Misusing Water times that number, leaving them mal- no access to adequate sanitation. 99 nourished and vulnerable to other dis- Some of the same conditions ex- n Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, which lies eases and keeping them from school. 97 isted in Europe and the United States Ibetween the international airport and Trachoma, spread by a fly that breeds during most of the 19th century, as the city’s financial center, an estimat- in human feces, afflicts nearly 6 mil- farm families migrated to vast urban ed 1 million Indians live in huts and lion people worldwide, causing wide- slums. During the summer in 1858, shanties. With only one toilet for every spread blindness. The disease “is a the stench of untreated sewage in the 1,440 people, gutters overflow with passport to poverty,” says the U.N.’s Thames River (called the “Great Stink” waste in the rainy season, turning the “Human Development Report,” because by the London Times) forced the Par- streets into open sewers. 96 it prevents victims from working. 98 liament to close temporarily. 100 In the

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 43 LOOMING WATER CRISIS

Water Schemes Range From Monumental to Zany Many are costly and controversial.

fter wildfires devastated parts of Southern California and er oil prices made tanker transportation uneconomical, ac- dry winds parched the Southwest last summer, New cording to both countries. 5 A Mexico’s Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic candidate And then there are the slightly zany ideas, such as Calgary for president, made a startling proposal. entrepreneur James Cran’s plan to move water by sea inside “States like Wisconsin are awash in water,” Richardson told floating 5,000-ton plastic bags, or towing Arctic icebergs to dis- the Las Vegas Sun, proposing that water from the Great Lakes tant metropolises. 6 be piped to his state. With nearly 20 percent of the world’s fresh Most monumental water-moving schemes, however, trigger water, the five vast lakes are an irresistible target to promoters, intense opposition. Gov. Richardson’s proposal, for instance, is politicians — and potentially — corporate water suppliers. opposed by eight Great Lakes-area states and two Canadian “You’re going to see increasing pressure to gain access to this provinces, and drew a terse, unequivocal “No” from Michigan’s supply,” said Aaron Packman, a professor of civil and environ- Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm. 7 mental engineering at Northwestern University. “Clearly, it’s a case of different regional interests competing for this water.” 1 In 1985, Quebec provincial officials floated a plan to sell Cana- dian river water to the high plains states. The Great Replenish- ment and Northern Development Canal (GRAND) envisioned pumping river water from Quebec into a reservoir in Ontario. From there the water could travel by aqueduct to the Great Lakes and then by canal to the American plains. Nothing came of it. Even grander was the North American Water and Power Alliance in the 1960s, which proposed to dam dozens of north-flowing rivers in Canada’s western provinces, channeling their waters into a new reservoir 500 miles long — about the distance from Pittsburgh to Chicago — to irrigate the high plains and refill the Colorado River’s flows to California. But the half-trillion-dollar price tag sank the proposal. And its environmental cost would have been “ungras- pable,” says Canadian journalist Marq de Villiers, author of Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource. 2

The idea still seems to stir anxieties in Canada. An off-hand re- AP Photo/California Dept. Resources/Dale Kolke Water of mark by President George W. Bush in 2001 about the benefits of The monumental California Aqueduct brings vitally needed water Canadian water exports to the United States caused a brief uproar, 444 miles from to Southern California farmers and residents. and last year Canada’s Liberal Party Leader Stephane Dion accused the government in Ottawa of trying to put the matter back on the 1 Tim Jones, “Great Lakes key front in water wars,” The Chicago Tribune, Oct. U.S.-Canada agenda — a claim both governments denied. 3 28, 2007, www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-water_bdoct28,1,5145249.story. Mega-project dreams still survive in China, however, which 2 Marq de Villiers, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource (1999), is planning a series of canals to carry Yangtze River water thou- p. 260. 3 Launce Rake, “Canadians fearful of U.S. water grab,” Las Vegas Sun, May sands of miles to the Yellow River and on to the huge cities 28, 2006. See also Bruce Campion-Smith and Susan Delacourt, “Secret talks of Beijing and Tianjin. 4 underway, Dion claims,” The Toronto Star, Aug. 18, 2007, p. 18. And in 2004, Israel agreed to purchase the equivalent of 35 4 Diane Raines Ward, Water Wars: Drought, Flood, Folly and the Politics of million gallons of freshwater per day from Turkey’s Manavgat Thirst (2002), p. 171. 5 Josef Federman, “Israel, Turkey put landmark water agreement into deep River, to be shipped aboard tankers. Turkish water exports to freeze,” The Associated Press, April 5, 2006 Cyprus and other water-short destinations were also under con- 6 de Villiers, op. cit., p. 277. sideration. The agreement was put on hold in 2006 after high- 7 Jones, op. cit.

1890s Britain’s infant mortality rate was by an expansion of sanitation services was an extension of voting rights in about the same as Nigeria’s today. after 1880. By 1910, the country’s rate Britain beyond property-owning class- Water-treatment legislation in mid- of infant mortality had fallen by near- es to those who lacked clean water 19th-century Britain mandated creation ly 40 percent. The critical factor for and sanitation, creating a political con- of municipal water companies, followed change, according to some experts, stituency for reforms. 101

44 CQ Global Researcher But the cost of expanding sanita- In the 1990s, a third of the Danube’s as water becomes scarce and prices tion services in the developing world flow was being taken for human use — for conventional water rise. 110 For ex- today would be immense. A study led an extraction rate that researchers warned ample, California had 20 desalination by former International Monetary would be unsustainable if the vast region plants in the construction pipeline in Fund President Michael Camdessus es- served by the river faced continued growth 2006, which could increase California’s timates that closing the sanitation ser- and a prolonged drought. 105 desalination capacity 100-fold, provid- vices gap could cost $87 billion over Today the Danube nations are ing about 7 percent of the freshwater the next two decades. 102 working toward the river’s recovery, the state used in 2000. Experts today debate which must and the European Union has pledged come first in the developing world: $3.3 billion to help. 106 good governance or solutions to water and sanitation needs. In The World’s Water 2006-2007, the authors conclude Ocean Waters CURRENT that “eradicating corruption and political interference and ensuring the par- s a last resort, some wealthy na- SITUATION ticipation of all stakeholders will be crit- Ations and cities facing serious ical to the successful governance of shortages of freshwater — including water.” 103 The 1,320-km (820 miles) the Persian Gulf states, Israel, Singa- Rhine River — long called “the sewer pore and a handful of cities in Cali- Melting Snows of Europe” — was cleaned up after a fornia, Florida and Australia — have 1986 industrial fire in Basel, Switzer- turned to desalination of the oceans’ he deep snowpack covering the land, allowed more than 30 tons of limitless resources. Tworld’s mountains in winter is a pesticides, dyes, mercury and other More than 10,000 desalting plants renewable gift of nature — melting in poisons to spill into the river. Millions were in operation or contracted for spring to restock rivers, lakes, reser- of fish were killed, and major cities construction in January 2005, with a voirs, aquifers and eventually flowing had to close their municipal water in- total capacity of 9.6 billion gallons per back into the ocean. Then evaporating takes. German Chancellor Angela day. At present, however, desalination ocean water turns into snowfall in the Merkel, a former environmental minis- plants have the capability to provide mountains, repeating the cycle. But ter, has called the “rebirth of the Rhine just three one-thousandths of daily the snowpacks have been shrinking . . . one of the great environmental global freshwater consumption. 107 — and melting earlier — over the past success stories of the century.” 104 Governments usually subsidize up half-century, upsetting crucial seasonal But to the east, the blighted Danube to a third of the consumer cost for water flows. 111 testifies to the damage caused by self- desalinated water because it costs many In parts of the Western United States, ish, beggar-thy-neighbor policies by times more than typical urban water for example, the snowpack is down to the nations along its 1,770-mile course. service. 108 Improved technology and 40 percent of normal. While short-term Efforts to reengineer the river began engineering dropped average desali- climate conditions like El Niño are part- in the 16th century with projects to nation costs from $1.60 per 264 gal- ly to blame, Earth’s predicted warming steer its annual floods into canals or lons in 1990 to about 60 cents in trend is expected to cause dramatic trap them behind huge dams. Histor- newer plants by 2002. But construc- changes in the future. The U.S. De- ically, vast amounts of untreated human tion costs have risen recently due to partment of Energy’s Pacific Northwest wastes and toxic industrial effluents higher steel prices, and operating costs National Laboratory has forecast, for in- were also dumped into the river, a have climbed sharply as energy prices stance, that by century’s end South situation that worsened during the have risen. (Energy costs account for America’s Andes Mountains will have Cold War. Soviet-era bosses had no one-third to more than one-half of lost half of their winter snow cover, scruples about flushing wastes into the expense of desalinating water.) and ranges in Europe and the U.S. West rivers, and Moscow pushed Hungarian The safe disposal of the brine residue nearly half. 112 (See figure, p. 37.) and Czech governments to divert the from desalination remains an envi- “Our main reservoir is snow, and it’s Danube into man-made waterways in ronmental issue that is still not well going away,” says Phillip Mote, a pro- order to speed Russian barge traffic. researched, according to “The World’s fessor of atmospheric sciences at the Parts of the project were begun, but Water” report. 109 University of Washington in Seattle. 113 before it went very far, the Soviet Some experts believe desalination The early melting is seen as an in- Union collapsed. will begin to grow at double-digit rates dication that climate change is already

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 45 LOOMING WATER CRISIS affecting water scarcity. “Some of what’s are 50 to 100 years away,” he said. ing “the potential seriousness of fu- 117 happening with the early snow melts “But it’s not. It’s happening now.” ture climate change impacts if CO2 could be due to variations based on In the American Southwest — as emissions continue to increase sub- ocean circulation,” said Gregg Garfin, in other arid regions of the world — stantially.” 118 project manager of the University of drought is the biggest, most persistent These judgments are still hedged. Arizona’s Institute for the Study of Plan- enemy, but scientists are divided over “It is quite possible that . . . climate et Earth. “But there’s a pretty large how much of the current drought is change may be having an impact on fraction that can’t be explained that due to long-term climate change. droughts, not only in the U.S. but way, and we think that’s due to in- A report by scientists at the Met around the world,” says Michael J. creasing temperatures.” 114 Office Hadley Centre for Climate Pre- Hayes, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. But that’s not clear yet. “I don’t think we can use what is happening today as an argument for climate change. It should open our eyes to the potential impacts that might occur.” Looking further ahead into the century, scientists warn that drought is likely to persist over longer periods, hitting hardest at the world’s most-vulnerable arid regions. 119 A trend toward extreme weather events, ranging from drought and high temperature to violent storms and flooding, is already evident, according to the National Center for Atmospheric Research. 120 Global warming is likely to fuel even more extreme weather, center researchers said. “There’s a two-third’s chance there will be a dis- aster,” says Nobel laureate Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley Na- AP Photo/Reed Saxon Wildfires destroyed hundreds of homes in Malibu, Calif., last October during a tional Laboratory, “and that’s in the severe drought, reigniting the perennial national debate about the best scenario.” 121 folly of building homes in water-scarce areas. The Southwestern United States and other regions appear headed, by The amount of snow melting into diction and Research — Britain’s mid-century, to a condition of per- the Colorado River Basin has declined weather office — cites evidence that manent drought caused by global by 10 to 30 percent over the last 30 rising emissions of greenhouse gases warming, concluded Columbia Uni- years, according to Brad Udall, director have exacerbated drought conditions versity’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Obser- of the University of Colorado’s Western during the past half-century. Green- vatory, after surveying recent studies. Water Assessment. 115 house gases — the carbon dioxide, “[G]lobal warming not only causes Earlier melting has caused unsea- methane, nitrous oxide and ozone water shortage through early snow sonal spring flooding in parts of the produced from burning fossil fuels — melt, which leads to significant water West, 116 while a decade of drought are causing the Earth’s temperature shortage in the summer over the South- has left forests more vulnerable to to rise by helping to trap the sun’s west, but it also aggregates the prob- fires and beetle infestations, said Tom heat, creating a greenhouse effect, ac- lem by reducing precipitation,” said Swetnam, director of the University of cording to the Intergovernmental Panel Mingfang Ting, senior research scien- Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Re- on Climate Change. tist at Lamont-Doherty and co-author search. “Lots of people think climate “Further research is required,” of the survey. 122 change and the ecological responses said the Hadley Centre report, not- Continued on p. 48

46 CQ Global Researcher At Issue:

ShouldYes water be privatized?

TERRY L. ANDERSON WENONAH HAUTER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PERC, SENIOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION FOOD & WATER WATCH

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER FEBRUARY, 2008 FEBRUARY, 2008

o one washes a rental car” is a truism that suggests that n the early 1990s, multinational corporations began to view ownership is crucial to stewardship. We also might say, water services as an important, new profit center — especial- n“No one conserves water” for the same reason — too ily in the United States, where 85 percent of water utilities are often it’s not clear who benefits from conserving water because public. With 1.2 billion people in the developing world lacking ac- it’s unclear who owns the water. As long as water’s cheap, why cess to safe drinking water, the corporations lobbied the World fix the leaky faucet or switch to an efficient irrigation system? Bank to condition its loans for water services on privatization. Making the ownership link is relatively easy, because water Since then, numerous failed ventures have proven that the is already claimed by someone — either a municipality, indi- cost of privatizing water is too high. It was certainly too high vidual farmers or a government agency. for Tanzania, which terminated a 10-year contract with Biwater In practice, however, claims compete with one another, es- after two years of poor management left the government short pecially when water is scarce. Miners and farmers on the $3.25 million and the poorest citizens of Dar es Salaam with- Western frontier in the 19th century devised the prior-appro- out water. Likewise, massive rate hikes and poor management priation system, whereby water owners were allowed to re- led Bolivia to end a 40-year contract with Bechtel after only solve conflicts by moving water to higher-valued uses, and a few months. Similar ventures in Argentina, the Philippines, trades betweenyes farmers have gone on for a century. Indonesia, Southno Africa and the United Kingdom also have The recent drought in the Southeast has raised a red flag proven unworkable. about scarcity. The best mechanism for allocating water is In the United States, many municipalities have considered to clarify ownership among municipal, agricultural, industrial privatization to upgrade their aging systems, but the ventures and environmental users and allow trades. If Atlanta must have been plagued by corruption, high rates, poor service and buy water from lower-valued agricultural users, farmers will public outrage. Atlanta terminated a 20-year contract with Unit- have an incentive to save water and sell it, and municipal ed Water 16 years early due to bungled emergency responses, consumers will face a higher price and thus an incentive to boil-water alerts, discolored water and billing difficulties. In conserve. 2002, a coalition of citizens’ organizations in New Orleans de- Some worry that water markets will put undue burden on feated what would have been the largest water-privatization ini- the poor while the rich continue enjoying their country club tiative in the United States. Meanwhile, residents of Stockton, lawns. But the poor could be issued water stamps, akin to Calif., sued the city for failing to perform a proper environmen- food stamps, for buying water. Or suppliers could charge less tal review of the city’s water-privatization contract. for minimum amounts of water needed for necessities and in- Given this abysmal track record, new solutions are neces- crease the price of water for luxuries. sary to meet water needs. For example, some U.S. cities have When water rights are allocated through political processes, cut costs by improving internal management. Phoenix saved the poor usually do not get many of the initial rights, forcing $77 million by working with a labor management team to op- them to purchase water if they are to get any. And data from timize staffing, organize self-directed work teams and utilize the Chilean water markets suggest that the poor don’t fare new technology. Similarly, San Diego saved $37 million by much better when water is traded on the open market. Per- developing a more cost-conscious management system. haps there should be some guaranteed survival quantity of Safeguarding our water systems is a vital public responsibil- water that is a basic human right. ity. Yet, shockingly, the Environmental Protection Agency esti- The problem is not a failure of water markets, but a failure mates that each year we fall $22 billion short of our water in- of political allocation, which will not be rectified by prevent- frastructure spending needs. To address this funding gap, we ing water markets from delivering water at a profit to all, re- must ensure that public utilities can upgrade and maintain gardless of income. their systems without turning to privatization. As water scarcity increases in the 21st century, water bu- At Food & Water Watch, we support a Clean Water Trust reaucracies will bring more conflict, while water markets will Fund to help ensure that the future of America’s water lies in foster more cooperation. With this choice, it will be impossible publicly accountable management and secure, clean, affordable

to keepNo a good water market down. water for all.

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 47 LOOMING WATER CRISIS

Continued from p. 46 design is to get rid of it as fast as you irrigate parks and golf courses. Illi- can: get it off the roof, off the street, nois, Florida, California, Arizona and Wasted Water into the storm sewers and rush it off Ohio reported the largest increases. into the ocean, never used by any- The U.S. Geological Survey estimated lthough Atlantans worry that falling body.” Extravagant water consumption that the amount of graywater used Alevels in Lake Lanier are jeopardiz- continues in wealthy residential areas more than doubled between the ing their drinking water, they might be and in farming regions where ineffi- 1970s and 1995. 129 surprised to learn that up to 18 percent cient surface and sprinkler irrigation Water conservation also is ex- of the city’s water is being lost through systems waste up to 25 percent of the panding in the construction field. In leaky pipes and wastefulness. 123 In Lon- water they use. 126 Efficient “drip” ir- the United States, Canada, Brazil, don, the mayor asked the Thames Water rigation systems — which deliver India and three-dozen other nations, company to stanch the 238 million gal- water directly onto the crops, reduc- water-saving green architecture for lons per day being lost through old, ing evaporation to only 5 percent — commercial and government build- leaky water pipes rather than build a are used on less than 1 percent of ir- ings is growing in popularity, but the costly desalination plant to purify rigated lands worldwide, largely be- large-scale use of water-conservation Thames River water. Regulators have cause of higher equipment costs. 127 practices by water utilities is still “very rare,” says Vickers. 130 Hirsch says policymakers must rec- ognize that rivers and lakes need sustained flows of water to maintain their long-term environmental viability — “If 12 jumbo jets [full of children] were crashing and their full range of usefulness. Al- every day, the world would want to do something though this movement is “still in its infancy,” at least 70 nations have begun about it. They would want to find out programs to conserve or restore water flows in rivers. 131 For example, a $10 why it was happening.” billion project in Florida aims to restore the natural flow of the Kissim- — U.N. water expert Brian Appleton, mee River, and programs in Australia, Israel, Finland, Thailand, South Africa commenting on the deaths each day of 5,000 children and Zambia would release flood wa- due to lack of access to clean water. ters from dams to move sediments downstream and expand plant and an- imal habitats. “When given a chance, rivers often since approved the project because of But according to Vickers and other heal,” write the Global Water Policy the urgency of the shortages. 124 experts, a conservation ethic is be- Project’s Postel and Brian Richter, a U.S. water systems lose an esti- ginning to emerge, particularly where staff director at the Nature Conservancy, mated 15 percent to 25 percent of water supplies are threatened by in Rivers for Life. 132 their water through leakage, and older drought. For example, aggressive con- or poorly maintained networks around servation strategies in Boston and Al- the world lose more than 40 percent. buquerque, N.M., are reducing sys- However, notes American water con- temwide demand by 25 and 18 percent, OUTLOOK servation consultant Amy L. Vickers, respectively. “A few other systems, such water leakage is “chronically underes- as New York City, have also realized timated, ignored, or treated as a tired substantial water savings and waste- ‘Unsolved Mystery,’ ” by utilities. 125 water volume reductions that have al- Thirst and Hunger In coastal cities, vast amounts of lowed them to avert major infrastruc- rainwater and melting snow are “ba- ture expansions,” Vickers notes. 128 sically lost,” flowing into storm drains In the United States, some states he world’s population, now about that flow out to sea, says the U.S. Ge- have begun requiring cities to use re- T6 billion, is likely to jump by more ological Survey’s Hirsch. “The urban claimed wastewater (“graywater”) to than a third by 2050, reaching nearly

48 CQ Global Researcher 9 billion, according to the U.N. 133 Such a large increase will cause not only thirst but also hunger, says the International Water Management Inst- tute. The average European uses about 13 gallons of water a day for drinking, cooking and sanitation. But the food an individual consumes in a typical day requires 800 to 900 gallons to grow. 134 “The world needs roughly 70 times more water to produce food than it needs for cities,” says Rijsberman, former director of the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka. 135 Since 1950, water withdrawals for

human use have tripled and irrigat- AP Photo/Carlos Osorio ed cropland doubled. Today, despite important increases in farming productivity, 850 million people live in areas where adequate food supplies are at risk — two-thirds of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where the impact of climate change on food production is expected to be worst. 136 The productivity of irrigated cropland has increased dramatically in the past half-century, according to the World Bank. The production of rice and wheat, for instance, increased 100 percent and 160 percent in that period, respectively, with no increase in water use per bushel. “However, in many (river) basins, water productivity remains startlingly low,” the bank National Geographic/Getty Images/James L. Stanfield reports. Without greater agricultural Spraying vs. Dripping productivity or major shifts in farming locations, the amount of water Due to evaporation, irrigation systems like this one in Lakefield Township, Mich. needed for farming will jump 70 to (top), waste up to 25 percent of the water they distribute. More expensive drip 90 percent by 2050, according to the irrigation systems, like this one in Israel (bottom), lose only about 5 percent to assessment. 137 evaporation but are used on less than 1 percent of irrigated lands worldwide. As food requirements continue to rise, the increase in irrigation has global food prices. In addition, in- Should it be priced competitively, slowed as underground water levels dustries and power producers can out- according to its value, like wheat, have begun to recede. Farmers also bid farmers for scarce water. If irri- rice and other food commodities face growing competition for water from gated harvests are cut back through a grown with water? A handful of gov- industry. 138 lack of water or because water is di- ernments have done just that: Chile Rijsberman predicts the average price verted to industrial use, world grain allows landowners with water on or of water used in agriculture world- prices will rise even more. 139 under their property to trade water wide could increase by two to three Policymakers still must resolve a rights to the highest bidders. Mexi- times in the coming decades, inflating major question about water pricing: co, several Australian states and Cal-

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 49 LOOMING WATER CRISIS

ifornia also have water-trading pro- is produced using rainfall, but this 6 Peter H. Gleick, “Time to Rethink Large In- grams. 140 In Texas, the flamboyant sector — dominated by poor rural ternational Water Meetings,” The World’s Water oil trader T. Boone Pickens has created farmers — has traditionally been ig- 2006-2007, Island Press, p. 182; www.world- a company, Mesa Water, to buy nored by food producers and gov- water.org/. 7 water from landowners above the ernments in favor of major irrigation David Molden, ed.; “Summary,” Water for Ogallala aquifer, to sell to water- strategies. Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assess- ment of Water Management in Agriculture, In- short Texas cities. 141 “Upgrading rain-fed areas has high ternational Water Management Institute, p. 10; But many experts think trading water potential both for food production www.iwmi.cgiar.org/assessment/files_new/syn- as a commodity is a non-starter for and for poverty alleviation,” says the thesis/Summary_SynthesisBook.pdf. most governments. “There is no move- International Water Management In- 8 See “Summary, Human Development Re- ment in the real world, with elected stitute. Increasing small-scale rain- port 2006: Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty officials,” says U.S. water-law expert water storage with supplemental ir- and the global water crisis,” United Nations Robert Glennon. “Water pricing is the rigation and better land management Development Programme, p. 26, http:// third rail of water politics.” could produce quick output gains in hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr2006_english_sum- Another option, supported by the these areas. 144 mary.pdf. 9 World Bank and others, is trading If farmers continue to depend on Carmen Revenga, et al., “Executive Sum- “virtual” water. That occurs when a irrigation for 40 percent of their mary, Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Freshwater Systems,” World Resources Insti- country with scarce water or poor water, producing an acceptable diet tute, 2000, pp. 4, 26; www.wri.org/publica- agricultural land concentrates on de- for 2.4 billion more people in the tion/pilot-analysis-global-ecosystems-freshwater- veloping export goods to earn the next 30 years would require another systems. money needed to import food from 20 Nile Rivers or 97 Colorado Rivers, 10 Stacy Shelton, “Lake Lanier hits lowest water-rich nations with productive, says water expert Postel. “It is not at point since its construction,” The Atlanta- low-cost food producers. Such all clear where this water is to come Journal Constitution, Nov. 19, 2007; www. trades, which would require a low- from.” 145 ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/11/ ering of agricultural trade barriers, 19/lanierlowweb_1120.html?cxntlid=home- could bring down food production page_tab_newstab. For background, see costs in water-poor countries and help Mary H. Cooper, “Water Shortages,” CQ Re- reduce global water consumption, Notes searcher, Aug. 1, 2003, pp. 649-672. 11 M. Falkenmark, et al., “On the Verge of a according to a World Bank report. New Water Scarcity: A call for good gover- 1 Charles C. Mann, “The Rise of Big Water,” Wheat grown in India, for example, nance and human ingenuity,” Stockholm In- Vanity Fair, May 2007; Reuters, “China drought consumes four times more water ternational Water Institute (SIWI) Policy Brief, threatens water supply for millions,” March than wheat grown in France. By im- 2007, p. 17. For background, see Colin 28, 2007. porting maize rather than growing it, Woodard, “Curbing Climate Change,” CQ Glob- 2 Xinhua News Agency, “Drought leaves near- Egypt reduces its national water con- al Researcher, February 2007, pp. 27-50. ly 250,000 short of drinking water in Guang- sumption by 5 percent. 142 12 “Water and Terrorism,” The World’s Water dong,” People’s Daily Online, Dec. 13, 2007; 2006-2007, op. cit., p. 1. But importing “virtual” water also http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/632061 13 Environmental Protection Agency, “Water has a downside. “In Morocco, for ex- 7.html. Sentinel Initiative,” www.epa.gov/watersecu- ample, one study showed that while 3 Jonathan Watts, “Dry, Polluted, Plagued by rity/pubs/water_sentinel_factsheet.pdf. the nation as a whole would benefit Rats: The Crisis in China’s Greatest Yangtze 14 Met Office Hadley Centre, “Effects of cli- from agricultural trade liberalization, River,” The Guardian (Britain), Jan. 17, 2008; mate change in developing countries,” No- http://chinaview.wordpress.com/category/en- those benefits would be concentrated vember 2006, pp. 2-3, www.metoffice.gov.uk/re- vironment/drought/. on the urban population; farmers — search/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures/COP12.pdf; 4 Xinhua News Agency, “Climate change particularly poor farmers — stood to Michael McCarthy, “The Century of Drought,” 143 blamed as drought hits 100,000 at China’s lose,” said a World Bank report. The Independent (London), Oct. 4, 2006, p. 1. largest freshwater lake,” People’s Daily On- For that reason, critics of expanded 15 McCarthy, ibid., p. 1. line, Dec. 14, 2007; http://english.people.com. international trade oppose the “virtual” 16 World Water Council. cn/90001/90776/6321329.html. 17 Quoted in “Billions without clean water,” approach. 5 Chris O’Brien, “Global Warming Hits China,” March 14, 2000, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Other advocates call for greater Forbes.com, Jan. 6, 2008; www.forbes.com/ 2/hi/676064.stm. reliance on rain-fed farming. Just over opinions/2008/01/04/poyang-lake-china-oped- 18 David Katz, “Going with the Flow,” The half of the world’s food, by value, cx_cob_0106poyang.html. World’s Water 2006-2007, op. cit., pp. 30-39.

50 CQ Global Researcher 19 Data Table 5, Access to Water Supply and 36 Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert, the Ameri- 53 “Human Development Report,” op. cit., p. Sanitation by Region, The World’s Water can West and its Disappearing Water (1986), 92. 2006-2007, op. cit., p. 258. p. 10. 54 Ibid., p. 179; Ward, op. cit., p. 210. 20 “Synthesis of the 4th World Water 37 Ibid., p. 437. 55 Malcolm Scully, “The Politics of Running Forum,” August 2006, p. 23-24, www.world- 38 Ibid., pp. 10-11; also see Robin Clarke and Out of Water,” The Chronicle of Higher Ed- waterforum4.org.mx/files/report/Synthesisof Jannet King, The Water Atlas (2004). ucation, Nov. 17, 2000. theForum.pdf. For background on Millennium 39 “Approaches to Private Participation in 56 Peter H. Gleick, “Environment and Security,” Development Goals, see www.un.org/millenni- Water Services,” World Bank, 2006, p. 213. The World’s Water 2006-2007, op. cit., p. 189. umgoals and “U.N. Fact Sheet on Water and 40 Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, Com- 57 “Human Development Report,” op. cit., p. 221. Sanitation,” 2006, www.un.org/waterfor- manding Heights: The Battle for the World 58 Benny Morris, Righteous Victims (2001), lifedecade/factsheet.html. Economy (2004). pp. 303-304. 21 “Human Development Report 2006,” op. 41 Juan Forero, “Multinational Is Ousted, but 59 Ward, op. cit., p. 174. cit., p. 8; http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/glob- Local Ills Persist,” The New York Times, Dec. 60 Ibid., p. 85. al/hdr2006/. 15, 2005, p. 1; also, Public Citizen, “Water 61 Ibid., p. 192. 22 Australian Broadcasting Corp., “Issues in Privatization Case Study: Cochabamba, Bo- 62 Undala Alam, letter to the Financial Times, Science and Technology,” transcript, Sept. 22, livia,” pp. 1-2, www.tradewatch.org/docu- April 1, 2006, p. 6. Also see www.trans- 2007. ments/Bolivia_(PDF).PDF; and Bechtel Corp. boundarywaters.orst.edu/publications/related_ 23 Frank Rijsberman, Charlotte Fraiture and statement, “Cochabamba and the Aquas del research/Alam1998.pdf. David Molden, “Water scarcity: the food fac- Tunari Consortium,” www.bechtel.com/as- 63 Gleick, “Environment and Security,” op. cit., tor,” Issues in Science and Technology, June sets/files/PDF/Cochabambafacts0305.pdf. p. 189. 22, 2007. 42 “European environment giant Veolia to 64 Security and the Threat of Climate Change 24 Ibid. increase investment in China to $2.5 billion (2007), CNA Corp., p. 3; http://securityand- 25 Sharon P. Nappier, Robert S. Lawrence, by 2013,” Xinhua News Agency, Nov. 1, climate.cna.org/. Kellogg J. Schwab, “Dangerous Waters,” Nat- 2007. 65 Ibid., p. 20. ural History, November 2007, p. 48. 43 Pinsent Masons Water Yearbook 2007-08, 66 Ibid., p. 22. 26 Marq de Villiers, Water: The Fate of Our p. xii, www.pinsentmasons.com/media/1976 67 “Human Development Report,” op. cit., p. Most Precious Resource (1999), p. 267. 627452.pdf. 216; Clarke and King, op. cit., p. 79. 27 “World hit by water shortage,” Birming- 44 Quoted in Jeff Fleischer, “Blue Gold: An 68 Ibid., p. 47. ham Post, Aug. 21, 2006, p. 10; http://icbirm- Interview with Maude Barlow,” Mother Jones, 69 “Human Development Report,” op. cit., p. ingham.icnetwork.co.uk/birminghampost/new Jan. 14, 2005, www.motherjones.com/news/ 218. s/tm_method=full%26objectid=17597105%26sit qa/2005/01/maude_barlow.html. 70 CNA, op. cit., p. 14. eid=50002-name_page.html. 45 “Economic Failures of Private Water Sys- 71 “Dams and Development: A New Frame- 28 “Water Resources Sector Strategy, Strategic tems,” Food & Water Watch, Dec. 2007, work for Decision Making,” World Commis- Directions for World Bank Engagement,” World www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/waterpri- sion on Dams, Nov. 16, 2000, p. 8; Bank, 2004, p. 5, www-wds.worldbank.org/ex- vatization/usa/Public_vs_Private.pdf. www.dams.org/report/wcd_overview.htm. ternal/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/20 46 Scott Wallsten and Katrina Kosec, “Public 72 Xinhua News Agency, “China’s Grand Canal 04/06/01/000090341_20040601150257/Rendered/ or Private Drinking Water?” AEI-Brookings Queues for World Heritage Status,” July 6, 2004, PDF/28114.pdf. Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, March www.china.org.cn/english/culture/100401.htm. 29 de Villiers, op. cit., pp. 176-177. 2005, pp. 2, 7; www.reg-markets.org/publi- 73 Terry S. Reynolds, Stronger Than a Hun- 30 Frank R. Rijsberman, “1st Asia-Pacific cations/abstract.php?pid=919. dred Men: A History of the Vertical Water Wheel Water Summit,” MaximsNews Network, Oct. 47 Felipe Barrera-Osorio and Mauricio Oliv- (1932), pp. 32, 142. 8, 2007; ww.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/ era, “Does Society Win or Lose as a Result 74 Jill Jonnes, Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, s1716766.htm. of Privatization?” Inter-American Development Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the 31 Diane Raines Ward, Water Wars: Drought, Bank, Research Network Working Paper #R- World (2004). Flood, Folly and the Politics of Thirst (2002), 525, March 2007, p. 19. 75 Revenga, et al., op. cit., p. 12. p. 171. 48 Ibid., p. 21. 76 World Commission on Dams, op. cit., 32 Nappier, et al., op. cit. 49 Ward, op. cit., pp. 206-207. p. 9. 33 “Human Development Report,” op. cit., p. 50 Pinsent Masons Water Yearbook, op. cit., 77 Ibid., p. ii. 176. Also see Meena Palaniappan, Emily Lee p. 3. 78 Ward, op. cit., p. 51. and Andrea Samulon, “Environmental Justice 51 Ibid., p. 5. 79 Ibid., p. 46. and Water,” The World’s Water 2006-2007, 52 Paul Constance, “The Day that Water Ran 80 Lin Yang, “China’s Three Gorges’ Dam op. cit., p. 125. Uphill,” IDB America, Inter-American Devel- Under Fire,” Time, Oct. 12, 2007, www.time. 34 “Human Development Report,” ibid. opment Bank, Dec. 9, 2007, www.iadb.org/id- com/time/world/article/0,8599,1671000,00.html. 35 Palaniappan, et al., op. cit. bamerica/index.cfm?thisid=3909&lanid=1. Also see Bruce Kennedy, “China’s Three

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 51 LOOMING WATER CRISIS

Gorges Dam,” CNN.com, 2001, www.cnn.com/ 101 Ibid., p. 30, citing Frances Bell and Robert 114 Shaun McKinnon, “Southwest Could Be- SPECIALS/1999/china.50/asian.superpower/three. Millward, “Public Health Expenditures and come Dust Bowl, Study Warns,” The Arizona gorges/. Mortality in England and Wales, 1870-1914,” Republic, April 6, 2007, p. 1; www.azcen- 81 Jonathan Watts, “Three Georges Dam risk pp. 221-249. tral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0406cli- to environment, says China,” The Guardian, 102 Palaniappan, et al., op. cit., p. 131, citing mate-report0406.html. Sept. 27, 2007. the World Water Council, “Financing Water 115 Bontrager, op. cit. 82 Xinhua Financial News, “Chinese Govern- for All,” Global Water Partnership, March 116 Ibid. ment Fights Back in Defense of Three Gorges 2004. 117 Shaun McKinnon, “Snow runoff: What’s Dam,” Nov. 27, 2007; Jim Yardley, “China 103 Ibid., p. 139. at Stake,” The Arizona Republic, Nov. 25, vigorously defends the Three Gorges Dam 104 de Villiers, op. cit., p 171. 2007, p. 8; and Stephen Saunders and Mau- project,” The International Herald Tribune, 105 Ibid., pp. 172-177. reen Maxwell, “Less Snow, Less Water: Cli- Nov. 28, 2007, p. 3. 106 Ibid., p. 174; “Human Development Report,” mate Disruption in the West,” The Rocky 83 Revenga, et al., op. cit., p. 28. op. cit., p. 219; “Future Danube Flood Actions Mountain Climate Organization, September 84 “Synthesis of the 4th World Water Forum,” Depend On International Cooperation,” Com- 2005, pp. 2, 9, 19, www.rockymountaincli- op. cit. mission for the Protection of the Danube, April mate.org/website%20pictures/Less%20Snow%2 85 Ward, op. cit., p. 47. 21, 2006; www.icpdr.org/icpdr- 0Less%20Water.pdf. 86 Ibid., p. 187. pages/pr20060421_danube_flood.htm. For back- 118 “UK Government: Global drought in the 87 de Villiers, op. cit., p. 59. Also see “Is- ground, see Brian Beary, “The New Europe,” 21st century,” M2 Presswire, Oct. 26, 2006; lamic Water Management and the Dublin CQ Global Researcher, August, 2007. www.continuitycentral.com/news02870.htm. Statement,” The International Development 107 Peter H. Gleick, Heather Cooley, Gary 119 “Fourth Assessment Report — Climate Change Research Center, Canada, www.idrc.ca/en/ev- Wolff, “With a Grain of Salt: An Update on 2007: Synthesis Report, Summary for Policy- 93949-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html. Seawater Desalination,” The World’s Water makers,” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 88 Katz, op. cit., p. 37. 2006-2007, op. cit., p. 55. Change, Nov. 17, 2007, p. 8; www.ipcc.ch/pdf/as- 89 Robert Glennon, Water Follies: Ground- 108 Ibid., pp. 68-70. sessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf. water Pumping and the Fate of America’s 109 Ibid., pp. 78-79. 120 Claudie Tebaldi, Katharine Hayhoe, Julie M. Fresh Waters (2002), p. 16. 110 Ibid., p. 161. General Electric Co. pro- Arblaster and Gerald A. Meehle, “Going to Ex- 90 Ibid., p. 14. jects an annual growth rate of 9 to 14 per- tremes,” Institute for the Study of Society and 91 “Human Development Report,” op. cit., p. cent, growing from $4.3 billion in annual Environment, National Center for Atmospheric 185. desalination expenditures in 2005 to $14 bil- Research, 2006, p. 22; www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/pub- 92 Ibid., p. 214. lion in 2014. lications/tebaldi_extremes.pdf. 93 Ward, op. cit., p. 188. 111 P. W. Mote, et al., “Declining Mountain 121 Jon Gertner, “The Future is Drying Up,” New 94 Sandra Postel and Brian Richter, Rivers for Snowpack in Western North America,” Bulletin York Times Magazine, Oct. 21, 2007; www.ny- Life, Managing Water for People and Nature of the American Meteorological Society 86, times.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html? (2003), p. 168. January 2005, pp. 49-48. _r=1&oref=slogin. 95 “Human Development Report,” op. cit., 112 “New Century of Thirst for World’s Moun- 122 “New Study Shows Climate Change Likely p. 103. tains,” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, May to Lead to Periods of Extreme Drought in South- 96 Ibid., p. 37. 18, 2006, www.pnl.gov/news/release.asp?id=158. west North America,” Lamont-Doherty Earth 97 Ibid., p. 42. 113 Eric Bontrager, “West will need to revisit Observatory, April 6, 2007, www.ldeo.colum- 98 Ibid., pp. 45-46. water, land management in light of global warm- bia.edu/news-events/new-study-shows-climate- 99 Ibid., p. 33. ing, experts say,” Land Letter, Sept. 28. 2006; change-likely-lead-periods-extreme-drought- 100 Ibid., p. 29. www.eenews.net/ll/ (subscription required). southwest-north-ameri. 123 “A Review of Water Conservation Plan- ning for the Atlanta, Georgia Region, August About the Author 2006, prepared for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection,” Pacific Institute, Washington freelancer writer Peter Behr worked for more p. 23, www.pacinst.org/reports/atlanta/at- than 25 years at The Washington Post, where he reported lanta_analysis.pdf. on energy issues and served as business editor. A former 124 “Report to the Secretaries of State for Com- Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Behr worked at the munities and Local Government and Food and Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars and is now writing Rural Affairs,” The Planning Inspectorate, Sept. a book about the U.S. electric power grid. His report on 29, 2006, p. 7-8, www.communities.gov.uk/doc- “Energy Nationalism” appeared in the July 2007 issue. uments/planningandbuilding/pdf/319931, and www.thameswater.co.uk/UK/region/en_gb/

52 CQ Global Researcher content/News/News_001394.jsp?SECT=Section _Homepage_000431. 125 Amy L. Vickers, “The Future of Water Con- FOR MORE INFORMATION servation: Challenges Ahead,” The Universities The CNA Corp., 4825 Mark Center Drive, Alexandria, VA 22311; (703) 824-2000; Council on Water Resources (UCOWR), p. 52, www.cna.org. A nonprofit research organization that operates the Center for Naval www.ucowr.siu.edu/updates/pdf/V114_A8.pdf. Analyses and the Institute for Public Research, concentrating on security, defense Also see Marcia Clemmitt, “Aging Infrastructure,” and other government-policy issues. CQ Researcher, Sept. 28, 2007, pp. 793-816. 126 Clarke and King, op. cit., p. 87. Food and Water Watch, 1616 P St., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036; (202) 127 “Re-engaging in Agricultural Water Man- 683-2500; www.foodandwaterwatch.org. A liberal research and advocacy organization agement — Challenges and Options,” The focused on water resources, food security, sanitation and globalization issues. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2006, p. 3, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, C/O World Meteorological Or- web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOP- ganization, 7bis Avenue de la Paix, C.P. 2300, CH-1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland; ICS/EXTARD/0,,contentMDK:20858509~pageP 41-22-730-8208/84; www.ipcc.ch. Intergovernmental research body. K:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:336682,00. html. International Water Management Institute, 127, Sunil Mawatha, Pelawatte, 128 Vickers, op. cit., p. 52. Battaramulla, Colombo, Sri Lanka; 94-11 2880000, 2784080; www.iwmi.cgiar.org. 129 Harriet Emerson and Mohamed Lahlou, Research group supported by 60 governments, private foundations and interna- “Conservation: It’s the Future of Water,” Na- tional organizations. tional Drinking Water Clearinghouse, www.nesc.wvu.edu/ndwc/ndwc_conservarti- The Met Office Hadley Centre, Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, EX1 3PB, United Kingdom; 44 (0)1392 885680; www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadley- clesetc.htm/harrietarticle.html. centre. Britain’s official center for climate-change research. 130 “Fact Sheet,” U.S. Green Building Council, www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID= Pacific Institute, 654 13th St., Preservation Park, Oakland, CA 94612; (510) 251-1600; 222. www.pacinst.org. A nonpartisan think tank studying development, environment and 131 Katz, op. cit., p. 32. security issues. 132 Postel and Richter, op. cit., p. 201. 133 “World Population Prospects,” U.N. De- Property and Environment Research Center, 2048 Analysis Dr., Suite A, Bozeman, partment of Economic and Social Affairs, 2006, MT 59718; (406) 587-9591; www.perc.org. A pro-market research and advocacy group. http://esa.un.org/unpp/. 134 Molden, op. cit., p. 1; Birmingham Post, Public Citizen, 1600 20th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20009; (202) 588-1000; op. cit., p. 10. www.citizen.org. A liberal consumer-advocacy group. 135 Quoted in Kerry O’Brien, “Water scarcity ‘due to agriculture,’ ” Australian Broadcast- Stockholm International Water Institute, Drottninggatan 33, SE — 111 51 ing Corp. Transcripts, Aug. 16, 2006; www.abc. Stockholm, Sweden; 46 8 522 139 60; www.siwi.org. A research organization net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1716766.htm. affiliated with the Swedish government. 136 Molden, op. cit., pp. 7-8. 137 Ibid., p. 14. U.N. Human Development Office, 304 E. 45th St., 12th Floor, New York, NY 138 “Re-engaging in Agricultural Water Manage- 10017; (212) 906-3661; hdr.undp.org/en/humandev. Publishes an annual report ment,” op. cit., p. 38. on health, economic and other social conditions. 139 Rijsberman, op. cit. 140 Postel and Richter, op. cit., pp. 112-117. U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Dr., Reston, VA 20192; (888) 275- 141 Jim Getz, “Kaufman County won’t vote on 8747; www.usgs.gov. The government’s mapping agency and research center on water resources, geology, natural hazards and other physical sciences. Pickens’ freshwater district: But Roberts County calls election on Pickens’ pitch for freshwater World Bank, 1818 H St., N.W., Washington, DC 20433; (202) 473-1000; www.world- district,” The Dallas Morning News, Sept. 5, 2007. bank.org. Provides technical and financial assistance to developing countries. 142 “Re-engaging in Agricultural Water Manage- ment,” op. cit., p. 102. 143 World Water Council, Espace Gaymard, 2-4 place d’Arvieux, 13002 Marseille, Ibid., p 103. France; 33 491 994100; www.worldwatercouncil.org. An international research and 144 International Water Management Institute, advocacy group of government and international agency officials, academics and op. cit., p. 10. corporate executives; sponsors World Water Forum every three years. 145 de Villiers, op. cit., p 24.

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 53 Bibliography Selected Sources

Books bank.org/ecommerce/catalog/product?item_id=4085442. The world’s major foreign-aid lender provides lessons learned Clarke, Robin, and Jannet King, The Water Atlas, The from water-privatization efforts. New Press, 2004. Editors at the World Meteorological Organization present a “Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water visual primer on water scarcity, sanitation shortfalls and climate crisis,” United Nations Development Programme, U.N. impact on water resources. Human Development Report 2006, http://hdr.undp. org/en/reports/global/hdr2006. de Villiers, Marq, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious This detailed review of worldwide water and sanitation Resource, Stoddard Publishing Co., 1999. challenges includes case studies of successes and failures. A Canadian journalist provides a global overview of challenges confronting the world’s water supplies. “Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture: Water for Food, Water for Life,” International Glennon, Robert, Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and Water Management Institute, 2006, www.fao.org/nr/water/ the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters, Island Press, 2002. docs/Summary_SynthesisBook.pdf. An attorney and water-policy expert advocates new policies A consulting group based in Sri Lanka reports on the impact to preserve Western U.S. aquifers. of water scarcity on global irrigation and food production.

Olivera, Oscar, Cochabamba! Water Rebellion in Bolivia, “Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision South End Press, 2004. Making,” World Commission on Dams, 2000, www.dams. The leader of the Bolivian protest against water privatization org/report. gives his side of the conflict. Water experts, educators and government officials assess issues surrounding major dam construction and operations. Postel, Sandra, and Brian Richter, Rivers for Life, Man- aging Water for People and Nature, Island Press, 2003. “IPCC Fourth Assessment Report,” Intergovernmental Experts at the Global Water Policy Project in Massachusetts Panel on Climate Change, 2007, www.ipcc.ch/ipccre- (Postel) and The Nature Conservancy (Richter) chronicle the cam- ports/ar4-syr.htm. paign to restore environmental conditions in threatened rivers. A scientific panel sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme Reisner, Marc, Cadillac Desert, the American West and issues its most recent outlook on climate change threats. Its Disappearing Water, Penguin Books, 1986. This award-winning classic by a former Natural Resources “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,” CNA Defense Council expert critiques federal land and irrigation Corp., December 2007, http://securityandclimate.cna.org/re- policies and their impact on water use in the West. port/. A panel of retired U.S. generals and admirals forecasts security Ward, Diane Raines, Water Wars: Drought, Flood, Folly issues that will emerge as a result of climate change. and the Politics of Thirst, Riverhead Books, 2002. An environmental writer reviews controversial global policies “Synthesis of the 4th World Water Forum, Mexico City,” affecting dams, water treaties and other water-resource issues. World Water Council, 2006, www.worldwatercouncil. org/index.php?id=1386. Articles An international committee presents a summary of its fourth conference on water-resources issues. Mann, Charles C., “The Rise of Big Water,” Vanity Fair, May 2007. Gleick, Peter H., et al., “The World’s Water 2006-2007, The A correspondent for Science and The Atlantic Monthly ex- Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources,” The Pacific In- plores the controversy over privatization programs for water stitute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Secu- and sanitation worldwide. rity, 2006, www.pacinst.org/publications/worlds_water/2006- 2007/index.htm. Reports and Studies The institute’s latest review of global water-resource issues includes chronologies of water conflicts and analyses of “Approaches to Private Participation in Water Services: A strategies for sustainable freshwater resource management. Tool Kit,” The World Bank, 2006, http://publications.world-

54 CQ Global Researcher The Next Step: Additional Articles from Current Periodicals

Conflicts Sasa, Mabasa, “Privatisation of Water Not the Answer,” The Herald (Zimbabwe), Dec. 29, 2007. “Climate Change Will Cause New Wars — UN,” Canberra Privatizing water supplies will mean corporations report to Times, June 22, 2007. the World Bank rather than to state governments. Changing patterns of rainfall and fights over food production could lead to potential conflicts in Africa’s Sahel region Seno, Alexandra A., “Very Liquid Assets,” Newsweek, and in East Asia, according to U.N. Environment Programme Aug. 20, 2007. Executive Director Achim Steiner. Savvy asset-management companies have turned concerns over water shortage into burgeoning investment-fund businesses. “Managing the Water Wars of the Future,” Indian Express, May 12, 2007. Wallach, Jason, “Privatizing Water and the Criminalization Overcoming the environmental and political difficulties of water of Protest,” NACLA News (New York), July 24, 2007. scarcity will help manage the conflicts stemming from a lack Despite corruption in El Salvador’s government, citizens want the of access to clean and safe water. water system to be under state control rather than in private hands.

“Water is Running Out: How Inevitable Are International Water Supply Conflicts?” Integrated Regional Information Networks (United Nations), Oct. 23, 2006. Doyle, Alister, “Increasing Agricultural Use a Drain on World Water resources are decreasing amid a growing world pop- Water Supply,” The Washington Post, Aug. 21, 2006, p. A2. ulation and increasing water consumption, making water- Rising demand for irrigation in the production of food and related conflicts inevitable. biofuels will likely aggravate water scarcity.

Baldauf, Scott, “Climate Change Escalates Darfur Crisis,” Fan, Grace, “Abundant Water Makes Brazil Last Agriculture The Christian Science Monitor, July 27, 2007, p. 1. Frontier, as Scarcity Looms in Rest of World,” The As- Competition for water in Sudan’s Darfur region has long sociated Press, Aug. 24, 2006. sparked conflict in the area, and is one of the main causes Abundant freshwater will help Brazil dominate global food of the current fighting. supplies for the next several decades while water scarcity threatens the economies of other countries. Moving Water Girma, Biruk, “Poverty, Not Scarcity, to Blame for Lack “Bangladesh, India to Hold Talks on Sharing River Water,” of Water, Poor Sanitation — Report,” Daily Monitor PTI News Agency (India), July 20, 2007. (Ethiopia), Nov. 14, 2006. India and Bangladesh are expected to discuss water-sharing Millions of people lack access to safe water and sanitation and diversion issues involving eight major trans-boundary rivers. due to inequality and poverty, according to the U.N.

“China, Spain Vow to Strengthen Water Resources Utiliza- CITING CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER tion Cooperation,” Xinhua News Agency (China), Oct. 14, Sample formats for citing these reports in a bibliography 2007. Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu has promised to strengthen include the ones listed below. Preferred styles and formats bilateral cooperation with Spain over water resources. vary, so please check with your instructor or professor.

Jones, Tim, “Great Lakes Key Front in Water Wars,” MLA STYLE Chicago Tribune, Oct. 28, 2007, p. A1. Flamini, Roland. “Nuclear Proliferation.” CQ Global Re- Eight Great Lakes-area states and two Canadian provinces searcher 1 Apr. 2007: 1-24. have proposed a regional water compact that would prevent water diversions from the immediate region. APA STYLE Privatization Flamini, R. (2007, April 1). Nuclear proliferation. CQ Global Researcher, 1, 1-24. Mitra, Barun, “Water Scarcity in Plenty,” Business Day CHICAGO STYLE (South Africa), March 23, 2006. Government intervention has contributed significantly to Flamini, Roland. “Nuclear Proliferation.” CQ Global Re- water scarcity, while private initiatives have sustained local searcher, April 1, 2007, 1-24. markets and improved access for millions.

Available online: www.globalresearcher.com February 2008 55 Voices From Abroad:

LOIC FAUCHON KRISTA HANSON MUHAMMAD SAEED tion are not only about hy- giene and disease, they’re President, Program Director, Com- AL-KINDI about dignity, too. Reliev- World Water Council mittee in Solidarity with Minister of Environment ing yourself in hazardous the People of El Salvador and Water, United Arab places means risking everything from urological dis- Privatization con- Emirates tributes to exodus Privatization increases ease to harassment and “A lot of poor people are rape. Many examples show rates Droughts are shifting leaving their countries to go “If we take the electrici- that self-esteem begins with to rich countries. Isn’t it prefer- the focus having a safe and proper ty sector and telecommuni- “The concern has recently able, isn’t it cheaper, to pay cations as guides, privatiza- toilet facility.” so that these people have taken a greater importance with tion has meant higher rates, Speech at U.N. International water, sewage [treatment] and the increased frequency and lower quality, less access and Year of Sanitation global energy . . . [so they can] stay prolonged periods of drought less sovereign control over launch, November 2007 in their own countries?” being experienced worldwide. public services.” Consequently, this century will The Associated Press, March NACLA News (New York), July see a greater emphasis being FRANK RIJSBERMAN 2006 2007 placed on desalinated water Director General, and the re-use of treated International Water FADEL KAWASH ABEL MAMANI water, and the extent to which Head, Palestinian these important resources will Management Institute Minister of Water, Bolivia contribute to the overall sup- Water Authority ply of water globally.” Old models won’t work Water: an inalienable Agence France-Presse, April 2007 “The last 50 years of water Justice provides water right management practices are to all “Access to fresh drinking no model for the future “In the Middle East, water water for everyone, in all our PRINCE WILLEM- when it comes to dealing is a political issue. Israel’s countries, is a fundamental ALEXANDER OF THE with water scarcity. We occupation of the West Bank right. For us, water is life. Es- NETHERLANDS need radical change in the . . . presents a major obsta- tablishing a right to water, institutions and organizations cle to development projects therefore is another way of Chairman, U.N. Advisory responsible for managing our especially in the water sec- recognising the right to life Board on Water and earth’s water supplies and a tor. There is enough water already enshrined by the Sanitation vastly different way of in the West Bank if there is United Nations. Recognise thinking about water man- justice and sharing.” water as a human right!” Proper sanitation im- agement.” Agence France-Presse, March World Water Assembly, Brussels, proves dignity The Associated Press, August 2006 March 2007 “Clean water and sanita- 2006 BAN KI-MOON CAROLINE SAINT-MLEUX Secretary General, Head, Care International, United Nations Iriba, Chad

Water is crucial to all Water can help Darfur problems “You have to have the war- “Safe drinking water and ring parties talk about a com- adequate sanitation are cru- mon need, and after that you cial for poverty reduction, cru- might have them talk about cial for sustainable develop- something else that would ment, and crucial for achieving start giving other solutions to any and every one of the Mil- the conflict.” lennium Development Goals.” The Christian Science Monitor, Speech at opening of U.N. water July 2007 Olle Johansson/Sweden exhibit, New York, October 2007