Water Spouts will speak volubly and endlessly about all the issues concerning water. The ongoing degradation, and growing scarcity, of the water supply here in the US, and the rest of the world. The continued absence of potable water in so many parts of the world. The work being done by NGOs, and charities, in the third world, to help alleviate the situation. The emphasis on WASH ( Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene ) so health and healthy water are maintained. "Water Spouts" will spout it all out.
Water, water, every where/Nor any drop to drink. This is verse from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner seems like a prelude to the water sharing problems dogging the world. The long poem’s reflection, particularly ebbing in the Cauvery issue is now at its peak, like it does every summer.
The Cauvery water sharing dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu is one of the many water disputes in India and the world. The other two parties in this dispute are Kerala and Pondicherry. Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka are caught in a triangle over the sharing of Krishna waters.
The same states along with Madhya Pradesh and Orissa dispute over the Godavari waters. The Ravi-Beas dispute is between Punjab and Haryana, two agricultural surplus states that provide large quantities of grains to the rest of India.
Narmada River is the bone of contention between Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Similar water sharing issues bubble at the Mahadayi and Vasandhara rivers too. Dispute settling mechanisms like Acts and Tribunals, methods of resolution including political interference and constitutional provisions applied during negotiations have so far yielded partial or no results in resolving water disputes.
Declaration of water as a national property might settle inter-state water squabbles. What about the same issue of water sharing between countries?
Water systems usually arise in one country and pass through others before reaching the sea or oceans. Rivers and lakes that come off these larger water systems are typically shared by more than one country. The states where these systems originated tend to try and gain the most control over the water, like the Nile and the Jordan River.
Chinese efforts to divert water resources of the Brahmaputra away from India, has worsened situations that have remained tense since the 1962 Indo-China war.
Israel and Palestine have a traditional history of fighting over water — conflicts over the Tigris and Euphrates. Some experts believe the only documented case of a ‘water war’ happened about 4,500 years ago, when the city-states of Lagash and Umma went to war in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.
There is tension between India and Pakistan over hydroelectric projects in Leh and Kargil, which will affect the flow of water from the Indus and Suru rivers.
India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers. Despite setting up a Joint River Commission for water management in 1972, tension between the two countries on how to share resources recently came to a head in a dispute over the Teetsa River.Whether in South Asian countries or between Middle East provinces, water issues hold up peace talks and pose graver conflicts.
In March 2012, a classified US report listed India’s three major river basins — Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra — among the top 10 world water conflict zones in ten years from now. “Beyond 2022, use of water as a weapon of war or a tool of terrorism will become more likely, particularly in South Asia (India), the Middle East and North Africa,” the report based on National Intelligence Estimate on Water Security stated.
A new of genre of water journalists address the delicate issue of corruption in the water sector and sustainable practices for water conservation, particularly in countries like West Africa.
“Water too often is treated as a commodity, as an instrument with which one population group can suppress another,” according to Ignacio Saiz, Centre for Economic and
Social Rights.
Solution to water conflict and ultimate co-operation between warring segments is required as water is projected to become scarce and amicable trans-boundary water distribution will also address issues of global warming and climate change at the higher level.
Otherwise, water will remain a powerful weapon of mass conflict to settle other bubbly episodes, outside the purview of environmental issues and the natural resource will never be considered as the world’s water!
Mark Twain’s quote of “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over,” does not seem to be exaggerated, despite Twain’s biographer debating the authenticity of this scholarly certitude.
Despite the prevailing calm along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh since the end of India-China war in 1962, anxiety still prevails among the people of Arunachal. However, the apprehension is not about another impending war, but this time it is about the dam-building spree on both sides of the LAC. While over 100 large and small hydroelectric projects were being planned in almost all the tributaries of Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh, it is believed that China also has similar plans on the river which originates from Jima Yangzong glacier of Mount Kailash in Tibet. Brahmaputra in Tibet is called Yarlung Tsangpo. China had earlier announced construction of a 1.2 billion dollar run-of-the-river hydroelectric power project known as Zangmu dam on Yarlung Tsangpo. Strategic analysts here said that as China has plan to exploit the water resources of Yarlung Tsangpo in a big way, India needs to be well-prepared to assert its rights over Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh. "Water of Brahmaputra remains a major concern for India and China. To my view the future dispute between the two countries will be on water. Both the countries should sort out the differences on exploiting water resources amicably before the dispute reaches a flashpoint," said Ashokanand Singhal, president of Jana Jagriti, a Guwahati-based NGO spearheading against China's hydro-projects on Yarlung Tsangpo. Last year Jana Jagriti came out with coordinates and maps of China's purported plan to construct hydroelectric projects and water reservoirs on the river. Singhal is a votary of India's plan to tap water resources of Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh, saying that the country needs to establish user rights over the river before China goes full steam ahead. Of the 100-odd projects in Arunachal Pradesh, 13 are planned in Tawang alone, the birthplace of VIth Dalai Lama. China claims Tawang as southern extension of Tibet. People of Tawang, who predominantly belong to Monpa tribe, have opposed the hydroelectric project as they claimed many of the projects were located in Buddhist sacred sites. Save Mon Region Federation (SMRF), a Tawang-based NGO, said that the discontent caused by the proposed projects would only benefit China which has not yet given up its claim over Tawang. Even as China denied any plan to divert water from Yarlung Tsangpo last year, strategic analysts here are of the view that India should go ahead with hydroelectric project constructions in Brahmaputra's major tributaries to counter China's similar move. They said that the hydroelectric dams on Brahmaputra tributaries should be looked as strategic projects. In 2010, during a public consultation on dams here, the former environment minister Jairam Ramesh said that construction of dams in major tributaries of Brahmaputra is necessary for India to have a "negotiating position" with China. timesofindia.com
The world is on the verge of the greatest crisis it has ever faced. Worsening water security will have irreversible consequences on ecosystems, livelihoods and the global economic system.
The ever-expanding water demand by the world's growing population and economy has made water scarcity a reality in many parts of the world. We are witnessing severe damage to livelihoods, human health, and ecosystems.
It is predicted by most accounts that by 2013, global water requirements would increase by 40% above current accessible and reliable supply.
In the next two decades, global demand for fresh water will vastly outstrip reliable supply in many parts of the world, especially in the developing world.
We are exerting heavy pressure on river basins and underground aquifers. Moreover, climate change is predicted to escalate scarcity in water-stressed regions.
Global warming is expected to accelerate melting of glaciers and snow cover upon which over a billion people depend on for their water.
The world is increasingly turning its attention to the issue of water scarcity. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) of the USA recently released a report entitled Global Water Security, which posits that water supply issues around the globe will lead to economic instability, civil and international wars, and even the use of water as a weapon in the next several decades.
Predictions by the US government and the United Nations show that by 2030 over 30% of the world population will be living in river basins that will have to cope with significant water stress, including many of the countries and regions that drive global economic growth.
For instance, water tables in many countries, including the USA, India and China have dropped significantly in the last 20 years, indicating that we have exceeded our renewable water budget and are unsustainably mining the resource.
Because of increasing water scarcity, India's "green revolution" is being reversed; crop yields in northern India have fallen in some areas by 15-20%. Desertification and drought are hurting farmers in northern China, and both India and China are now significant importers of grain.
Many regions already experiencing water stress will become more stressed. Water stress may contribute to the risk of instability and state failure, particularly when combined with poverty, environmental degradation and governance incapability.More importantly, regional tensions over shared river basins are likely to rise. The Nile Basin is a case in point.
Under British colonial rule, a 1929 treaty reserved 80% of the Nile's entire flow for Egypt and Sudan. 75 percent of Egypt's water is used for agriculture, most of it wasted by inefficient, old-fashioned irrigation practices.
Investors from China, India and the Persian Gulf region have expressed interest in underwriting enormous agriculture projects in Uganda and Ethiopia. Increased upstream water use in the Nile Basin is a potential tinderbox for regional conflict.
According to the Global Water Security report, transnational water basin agreements often do not exist or are inadequate. For example, the report concludes that mechanism to the govern the Brahmaputra basin and Amu Darya basin (shared by is "inadequate," and those governing the Tigris-Euphrates, the Nile, and the Mekong is "limited, while the governance of the Indus and the Jordan rivers is moderate.
While climate change will undoubtedly have an increasing impact on water availability and food production over the coming decades, there are many other factors including urbanization, changing diets that will increasingly impact water availability.
The growing water gap between supply and demand is likely to have major ramifications for our planet. Urgent national and global action is needed to avert what is evidently an imminent crisis. What we need is a Blue Revolution. Actions needed to underpin a Blue Revolution must include:
Access to high quality data and monitoring networks for water planning and management. Data is critical for water allocations and also a dynamic picture of the impact of climate change and additional water use on the water resources and the environment.
If you can't measure it you cant manage it; Reform of water governance by improving determination of water rights and allocation systems, including innovative systems for valuation, pricing and trade to water productivity;
Managing agricultural water demand by increasing in irrigation efficiency, growing drought-resistant crops and improving soil water holding capacity in rainfed systems;
Managing urban water demand by increasing recycling and reuse, renovating infrastructure to reduce urban water losses, which averages 40-60% in many cities and demand management strategies including technology and pricing;
Promoting participatory watershed management and market efficiency for environmental stewardship through coupling water resource management with payments for ecosystem services.
We must act to solve the complex and related problems of water security, food security and global sustainability. And time is of essence!
China's vast requirement for water is pushing it into making some rivers originating in the Tibetan Plateau flow upstream - which would spell trouble for India, said Tibetan political leader Lobsang Sangay.
Speaking to select journalists in the Indian capital Friday, Sangay said northeast China faces severe water shortage. "Sixty percent of the country needs water from somewhere," he said.
"Chinese companies are building 20 dams per river in the Tibetan Plateau, and on some rivers efforts are made to turn it upstream If that happens what will happen to the river flow downstream?" said Sangay, who completed one year as political leader of the Tibetans.
The damming of the rivers was also affecting their natural flow downstream, and along with it the fishing activities of people in India and Bangladesh, he said.
The annual floods in the Brahmaputra river that affect thousands in eastern India and Bangladesh every year is due to largescale deforestation in Tibet and the resultant silting, said Sangay.
The deforestation has led to glaciers in Tibet melting at a rapid pace and causing floods downstream.
"What happens in Tibet is vital for India," said Sangay, urging India to take up the issue of Tibet in its talks with China.
He also said that China was advancing its development activities rapidly in Tibet.
China has already built five major airfields in Tibet and is building another. "China has 23 military divisions in Tibet... the railway line from Beijing to Lhasa has been extended further and will soon come to Nepal and Sikkim."
Sangay also said that China should stop the migration of Han Chinese into Lhasa, "where more than 50 percent people in urban areas are Chinese".
Giving details of the extent of the migration of Han Chinese, Sangay said: "Seventy percent businesses in Lhasa are owned by Chinese, 50 percent of the public sector jobs and posts in the Communist Party in Tibet belong to Chinese. On the other hand, 40 percent of Tibetan high school and college graduates are unemployed," he said.
He also criticized China's move to "forcibly rehabilitate" hundreds of thousands of nomads in Tibet, who are traditional herders of yak and sheep.
"The nomads have been taken to no man's land, to cemented buildings, and cut off from their traditional way of living. They have no source of earning money now and are forced to sell their sheep and yak," said Sangay.
A large number of Tibetans fled their homeland in the 1950s after communist China overwhelmed Tibet. Their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has lived in India since 1959. Some 140,000 Tibetans live in exile around the world, over 100,000 of them in India. The Tibetan government-in-exile, of which Sangay is the political leader, is not recognised by any country.
Thank you very, very much, Maria, and I am delighted to be able to join you for this meeting. Sometimes when you look at the busy schedule of the UN General Assembly, you see only the headlines, the problems, the hotspots, the conflicts, the challenges, and all of those are certainly important. But you also have to look at the trend lines, and you’re here because you know that water is an issue that cuts across borders and affects every human being.
You know better than any that water management and resource issues are both a moral imperative and a strategic investment, and I want to thank everyone who has participated in this, because whether you’re talking about economic development or improving global health, whether you focus on promoting food security or building peace or coping with climate change or providing sustainable energy, access to clean water is critical. And the problems that are already coming to the forefront around the world will only intensify as populations grow and demands increase.
Now, this year alone in the United States, we’ve experienced extreme drought conditions in some parts of our country and devastating floods in others. We are well aware that Europe, Asia, and Africa have all experienced similar challenges. Now, you’ve already heard about our Intelligence Community Assessment on Global Water Security, and I hope that you will have if you didn’t today have a chance to really study it, because water scarcity could have profound implications for security. The report found that dwindling supplies and poor management of water resources will certainly affect millions of people as food and crops grow scarcer and access to water more difficult to obtain. In fact, in some places, the water tables are already more depleted than we thought and wells are drying up.
In other parts of the world, water resources could become a real source of manipulation and increasing instability. And we want to get ahead of what those potential problems might be. We can’t wait until we already have a crisis. So I think water should be a priority in every nation’s foreign policy and domestic agenda, and we need to work together to advance cooperation on shared waters. Here at the UN, we have to work in our continuing efforts to ensure no child dies of a water-related disease and certainly no war is ever fought over water.
Now, to give just one example of what we need to be doing, the United States is working with the UN Development Program and other partners from not only governments but the business world, civil society, philanthropy, and academia on the shared waters partnership to help build really robust institutions. And also, as part of that, we will be looking for ways to establish online platforms to facilitate cooperation and to facilitate regional dialogues. All of us are here today because we understand the urgency. It is for me a critical issue that we have to start asking ourselves what are we going to do today and tomorrow to address.
Many of you are already working on developing practical solutions. How can we better connect and share what you’ve already learned? How can we build more effective institutions for managing shared water resources? And how do we bring safe drinking water and sanitation to all the world’s people? I’m sure it’s been said many times already today, but there are countries where there are more cell phones than toilets. How do we look for every possible creative, innovative approach to safe drinking water and sanitation? I’m excited, because I think this is now getting the attention that it so richly deserves. I thank Under Secretary Otero for leading our efforts inside the United States Government, and I look forward to hearing the results of your deliberations and working with you to try to implement your very practical solutions. Thank you all.
Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang obviously had China in mind when he warned recently that tensions over water resources are not only threatening economic growth but presenting a source of conflict.
A day before he issued the warning to business leaders on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Russia, China had announced that its largest dam on the upper reaches of the Mekong River, Southeast Asia’s key artery, has started generating electricity.
The Nuozhadu dam joins four other Chinese dams that have been commissioned on the Mekong river’s upstream, causing rapid changes in water levels and other adverse effects downstream, especially in the four countries of the lower Mekong basin—Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos—where tens of millions of people depend on the river for food, water and transportation.
The launching of the first power generating unit of the Nuozhadu dam, which at 261.5 meters (858 feet) is the highest in Asia, was reported exclusively by China’s state news agency Xinhua with little coverage by the world media.
Interestingly, Xinhua said in passing that that the dam is one of seven—instead of eight as widely reported previously—hydropower projects planned on the Mekong River inside China.
“China’s Mekong dams are so remote they receive little coverage in the Western media,” notes Milton Osborne, a Southeast Asian expert at Lowy Institute, an international policy think tank in Sydney, Australia.
“Yet, like the more readily viewed sites for proposed dams in Laos and Cambodia, what is happening in China will eventually alter the productive capabilities of mainland Southeast Asia’s longest and most important river, a river vital to the sustenance of the 60 million people of the Lower Mekong Basin,” he said.
The announcement of the Nuozhadu dam’s operations is significant because it repeats Beijing’s claim that the Chinese cascade of dams will not effect downstream countries, saying only 13.5 percent of the water in the Mekong as a whole flows through China, according to Osborne.
But this claim, he said, has been discredited many times over.
He believes water from China is of great importance in sustaining dry season flow for the downstream countries, perhaps to a total of 40 percent of the river’s volume overall.
“So with each dam China builds there is the prospect of a greater diminishing of the flow, particularly as both Xiaowan (another of the five Chinese dams in operations) and Nuozhadu will act as storage dams rather than having a ‘run of the river’ character,” he said.
“There is no doubt,” he said, that the commissioning of the five dams “will have other long-term effects downstream,” including impacting the amount of nutrient-rich sediment flowing down the river.
‘Source Of Conflict’
Energy-starved China is using electricity generated by the dams to fuel its rapid economic growth without regard to the adverse impact on its neighbors, the Vietnamese leader Sang suggested, without pointing the finger at Beijing.
“We cannot deny the fact that tensions over water resources are threatening economic growth in many countries and representing a source of conflict, especially at a time when countries are accelerating their economic development,” Sang said.
“Dam construction and stream adjustments by some countries in upstream rivers constitute a growing concern for many countries and implicitly impinge on relations between relevant countries.”
Sang said the management and utilization of water resources in the Mekong River are developing into a “pressing issue with direct and unfavorable bearing” on Vietnam, especially on rice production.
Water resources in the country, including river and underground water, “are seriously declining, while floods, sea level rises, high tides, coastal erosion… have been exacerbated,” he lamented.
Vietnam, the world’s second largest rice exporter, is situated in the lowest part of the Mekong basin.
China’s dams, combined with the construction by Laos of the Xayaburi dam, the first of 11 proposed dams on the main stream of the Lower Mekong River, will have a major impact on the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, experts say.
Some 18 million people live in the delta, where nearly half of Vietnam’s rice crop comes from and which is already vulnerable to sea level rise.
In addition, for the first time in several thousands years, the delta is shrinking, studies indicate.
The global conservation group WWF is on the verge of finding out the causes of this radical shift.
“We’re just completing a study that looks at the root causes of why, after five thousand years of the Delta expanding in size, we now see it retreating,” Carter Roberts, President and CEO at World Wildlife Fund, told a meeting on the Mekong in July.
“The key is to understand the implications of basin management and to make smart choices based on a thorough understanding of the region,” he said.
South China Sea
Aside from the Mekong concerns, Vietnam is also facing a threat from China over their overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea, which experts say is Asia’s biggest potential military flashpoint.
China has in the past detained Vietnamese fishermen in disputed waters. The state Chinese oil company has also opened nine oil and gas lots for international bidders in areas that overlap existing Vietnamese exploration blocks. .
“Only Vietnam sees itself as facing a two front threat from China’s fast growing ability to regulate the flow of the Mekong River through the construction of massive upstream dams and increasing pressure in the South China Sea,” said Richard Cronin, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Washington-based Stimson Center.
Still, no aspect of China’s fast-growing role and influence in the Mekong region is more evident and more problematic than its drive to harness the huge hydroelectric potential of the Upper Mekong, he said.
The past four completed Chinese dams “already have caused rapid changes in water levels hundreds of kilometers downstream and notably reduced the flow of vital nutrient-rich sediment that gives the river its immense aquatic and agricultural productivity and sustains the Mekong Delta,” Cronin said.
Cambodia
Cambodia, Southeast Asia’s key China ally, is also not spared by China’s dam building spree on the Mekong.
Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake which has a close connection with the Mekong River, could also shrink in size, experts say.
“There is also the likelihood that Cambodia’s Great Lake will be reduced in area during the wet season, to the detriment of its current vital role as a source of much of Cambodia’s protein consumption through its vast bounty of fish,” Osborne of the Lowy Institute said.
The Cambodian Fishery Coalition, a community-based organization set up by fishery folk in the country, said in a recent report that the Chinese dams on the Mekong “have impacted the Lake’s fish sanctuary.”
“When the hydropower dams were established, the community people living around the Tonle Sap Lake were severely affected, as they have transformed fish resources, and lead to progressive loss.”
Aside from fishery resources, the Tonle Sap Lake provides land fertile for the cultivation of rice and other agricultural plants.
Regional Stability
Cronin said increased competition for access to the rich resources of the once war-torn Mekong region has not only created serious environmental degradation but also regional stability.
But while the adverse effects of Chinese dams have “created friction” with its downstream neighbors, their governments “have been loath to complain,” Cronin said.
China is a huge market for the natural resources and agricultural exports. Laos and Cambodia particularly are major recipients of Chinese infrastructure development aid.
An almost complete lack of transparency makes it difficult to establish with certainty how China operates its dams.
But Cronin said that several times during the past several years, Beijing has been accused of withholding water—except for short releases timed to allow its boats to operate—during periods of severe drought in Yunnan province where the dams are located.
“China’s disregard for its neighbors’ interests has generated a growing store of ill-will in downstream countries, which will make it difficult for Beijing to achieve its longer-term goals of securing the Mekong and its own influence over it,” he said.
A simple click, a gift of life. Initiated by BROS, Click Water Project is a campaign to raise awareness of water crisis in third world countries and to spread the gift of clean water to Vietnam.
For every single click of "Like" on BROS Facebook, BROS will donate RM0.50 to World Vision's 'Gifts of Hope' fund to purchase 2 Water & Sanitation Systems for poor communities in Vietnam. www.facebook.com/brosnews
Water scarcity is fuelling deadly inter-ethnic wars that continue to claim lives in Kenya, according to government officials. And if nothing is done to educate communities on how to conserve the valuable resource, the situation will escalate, governance experts and environmentalists warn.
On Sunday, Sep. 9, 38 people were killed in revenge attacks in the Tana River Delta district of Kenya's Coast province. The deceased include eight children, five women, 16 men, and nine police officers.
The incident occurred as the government announced it would conduct a disarmament exercise in the Tana River Delta following clashes over water and pasture that have left more than 80 people dead.
Coast province police boss Aggrey Adoli told IPS that about 500 raiders from the Pokomo ethnic group attacked the Kilelengwani village, in Tana River Delta, and torched a police camp and several other structures at dawn. On Monday, Sep. 10 the area was inaccessible and police officers were flown in by helicopter to quell the violence.
"This was in retaliation to Thursday's incident in which 13 Pokomos were killed when raiders from the Orma (ethnic group) struck the Tarassa village in the area," Adoli said.
The attacks are in retaliation to an Aug. 22 incident over water and resources that resulted in the death of 52 people, including 11 children and 31 women. The attack occurred after cattle owned by the Orma ethnic group strayed onto farmlands belonging to the neighbouring Pokomo community and destroyed their crops. Both communities have a long history of conflict over resources.
But conflict over resources is not confined to this region. Also on Aug. 22, four people were killed in a separate incident in Muradellow village in Mandera North, in North Eastern province. Police said that the conflict occurred at a water point where herders had taken their animals.
In March, 22 people were killed in Mandera, in North Eastern. More than 1,500 people fled their homes as a result of the violence, which occurred in El Golicha village, close to Kenya's border with Somalia.
North Eastern provincial officer Ernest Munyi, who is also the region's assistant commissioner of police, told IPS that the attacks were becoming more frequent.
"Clan attacks are common in the region, which has now been witnessing clashes every month since February. The attacks were often sporadic, targeting members of other clans but usually arise from resource competition.
"These are nomadic pastoralists who depend on livestock for survival. They rustle livestock and fight over water and the few grazing fields," he said.
Political leaders, human rights activists and environmentalists are calling on the government to address the problem urgently.
Mwalimu Mati, the chief executive of Mars Group, an NGO that deals with governance, told IPS that the government must provide equitable resources to end the clashes.
"Resource conflict will be with us for a long (time) because the government policies that promote timber harvesting have resulted in deforestation," said Mati, who is also a lawyer. Scanty forest cover has resulted in the reduced rainfall here, according to water experts.
Peter Mangich, the director of water services at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, told IPS that due to the effects of climate change, the country now only received one quarter of its previous rainfall.
"The average annual rainfall is 630 millimeters, which should be four times this figure to be enough. The National Development Plan 2002 to 2008 recognises Kenya as a water-scarce country where the water demand exceeds renewable freshwater sources," he said.
"Our depleting natural water resources, due to inadequate rainfall and scanty forest cover that stands at three percent, are the problem. The country's water basins do not reach an equitable area of the country," he said.
And it is the reason for the increased conflict, according to Dr. Bernard Rop, a former Commissioner of Mines, a geologist and environmentalist.
"As a result of the skewed water distribution between the country's water basins and within the basins, water use conflicts arise out of demand of water for irrigation, livestock, wildlife and environmental conservation," Rop told IPS.
"There have been clashes over water and grazing fields in most parts of North Eastern, Turkana, Samburu and Pokot in the Rift Valley and the Coast regions for the last 10 years, resulting in the death of 400 people and the theft of 10,000 livestock," he said.
Mati pointed out that conflict over resources would spread to other parts of the country that were not water scarce.
"Conflict will not only be in dry areas. Climate change is real and even countries that share the River Nile are quarrelling over it. Let the government adopt other means to solve this problem," he said.
Mati explained the need for water had resulted in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan calling for the revocation of a 1959 treaty, brokered by the United Kingdom, that gave Egypt, and to a lesser extent Sudan, historical rights to the river's resources.
Rop said that Kenya had water readily available, it just had to be tapped. "This country produces 290 megawatts of geothermal energy, the leading in Africa. It has a lot of underground water. If this water is tapped and distributed to the affected areas, conflict will end," he said.
Mangich said that the government is addressing the problem.
"Since last year, we have partnered with NGOs like World Vision to sink boreholes in the affected areas so that residents can have enough water for their livestock and domestic use. We also encourage them to use the water to grow vegetables and maize to complement livestock keeping," he said.
But Mati said that nomadic pastoralists should be encouraged to engage in other economic activities that are more vialable and suggested that the government encourage urbanisation.
"This will allow many people to live in towns that have social amenities and to farm on land as a group, not as individuals," he said.
Kenya's Minister of Educatoin Mutula Kilonzo told IPS that the government needed to implement existing policies regarding access to water.
"The new constitution has very good policies to cater for the dry regions by sinking boreholes and promoting irrigation. Let us implement laws that deal with agriculture and the clashes will end," he said.
This is the second time this week i have posted this tragic story. is this a harbinger of even more violence as water resources become scarcer and scarcer?
Water scarcity is fuelling deadly inter-ethnic wars that continue to claim lives in Kenya, according to government officials. And if nothing is done to educate communities on how to conserve the valuable resource, the situation will escalate, governance experts and environmentalists warn.
On Sunday, Sep. 9, 38 people were killed in revenge attacks in the Tana River Delta district of Kenya’s Coast province. The deceased include eight children, five women, 16 men, and nine police officers.
The incident occurred as the government announced it would conduct a disarmament exercise in the Tana River Delta following clashes over water and pasture that have left more than 80 people dead.
Coast province police boss Aggrey Adoli told IPS that about 500 raiders from the Pokomo ethnic group attacked the Kilelengwani village, in Tana River Delta, and torched a police camp and several other structures at dawn. On Monday, Sep. 10 the area was inaccessible and police officers were flown in by helicopter to quell the violence.
“This was in retaliation to Thursday’s incident in which 13 Pokomos were killed when raiders from the Orma (ethnic group) struck the Tarassa village in the area,” Adoli said.
The attacks are in retaliation to an Aug. 22 incident over water and resources that resulted in the death of 52 people, including 11 children and 31 women. The attack occurred after cattle owned by the Orma ethnic group strayed onto farmlands belonging to the neighbouring Pokomo community and destroyed their crops. Both communities have a long history of conflict over resources.
But conflict over resources is not confined to this region. Also on Aug. 22, four people were killed in a separate incident in Muradellow village in Mandera North, in North Eastern province. Police said that the conflict occurred at a water point where herders had taken their animals.
In March, 22 people were killed in Mandera, in North Eastern. More than 1,500 people fled their homes as a result of the violence, which occurred in El Golicha village, close to Kenya’s border with Somalia.
North Eastern provincial officer Ernest Munyi, who is also the region’s assistant commissioner of police, told IPS that the attacks were becoming more frequent.
“Clan attacks are common in the region, which has now been witnessing clashes every month since February. The attacks were often sporadic, targeting members of other clans but usually arise from resource competition.
“These are nomadic pastoralists who depend on livestock for survival. They rustle livestock and fight over water and the few grazing fields,” he said.
Political leaders, human rights activists and environmentalists are calling on the government to address the problem urgently.
Mwalimu Mati, the chief executive of Mars Group, an NGO that deals with governance, told IPS that the government must provide equitable resources to end the clashes.
“Resource conflict will be with us for a long (time) because the government policies that promote timber harvesting have resulted in deforestation,” said Mati, who is also a lawyer. Scanty forest cover has resulted in the reduced rainfall here, according to water experts.
Peter Mangich, the director of water services at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, told IPS that due to the effects of climate change, the country now only received one quarter of its previous rainfall.
“The average annual rainfall is 630 millimeters, which should be four times this figure to be enough. The National Development Plan 2002 to 2008 recognises Kenya as a water-scarce country where the water demand exceeds renewable freshwater sources,” he said.
“Our depleting natural water resources, due to inadequate rainfall and scanty forest cover that stands at three percent, are the problem. The country’s water basins do not reach an equitable area of the country,” he said.
And it is the reason for the increased conflict, according to Dr. Bernard Rop, a former Commissioner of Mines, a geologist and environmentalist.
“As a result of the skewed water distribution between the country’s water basins and within the basins, water use conflicts arise out of demand of water for irrigation, livestock, wildlife and environmental conservation,” Rop told IPS.
“There have been clashes over water and grazing fields in most parts of North Eastern, Turkana, Samburu and Pokot in the Rift Valley and the Coast regions for the last 10 years, resulting in the death of 400 people and the theft of 10,000 livestock,” he said.
Mati pointed out that conflict over resources would spread to other parts of the country that were not water scarce.
“Conflict will not only be in dry areas. Climate change is real and even countries that share the River Nile are quarrelling over it. Let the government adopt other means to solve this problem,” he said.
Mati explained the need for water had resulted in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan calling for the revocation of a 1959 treaty, brokered by the United Kingdom, that gave Egypt, and to a lesser extent Sudan, historical rights to the river’s resources.
Rop said that Kenya had water readily available, it just had to be tapped. “This country produces 290 megawatts of geothermal energy, the leading in Africa. It has a lot of underground water. If this water is tapped and distributed to the affected areas, conflict will end,” he said.
Mangich said that the government is addressing the problem.
“Since last year, we have partnered with NGOs like World Vision to sink boreholes in the affected areas so that residents can have enough water for their livestock and domestic use. We also encourage them to use the water to grow vegetables and maize to complement livestock keeping,” he said.
But Mati said that nomadic pastoralists should be encouraged to engage in other economic activities that are more vialable and suggested that the government encourage urbanisation.
“This will allow many people to live in towns that have social amenities and to farm on land as a group, not as individuals,” he said.
Kenya’s Minister of Educatoin Mutula Kilonzo told IPS that the government needed to implement existing policies regarding access to water.
“The new constitution has very good policies to cater for the dry regions by sinking boreholes and promoting irrigation. Let us implement laws that deal with agriculture and the clashes will end,” he said.
Inner Mongolia’s rivers are feeding China’s coal industry, turning grasslands into desert. In India, thousands of farmers have protested diverting water to coal- fired power plants, some committing suicide.
The struggle to control the world’s water is intensifying around energy supply. China and India alone plan to build $720 billion of coal-burning plants in two decades, more than twice today’s total power capacity in the U.S., International Energy Agency data show. Water will be boiled away in the new steam turbines to make electricity and flush coal residue at utilities from China Shenhua Energy Co. (1088) to India’s Tata Power Co. (TPWR) that are favoring coal over nuclear because it’s cheaper.
With China set to vaporize water equal to what flows over Niagara Falls each year, and India’s industrial water demand growing at twice the pace of agricultural or municipal use, Asia’s most populous nations will have to reconsider energy projects to avoid conflict between cities, farmers and industry.
“You’re going to have a huge issue with the competition between water, energy and food,” said Vineet Mittal, managing director of Welspun Energy Ltd., the utility unit of Leon Black’s Apollo Global Management LLC-backed Welspun Group. “Water is something everyone should be probing every chief executive about,” he said in an interview.
Investors have driven up the 49-member S&P Global Water Index (SPGTAQD) about 96 percent from its low point after the 2008 financial crisis. That beat the 88 percent gain in the period by the 1,625-stock the MSCI World Index, a global benchmark, and trailed the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 101 percent increase.
Investor Risk
“Power is a very good example of the risk investors can potentially face,” Giulio Boccaletti, a partner heading McKinsey’s water resource economics practice, said in an Aug. 30 interview. “A problem with water can leave you with a stranded asset.”
China and India account for than 60 percent of the world’s coal-fired power plants on the drawing boards by 2035, capable of producing about 805 gigawatts. China’s alone will consume 82 billion cubic meters of water a year by 2030, second only to the nation’s farmers, McKinsey & Co. forecast.
More than half of existing and planned power plants by the biggest publicly traded companies in India and Southeast Asia are in areas likely to face water shortages, according to the World Resources Institute in Washington, which maps water risks for industries. Little data is collected by companies or their investors on what that means for projects with a 40-year lifespan, the U.S.-based researcher said in a report.
’Peak Water’
India’s power plants may be most vulnerable, the institute concluded after mapping more than 150 existing and planned projects in India and Southeast Asia. It found that 73 percent of capacity owned by three utilities -- NTPC Ltd. (NTPC), Tata Power, and Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group Ltd.’s power units --is located in water-scarce or stressed areas. Overall, 74 gigawatts, more than half of India and Southeast Asia’s existing and planned capacity, face similar threats.
NTPC said in an e-mail response that its projects require a water commitment from state authorities for the full lifetime of the plant before they go ahead. It’s also using saltwater desalination at coastal plants to minimize fresh water usage.
Tata Power declined to comment. Reliance Power Ltd. (RPWR) didn’t respond to two e-mails and telephone calls seeking comment.
“The world has already hit ’peak water,’” says Simon Powell, head of Asian oil and gas research at CLSA Ltd. in Hong Kong. Demand is growing against a finite supply of fresh water that’s shrinking due to pollution and climate change, he said.
Global water demand may have already outstripped supply in 2010. The world’s freshwater requirement in 2010 was estimated at 4.5 trillion cubic meters compared to an accessible supply of 4.2 trillion cubic meters, according to McKinsey & Co.
Water Assumptions
Coal is currently running more than 40 percent of the planet’s electricity generation plants, which consume on average three times as much water as natural gas-fired stations per unit of power produced, according to U.S. Department of Energy data. Nuclear plants use even more water than coal units.
Beside needing water to produce steam, it’s also used in condensing and to process waste deposited in ponds. Water is used in coal mining to remove impurities and transport the fuel through pipelines as slurry. Continue >>>
President Jakaya Kikwete has made it abundantly clear that Tanzania will not go into war with Malawi over the disputed Lake Nyasa border that apportions water rights to both nations.
The president told the nation at the weekend that continual negotiations between Tanzania and Malawi, which have all along been cordial and progressive, should be given ample chance to produce an amicable solution to the dispute. He cautioned against inflammatory statements that he said could ruin the ongoing negotiations, ignite an explosive situation and raise a stink that could prove difficult to reverse.
While Tanzania maintains that its border with Malawi traverses Lake Nyasa in the middle giving both countries territorial water, Malawi, which refers to the lake as Malawi, maintains that its border with Tanzania runs along the shoreline on the Tanzanian side. The exchange of verbal accusations and demands between Tanzanian and Malawian politicians in recent months has thrown citizens in both Tanzania and Malawi into a pandemonium, fearing that military combat could be on the horizon.
But the truth is that both countries never prepared for war. When Mr Kikwete met Malawian President Joyce Banda at a meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, recently, the two had amicable talks on the matter. In his address, President Kikwete ruled out the spectre of war with Malawi and called on everyone to concentrate on development projects.
He instead said that government leaders should now seize the lull in the skirmishes to sit down with their Malawian counterparts and look for an amicable solution to the problem -- which took root on July 1, 1890. It should be known that the problem was not caused by Malawi or Tanzania. It was caused by colonial masters (Britain and Germany) who drew the disputed border unilaterally and engaged in a bogus agreement known as The Treaty of Heligoland.
This highly controversial agreement, which was also known as the Anglo-Germany Heligoland Treaty, gave the entire lake to Malawi. But this unholy agreement, which the colonialists signed with glee, has been overtaken by time. It is completely obsolete. So, there is no logic in respecting decisions made by ruthless colonial masters whose hearts have never been close to Africa. Current International Law stipulates that where there is a body of water between two countries the border should be located in the middle.
