Sunday, March 9, 1997

Report Finds World Water Supplies Dwindling While Demand Rises; World Food Production, Health, and Environment at Risk

WASHINGTON, D.C.--A new report released today by a leading international research organization warns that water scarcity will become one of the world's main obstacles to feeding the world unless urgently needed policy reforms are made. The report by the Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute states that water supplies are dwindling in country after country because of wasteful water use, groundwater depletion, and pollution, while demand for water is way up. Between 1950 and 1990, the report says, water use increased by more than 100 percent in North and South America, by more than 300 percent in Africa, and by almost 500 percent in Europe.

According to the report, Water Resources in the Twenty-First Century: Challenges and Implications for Action, "New strategies are urgently needed to avert severe national, regional, and local [water] scarcities that will depress agricultural production, parch the household and industrial sectors, damage the environment, and escalate water-related health problems." The report, a survey of the latest research on international water issues from the North China Plain to the Ogallala Aquifer in the central United States, was published as part of IFPRI's 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment initiative.

"Since ancient times, people have regarded water as a gift from the gods," said Mark Rosegrant, research fellow at IFPRI and author of the report. "But in many areas now, water scarcity is emerging as the main obstacle to producing enough food to feed people. Supplies cannot keep up with rising demand. We must conserve water by putting a halt to water waste, while at the same time developing new, environmentally safe sources of water. Governments, businesses, farmers, and consumers must treat water not as a free good, as they often do now, but rather as a scarce resource that comes at a price."

The number of countries experiencing "water stress" will double in the next 30 years, and the number of people affected by water scarcity will increase 10-fold, according to Rosegrant. "Water shortages are only going to get worse in the next 30 years. Unless better water policies are adopted internationally, we may see large-scale conflicts and catastrophes resulting from water shortages."

According to water experts, countries that are "water stressed" have freshwater resources that fall in the range of 1,000-1,600 cubic meters per person per year and experience severe shortages in drought years. Countries that are "water scarce" have freshwater resources of less than 1,000 cubic meters per person, and lack of water can impede their development.

Irreversible Groundwater Depletion and Pollution

"The world's water supply faces a number of important challenges," said Rosegrant, "not the least of which is depletion of the earth's groundwater and contamination of drinking water. In the United States alone, the equivalent of 10 million acres is watered by pumping groundwater faster than aquifers can recharge themselves."

According to the report, in parts of the North China Plain, groundwater levels are falling by as much as 1 meter per year, and heavy pumping in portions of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have been estimated to reduce water levels by as much as 25-30 meters in a decade. Mu'ammar Gadhafi's "man-made river" project to pump fossil water to the Libyan coastal region from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer could deplete groundwater reserves not only in Libya but in Egypt and Sudan as well.

Pollution of water, a persistent problem worldwide, both causes and spreads disease and depletes available clean water. According to the report, 1 billion people live without clean drinking water and 1.7 billion people have inadequate sanitation facilities. In India only 8 of 3,119 towns fully treat their sewage, and only 209 towns partially treat their sewage. The untreated sewage is carried away by India's rivers, which often have astronomical coliform counts. The Yamuna River leaving New Delhi receives 200 million liters of untreated sewage per day and has coliform counts of 25 million organisms per 100 milliliters--the safe level for drinking water is 100 organisms per 100 milliliters.

How Much Water Is Left?

According to the report, current global water use runs at about 4,500 cubic kilometers a year, while the reliable water runoff available annually is estimated at two to three times that amount: 9,000-14,000 cubic kilometers, not counting water in the oceans, locked in glaciers and icebergs, and lost to floods and evaporation. "Available water would certainly be adequate to meet growth in demand for water for the foreseeable future if supplies were distributed equally across the world's population," said Rosegrant. "But supplies across countries are uneven."

The regions with the greatest water wealth are Latin America and North America, while Africa, Asia, and Europe have far less water available. The United States has 9,900 cubic meters per person annually, Canada has 120,000 cubic meters, Kenya has 600 cubic meters, and Jordan has only 300 cubic meters. Furthermore, water is poorly distributed within countries. For example, although India has adequate average water availability of 2,500 cubic meters per person annually, the state of Rajasthan has access to only 550 cubic meters per person every year.

Water Waste

"But the single most important force behind water scarcity is poor water policies," said Rosegrant. "The end result of these policies--such as water subsidies--is that millions of gallons of water go down the drain unused each day."

The report says that in developing countries irrigation water is essentially unpriced, and in urban areas the price of water does not cover the cost of delivery. In most countries, water subsidies go disproportionately to the better-off--urbanites with access to the public water system and rural farmers with access to irrigation. Poor consumers who must rely on water vendors often pay 20 times or more the amount paid by better-off consumers and irrigated farmers.

According to the report, annual irrigation subsidies range from $0.6 billion in Pakistan to $1.2 billion in India and $5.0 billion in Egypt. In major metropolitan areas in developing countries, "unaccounted-for water," most of which is water that goes down the drain, is often 50 percent or more.

"With water provided by public systems at little or no cost to the user, no one in the water system, whether they are water managers, farmers who use irrigation, or urban water consumers, has an incentive to conserve water," said Rosegrant. "As a result, water is used to excess in all purposes, leading to inefficient farming decisions, waterlogging, salinization, groundwater overdrafting, and return flows degraded by agricultural chemicals and industrial pollutants."

To improve the "efficiency" of water use, the report calls for "reform of the institutional and legal environment [to] empower water users to make their own decisions regarding use of the resource, while at the same time providing a structure that reveals the real scarcity value of water. Key elements of these reforms include establishment of secure water rights of users, decentralization and privatization of water management functions, and . . . use of incentives including markets in tradable property rights, pricing reform and reduction in subsidies."

The report highlights the increasing price tag of exploiting new sources of water but states that the huge demand for water will require careful exploitation of new water resources, through both the building of new dams to harness surface water and the sustainable exploitation of groundwater.

"Unconventional sources of water, often touted as a panacea, will not make a significant contribution to water supplies in the foreseeable future," said Rosegrant. "Desalting of sea water is too costly for all but the wealthiest water-scarce countries, and wastewater reuse in agriculture and water harvesting--the systematic capturing of rainfall or floodwater--will be practical only in isolated microenvironments."

Diverting Water from Agriculture

According the report, agriculture is by far the biggest user of water, accounting for more than 70 percent of total water consumption worldwide and more than 90 percent of water consumption in poor developing countries.

"The high cost of developing new sources of water will require water to be diverted from agriculture for industrial and domestic uses," said Rosegrant. "The challenge will be to maintain crop productivity at the same time. Nearly two-thirds of the world's rice and wheat are grown on irrigated land, and future growth will rely heavily on the use of irrigation water. Excessive transfers of water from agriculture would threaten food security. Water savings in agriculture must be accompanied by improved efficiency in urban and industrial water use.

"The potential for generating water savings from better conservation of water from existing sources seems to be considerable, but tough political, institutional, and technical obstacles must be overcome" continued Rosegrant. "Solutions for individual countries will require doing important research, such as analysis of specific river basins."

The report examines the prospects for armed conflict over water and suggests guidelines for defusing conflict. "When countries clash over water, the prospect of war has historically moved them toward agreement," said Rosegrant. "The most effective way to keep tension over water in check is for countries to conserve water domestically. Domestic and international water policy are closely intertwined. So the first step is for countries to begin the painful process of reforming water policies and treating water as a scarce resource."

Under Rosegrant's direction, IFPRI, in collaboration with the International Irrigation Management Institute based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, is conducting a two-year study to examine the impact of water scarcity on global food security in the twenty-first century. The project will also develop in more detail strategies for reforming water policies to ensure growth in food production while meeting the demands for water for human consumption and industrial growth.

IFPRI was established in 1975 to identify and analyze policies for sustainably meeting the food needs of the developing world. IFPRI is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, an informal association of some 50 countries, international and regional organizations, and foundations that support sustainable improvements in agricultural productivity through research centers around the world.