Water, Water Everywhere – and No Early Warning in Sight

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Ignatius Banda

GWANDA, Zimbabwe, Feb 14 (IPS) – Muzeka Muyeyekwa from Mapfekera Village in Zimbabwbe’s Manicaland Province wonders what he will feed his three children for lunch.The family’s basic food supplies have run out and they cannot replenish them as the bridge that crosses the local Nyadira River, which links this village with the outside world and the Watsomba shopping centre, was washed away in January during the flash floods that spread across the country. Manicaland Province, which borders Mozambique, is among the worst hit as it has seen almost 1 metre of rain since mid-January.

However, a few village daredevils have used the disaster to make a quick dollar by swimming across the flooded river with supplies – charging treble the price or more for basic goods.

“We cannot cross the river to go to the grinding mill or to get basic food supplies,” Muyeyekwa tells IPS. “The only supplies reaching us are the expensive items brought by the daredevils.”

Other villagers say that their food supplies are running low and worry that the authorities are not acting fast enough to repair the bridge.

But the local district council chief executive, George Bandure, tells IPS that the council is mobilising resources for the reconstruction of the destroyed bridge.

Mapfekera community is not the only one struggling to cope with unseasonal heavy rains here.

According to the latest United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report on Zimbabwe, heavy January rainfall across the country affected an estimated 8,490 people, “of which 4,615 people require humanitarian assistance in the form of emergency shelter and non-food items.”

The government’s Civil Protection Unit estimates that up to 5,000 people across the country lost their homes in the flooding, while the police say about 100 people have drowned – all since late last year.

Nearly 2,000 school children in the Chiredzi and Mwenezi Districts in Masvingo Province are being taught outside as torrential rainfall recently destroyed classrooms in 28 schools.

Clifford Tshuma, a smallholder farmer in rural Gwanda, in Matabeleland South Province, stands by and watches the effect that a surprise heavy downpour has on his maize crop. It flattens the stalks, leaving the plants ruined.

“I did not see it coming,” Tshuma tells IPS.

Climate experts in this southern African nation say that the plight of rural populations is worsened by the lack of sufficient weather monitoring systems that are able to provide early awareness of rainfall levels.

“Zimbabwe sometimes finds itself less equipped to predict, unprepared to plan for, and respond to floods,” Sobona Mtisi, a climate researcher with the Overseas Development Institute’s Water Policy Programme, tells IPS. The institute has partnered with the Zimbabwean government to formulate climate change policy. “Early warning systems that focus on floods are not yet well developed, especially at the local level. These factors combine to ensure that the country is always caught off guard.”

Since mid-January, heavy rains have hit Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland South and North Provinces as well as Masvingo Province, which are traditionally considered dry areas.

According to the Zimbabwe Meteorological Services, the Matabeleland South and North Provinces have seen rainfall of around 300 millimetres since the beginning of the year – at least three times higher than the expected rainfall for the provinces.

“This is much lower than other provinces,” Zimbabwe Meteorological Services chief, Tich Zinyemba, tells IPS, pointing to Manicaland Province, which borders Mozambique and has recorded up to 1,000 millimetres during the same period. “But [the rainfall in Matabeleland] is still unusually high for such arid regions.”

Adjusting to a new reality

Until the rains began in mid-January, the Matabeleland South and North Provinces were in the midst of a drought. Local online publication Bulawayo24 News reported that between July and December 2012 some 9,000 cattle in the Matabeleland South region had died due to the ongoing drought. Now they are perishing because of the ensuing floods, the publication reported.

“Floods are recent phenomena in Zimbabwe, and as such, the country is still adjusting to this new reality,” Mtisi says, explaining that floods began occurring here in 2000 when Cyclone Eline swept across southern Africa.

Mtisi says that the occurrence of heavy rains, which leave destruction in their wake, has become somewhat predictable over the past decade. He adds that with adequate preparation, these losses can be averted or minimised.

“From 2000 to 2010, Zimbabwe had four floods, some of which induced by cyclones, such as Cyclone Eline (in 2000) and Cyclone Japhet (in 2003). This means that we have a flood, every two and a half years,” Mtisi says.

“The problem is that Zimbabwe does not have sufficient resources, mainly technical and financial, to predict, plan for, and manage floods. I do not think that the hydro-meteorological monitoring departments of Zimbabwe National Water Authority, Meteorological Department, and the Civil Protection Department have adequate funds to efficiently undertake flood preparedness and management activities,” he says.

Mtisi says that despite efforts by international relief agencies to mitigate these loses, more still needs to be done.

“Although several systems for monitoring hydro-meteorological data are in place, managed by regional and international bodies, such as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network and the Southern African Development Community Hydrological Cycle Observing System, they are insufficient,” Mtisi says.

It will be useful for Zimbabwe to develop an extensive network of hydro-meteorological stations that monitor river flows and floods, he says, through agencies such as the Zimbabwe Meteorological Services and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority.

Very high frequency systems are currently being installed in the country’s flood-prone areas to ensure that the people there are able to communicate with different disaster management units that are meant to warn them of high rainfall and potential disasters.

The point now is how to ensure these systems are operational and working properly, says Tapuwa Gomo, a development expert who has worked with international relief agencies in some of Zimbabwe’s flood-prone area.

*Additional Reporting by Nyarai Mudimu in Manicaland Province

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Environment, Report Tagged With: , ,

Despite Possible Attacks, Gaza Plans Half-Billion-Dollar Desalination Plant

August 30, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Thalif Deen

STOCKHOLM, Aug 30 (IPS) – Last May the European Commission reported that scores of infrastructure projects in the Gaza Strip, financed mostly by the European Union, have been damaged or destroyed, wittingly or unwittingly, by Israeli military forces in the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.Nevertheless, undaunted by this destruction, the Palestinian Authority plans to launch an ambitious half-billion-dollar project for a new seawater desalination plant in water-starved Gaza next year.

When the international community warns of an impending global water crisis in the foreseeable future, it rarely singles out the current plight of the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories.

With more than 90 percent of its water resources unfit for human consumption, the Gaza Strip has no access to safe drinking water. As a result, 1.6 million Palestinians are deprived of one of the most fundamental necessities for human survival, says Dr. Shaddad Attili, minister and head of the Palestinian Authority.

Speaking on the sidelines of a weeklong international water conference hosted by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), he announced plans for the desalination project aimed at providing drinking water to Palestinians.

The project is the first to be unanimously approved by the 43 countries of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and has been described as Gaza’s largest infrastructure project to date. The construction, which will be spread over a three-year period, is expected to begin in early 2013 and completed by 2016.

The funding will come mostly from Arab and European donors, based primarily on pledges made during the 2009 Sharm el-Sheikh Conference on the Reconstruction of Gaza.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing technical assistance while the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) has endorsed the concept of a desalination facility as the only long-term alternative to supply Gaza with drinking water.

A core group of international financial institutions, including the EIB, the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank, are designing a Project Fund mechanism to manage the financing of the project.

Rafiq Husseini , UfM’s deputy secretary-general for environment and water, told reporters that while the project is not regional or even sub-regional, "it has far reaching regional implications".

"Everyone is aware of the project’s humanitarian, developmental and political importance," he added.

But the ambitious project’s ultimate survival will depend on Israel, which has been accused of using water as a political weapon against the Palestinians. Between 2001 and 2011, Israel also destroyed about 61 million dollars worth of projects, including airports, schools, homes, orphanages and waste water management facilities.

Of the funding for these projects, about 36 million dollars came from the 27 members of the European Union, including financing from France, the Netherlands, Britain and Ireland.

Asked about a possible Israeli airstrike on such a major infrastructure, Husseini said the risk of doing nothing to to alleviate the sufferings of the Palestinians was greater than developing the infrastructure.

In a report released at the United Nations, the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine in 2010 called the fair allocation of water rights a critical element for future political stability and achieving peace in the region as a whole, noting, "Water is at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process and it is one of the permanent status issues, along with issues relating to Jerusalem, borders, refugees, settlements and security."

Following the Israeli occupation in 1967, and in violation of international law, Israel took control over all natural freshwater resources, including surface water, underground aquifers located beneath the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and exclusive access to the Jordan River Basin, the report added.

Last month, the U.N.’s Special Committee on Israeli Practices highlighted the appalling living conditions in the Occupied Territories, including the lack of fresh water in Palestinian territories.

After a visit to Gaza, the three-member committee expressed concern over the Israeli practice of demolishing Palestinian homes and over the continued violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

The committee also assessed the economic impact of the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.

"These Israeli practices lead the Special Committee to one overarching and deeply troubling conclusion," the chair of the committee, Ambassador Palitha Kohona of Sri Lanka said.

"The mass imprisonment of Palestinians; the routine demolition of homes and the displacement of Palestinians; the widespread violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians; and the blockade and resultant reliance on illegal smuggling to survive; these practices amount to a strategy to either force the Palestinian people off their land or so severely marginalise them as to establish and maintain a system of permanent oppression."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Development, Middle East, Report Tagged With: , , , ,

Drought Dries Up Balkans Harvests

August 29, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Aug 29 (IPS) – After two months of waiting, people from the central Serbian town Valjevo followed the call of their bishop and went to local Orthodox Church to pray for rain."It wasn’t because I am religious, but because I didn’t know what else could help," said Milan Stankovic (55), who attended the Sunday service. "Half of my raspberries are gone, half of the corn as well."

And the rain fell in the night between Sunday and Monday all over the Balkans, bringing a little relief to a region where hundreds of thousands of farmers spent most of the summer looking at the sky through four heat waves since Jun. 1.

"All over the Balkans farmers are listing damage," analyst Misa Brkic told IPS. "But nations of the region should admit they are doing almost nothing in regard to agricultural strategy…governments put agriculture high on their lists of priority, but only in words."

The Commercial Chamber of Serbia (PKS) has put the damage from drought at 2.1 billion dollars. "Half of total plant production of Serbia was destroyed by this year’s drought," PKS agriculture expert Vojislav Stankovic told journalists. This goes for corn, soy, wheat, fruit and vegetables.

Stankovic said Serbia, the biggest agricultural producer in the region, needs to invest 2 billion dollars in the irrigation systems that currently cover only 200,000 hectares, or four percent of arable land. The coverage needs to be taken up to two million hectares, he said.

Agriculture is Serbia’s most profitable export branch, and netted in 2 billion dollars in 2011.

"That substantially supported the national budget, but this year will see nothing alike," Brkic said.

"Harvest losses do not mean only that we’ll have to be careful with use of agricultural produce," head of the Product Exchange, Zarko Galetin, told IPS. "Those losses transfer into reduced produce of meat, eggs, milk etc., and higher prices of food."

Consumers in Serbia have already felt the impact, with two hikes in the price of meat of about five percent each in just the past two weeks.

Irrigation has proved difficult. "Our wells have lower levels," said Mirjana Kiric (35), a vendor at the biggest open air green market Kalenic in Belgrade. "We use old pumps and can almost hear the ground slurping the water."

In neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina, comprising the Croat-Muslim Federation and the Serb dominated Republic of Srpska, there is no joint agriculture ministry. Soil temperatures in the south have hit 47 degrees Celsius, and the government has estimated damage to crops at almost a billion dollars. Farming accounts for 20 percent of employment in the country, where unemployment stands at 48 percent.

"The situation has not been this bad since the end of the (1992-95) war," Jovan Jankovic (65) from Ljubovija told IPS over the phone. "Corn will be as rare as gold here."

The World Bank (WB), which in May approved a 40 million dollars loan to improve the irrigation system in Bosnia, said then that the countries of the Balkans had "huge agricultural potential, but lacked the infrastructure and strategy."

"Former Yugoslavia used to have one of the most advanced irrigation and drainage systems,"

said Holger Kray, the WB’s lead official for agriculture and rural development in Europe and Central Asia. "Unfortunately, these systems have degraded, eroded," Kray told Belgrade media.

In Croatia, less than one percent of arable land (16,000 hectares) is being irrigated. Agriculture Minister Radimir Cacic admitted to local media last week that the country’s approach to agriculture is like that of "primitive tribes".

"If there’s rain, there will be crops, there will be electricity. If there is drought, there’ll be nothing. This has to change," he told Croatian Radio Television (HRT).

So far little has been done in that direction. The only ray of hope for Croatia is the European Union (EU) funds that will become available when it becomes the 28th EU member in July next year.

The drought has had a severe impact on energy production. Hydropower plants have had to scale down due to low water levels. In Serbia, electricity production has fallen 20 percent.

Low river levels have led to a slowdown in international shipment on the Danube and Sava rivers.

Fires as a result of the drought have destroyed large tracts of forests and bush in Bosnia, on the Croatian Adriatic coast, and in Montenegro and Serbia. Some of the fires raging on the border between Serbia and Kosovo are still beyond control because mines left over from the war over the former Serbian province make the area inaccessible.

"Whoever we have to thank for the rain, we do," Milan Stankovic told IPS. "But it came too late and in such small quantities that it was of little consolation."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Agriculture, Environment, Europe, Report Tagged With: , ,

Could Water Strife Lead to ‘Mass Killings’ in the Future?

August 29, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Thalif Deen

STOCKHOLM, Aug 28 (IPS) – As the world faces possible water scarcities in the next two to three decades, the U.S. intelligence community has already portrayed a grim scenario for the foreseeable future: ethnic conflicts, regional tensions, political instability and even mass killings.During the next 10 years, "many countries important to the United States will almost certainly experience water problems – shortages, poor water quality, or floods – that will contribute to the risk of instability and state failure, and increased regional tensions," stated a National Intelligence Estimate released last March.

And in July, Chris Kojm, chairman of the National Intelligence Council, predicted that by 2030, nearly half of the world’s population (currently at more than 7 billion) will live in areas of severe water stress, increasing the likelihood of mass killings.

The New York Times quoted Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University, as saying at a recent symposium that an "ecological panic, I am afraid, will lead to mass killings in the decades to come".

But Dr. Upmanu Lall, director of Columbia University’s Water Centre, has mixed feelings about potential conflicts over water, one of the world’s key natural resources necessary for survival.

"I am not sure I can project mass killings as a consequence (of water scarcities)," he told IPS.

And, he said, he does not expect transnational wars or conflicts over water either, "but I do expect that competition within some major countries such as India could lead to significant internal strife and the growth of terrorism and sectarian conflict". However, "avoiding this future is feasible if we work to act on it today," he added.

A future doomed to suffer intense water scarcities is one of several subjects under discussion at the weeklong international water conference, due to conclude Friday, in the Swedish capital.

Dr. Lall said the projection that nearly half the world’s population will live in "severe water stress" by 2030 under a business as usual scenario is quite realistic, even without climate factors being considered. "This is an urgent challenge, especially as we consider the prospect of mega-droughts – for example this year in the United States and in India."

The impacts will be far flung and severe, he warned. However, "if we can translate this concern into action, especially on improvements in water use in agriculture, which is by far the largest and most inefficient consumer, then we could avert this disaster," he said.

So far, there is talk in this direction but no global imperative to make targeted progress. "It is important that this be taken up at the highest levels to avoid considerable distress to the world’s population and economies," Dr. Lall added.

Gary White, chief executive officer and co-founder of Water.Org, told IPS he believes access to water resources will create conflicts in the coming years.

"This will be particularly true in areas that are water stressed and there are large concentrations of poor populations."

"However, I also believe that most governments will ultimately step up and put in place the right policies, regulations and transnational agreements needed to avert major conflicts."

White pointed out that there will be many acute shortages that will take a significant human and economic toll but said he believed that "outright conflict will be the exception".

In general, regional water crises unfold relatively slowly compared to most natural disasters and there will be lessons that are absorbed by those witnessing how significant the impact can be, hopefully increasing their resolve to avoid similar impacts in their regions, he noted.

"But these crises and conflicts will disproportionately impact the poor because there are always options for more affluent populations to deploy technology to treat local water resources (even to the point of desalinating sea water) or transporting it through pipe systems across great distances – options that are prohibitively expensive for poorer populations," he declared.

Asked if the 2010 U.N. General Assembly declaration of water as a basic human right translates into the provision of water free of cost to the world’s poorer nations, Dr. Lall told IPS: “I have been saying that the basic human right should be that everyone should be able to pay to get safe drinking water."

This statement, he pointed out, implies that the payment needed is consistent with the means of the individual.

Today, the poor actually pay more per unit of water than the rich – the payment may be in terms of money or in terms of labor invested in acquiring the water. Nor are they are assured a decent quality of water, he pointed out.

"Here, by the poor I refer to the economically disadvantaged in a particular society, and also to nations that are not as affluent."

This reveals a stark reality that unless services are extended to such people, they suffer.

But to extend these services, one needs a model for cost recovery at the water system level, since the sources of reliable and safe water are rarely accessible to the full population, and have to be developed and maintained, Dr. Lall said.

The goal then has to be that the investment in these services needs to be funded as well as the financial ability to operate and maintain them.

Paying for the water also endows the user with a powerful right, the one to demand that she gets what she paid for, and this can work into improved governance through political pressure, he argued.

Where people have done this successfully, the service and the costs of water for the poor have dropped, and there has not been an increase in the cost of service to the rich.

"So, in summary, yes, everyone should pay a price for water, but consistent with their means, and by paying that price strengthen their right to access a reliable, high quality supply."

This should be the articulation of the big water goal, instead of the declaration that it is a basic human right, he declared.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Agriculture, Commentary, Environment, Unrest Tagged With: , ,

As Temperatures Rise in Sri Lanka, Drought Wreaks Havoc

August 29, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Amantha Perera

PUTTALAM, Sri Lanka, Aug 29 (IPS) – It is a time of extreme heat and anxiety in Sri Lanka. Even the rains last week felt like a sudden burst of cold water on the smouldering asbestos sheets on most Sri Lankan household roofs, creating a blast of cold air before the heat returns once the rains end.In some regions, like the north-central Pollonaruwa District, temperatures have been hitting highs in the region of 35 Celsius at uncomfortably regular intervals between July and mid-August.

“Temperatures have been rising for some time now, and will continue to do so,” warned Malika Wimalasooriya, the head of the Climate Change Unit at the Meteorological Department. The expert said that the rise is not spectacular or rapid, but that people have been noticing the effect of late because of the lack of rain.

The traditional southwest monsoon has been delayed by at least a month, and the first rains have begun only in the last fortnight. According to the Climate Change Unit at the Ministry of Environment, temperatures have risen by around 0.45 degrees Celsius in the last two decades.

Already this year’s dry spell is creating havoc. Seventy-two areas in the country, including almost all of the capital Colombo, with high levels of electricity usage have been slapped with a daily three-hour power cut. The interruption is due to the breakdown of a coal power plant, but the national grid has been under tremendous stress due to the depletion of hydropower production capacity.

Usually hydropower meets around 40 percent of Sri Lanka’s annual electricity demand. This has gone up to even 55 percent in years with exceptionally high rains, such as 2011. But the drought has left the water reserves in the reservoirs painfully low. Hydropower generation capacity was at 17 percent during the third week of August, according to the Ministry of Power and Energy.

Sri Lanka’s power generation capacity just about meets national demand and does not have any readily available source to supplement it if there are breakdowns or large capacity losses, said Thilak Siyambalapitiya, a former engineer with the Ceylon Electricity Board who now works as an independent energy consultant.

“When there are large losses to the generation capacity, you have to cut down usage somehow, the power cuts are doing that,” Siyambalapitiya said.

The blackouts may be an inconvenience in urban areas, but in the agro-rich dry zone, the fear is that the lack of rain will devastate crops. There are already signs that it has. The United Nations reported that over 150,000 acres of rice paddy and other vegetable land in the country’s north are under threat. Tens of thousands of acres of paddy land are also at risk in the Pollonaruwa and Anuradhapura Districts, two of the main production regions.

Tea, Sri Lanka’s main cash crop, recorded an output loss of four percent in July, attributed to the drought.

The burden on the national economy is also rising. While more and more foreign exchange is spent on oil for thermal power generation, this does not augur well for a currency that has been under pressure. So far this year, the Sri Lankan currency has lost 17 percent against the dollar.

“If hydropower generation was up, then the sums spent on thermal could have been saved, at least partially; now there is no option but to spend,” Siyambalapitiya said. Sri Lanka subsidises thermal power by around 20 percent even though it is at least four times more expensive than hydropower.

The government has also set aside around 27 million dollars to assist affected farmers. The assistance will come in the form of drought relief, cash for work programmes, fertiliser and seeds.

For farmers who are at a quandary as to what to do, the announcement of relief is a godsend. “I really have no idea what to do, whether to plant or not to,” said G Somadasa, a vegetable farmer from Sri Lanka’s southeastern Tanamallvilla region.

He is among the tens of thousands of Sri Lankan farmers who depend on irrigation water, released by government officials for their crops. “We have to wait till the water is released or at least a date is announced for the release, to start the planting,” Somadasa told IPS. One big fear he has is that if he waits too long, he will miss the normal planting dates and crop cycle, and will not have a good harvest.

There are thousands of farmers like Somadasa in Sri Lanka who are critically dependent on water but have virtually no knowledge of weather patterns or water conservation.

The Central Bank’s last annual report warned that the livelihoods of 1.8 million people depend on agriculture, which means that between eight and nine percent of the population of 20 million stand to be affected by extreme weather events.

Experts in weather and water conservation urge authorities and ordinary people to take a much more serious look at water conservation arguing. that changing weather patterns are here to stay.

“This is the reality of climate change: heavy rains followed by drought. We have to plan for such extremes in the future,” said Kusum Athukorala who heads the non-governmental bodies the Network of Women Water Professionals, Sri Lanka (NetWwater) and the Women for Water Partnership that advocate water conservation and efficient use.

Her words were echoed by W L Sumpthipala, the former head of the Environment Ministry’s climate change unit. “Water or lack of it will be the biggest manifestation of changing climate patterns,” he said.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Agriculture, Asia, Environment, Report Tagged With: , , ,

‘Eating’ Water Latest and Rising Threat to a Thirsty Population

August 27, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Thalif Deen

STOCKHOLM, Aug 27 (IPS) – Paradoxically, the water we "eat" is likely to become one of the growing new dangers to millions of the world’s thirsty, hungering for this finite natural resource."More than one-fourth of all the water we use worldwide is taken to grow over one billion tons of food that nobody eats," Torgny Holmgren, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) told delegates during the opening of the annual international water conference, World Water Week, in the Swedish capital Monday.

"That water, together with the billions of dollars spent to grow, ship, package and purchase the food, is sent down the drain," he said.

"And reducing the waste of food is the smartest and most direct route to relieve pressure on water and land resources. It’s an opportunity we cannot afford to overlook," he added.

The conference, one of the world’s largest single gathering of experts on water and sanitation, has drawn more than 2,000 delegates, including senior U.N. officials, scientists, academics, water activists and representatives of the business community, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the media from over 100 countries.

Since everything humans eat requires water to be produced, the paradox of the water we "eat" was best illustrated by an exhibition in the conference lobby, which pointed out that the production of an average hamburger – two slices of bread, beef, tomato, lettuce, onions and cheese – consumes about 2,389 litres of water, compared to 140 litres for a cup of coffee and 135 for a single egg.

An average meal of rice, beef and vegetables requires about 4,230 litres of water while a chunky, succulent beef steak, a staple among the rich in the world’s industrial countries, consumes one of the largest quantums of water: about 7,000 litres.

Addressing delegates Monday, Dr. Colin Chartres, director-general of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), said feeding over 9 billion people by 2050 is possible, "but we have to reflect on the cost to the environment in terms of water withdrawals and land resources".

Furthermore, it will put phenomenal pressure on ecosystem services on which society depends.

"Saving water by reducing food waste, increasing productivity, plant breeding and waste water recycling are critical to all of us," said Dr. Chartres, the 2012 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate.

Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said statistics show that agriculture is one of the largest consumers of water.

"But that also means that agriculture holds the key to sustainable water use," he said, pointing out that investing in smallholder farmers is "critical to achieve food and water security for all people".

Meanwhile a 50-page report by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) released here points out that nearly one billion people still suffer from hunger and malnutrition – despite the fact that food production has been steadily increasing on a per capita basis for decades.

Producing food to feed everyone well, including the two billion additional people expected to populate the planet by mid-century, a significant from today’s seven billion, will place greater pressure on available water and land resources.

Entitled "Feeding a Thirsty World: Challenges and Opportunities for a Water and Food Secure Future", the report focuses on the primary them of this year’s conference: "Water and Food Security".

Achieving food security, the report argues, is a complex challenge involving a host of factors. Two of the most critical have been identified as water and energy, both essential components to produce food.

Dr. Anders Jagerskog, lead editor of the report, said feeding everyone well is a primary challenge for this century. "Overeating, undernourishment and waste are all on the rise, and increased food production may face future constraints from water scarcity," he said.

"We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future," he warned.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Agriculture, Development, Environment, Report Tagged With: ,

Caught Between Diarrhoea Bugs and Arsenic

May 18, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Naimul Haq

DHAKA, May 18, 2012 (IPS) – Achieving the Millennium Development Goal of providing access to safe drinking water for its 160 million people by 2015 is a tough call for Bangladesh, which is caught between arsenic contaminated groundwater and diarrhoea-causing microbes in its ponds and rivers.

Yet, with a programme of using simple hand pumps and involving the women in affected communities, Bangladesh has managed to ensure that 98 percent of its rural population now has access to safe drinking water.

"Despite widespread arsenic contamination, over 98 percent of the rural population now has access to safe drinking water," avers Mohammad Nuruzzaman, chief engineer of the department of public health (DPHE).

"All the 1.3 million hand-pumped tubewells we have installed for the rural population are arsenic-free. We are constantly monitoring them through regular testing in our 14 regional laboratories," Nuruzzaman told IPS.

Hand pumps access water that is closer to the surface and has had less time to absorb arsenic. Also, very deep tube wells that reach water 500 metres below ground level are usually safe because arsenic deposits at that depth are likely to have been depleted.

"Through constant monitoring, we are adapting and improving our approach, but UNICEF will never be happy until all water supply is made safe from arsenic," Pascal Villeneuve, representative for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Bangladesh, told IPS.

UNICEF has special reason to be anxious about arsenic in groundwater because the U.N. body was responsible for promoting Bangladesh’s tube well programme in the 1950s, which turned disastrous with the discovery of high arsenic contamination of groundwater in 1993.

"Currently, the Bangladesh government and UNICEF are partners in implementing the largest hygiene behaviour change programme in the world," Villeneuve said. "This will ultimately reach 30 million people and is already reaching 20 million."

Under this programme, arsenic mitigation is "mainstreamed," Villeneuve explained. "Communities are being equipped with knowledge and skills to avoid arsenic poisoning while some 20,000 arsenic-safe water points are to be installed, reaching over two million people in areas that are most affected."

Nurul Islam, project director of the programme, told IPS that the role of women is crucial. "The programme is mainly designed to empower women in 600 affected communities so that they can make decisions and demand the best options available."

S.M.A. Rashid, executive director of the NGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation, told IPS: "We promote women’s participation in the arsenic mitigation project and build the capacities of women in affected communities so that the victims can decide how best to solve their problems."

Rainwater harvesting, sand filters, traditional dug wells and alternate tube wells are among range of options on offer with beneficiaries needing to pay just ten percent of the costs.

Groundwater arsenic was first discovered in 1993 in the northwestern district of Chaipainawabganj but the issue remained buried until 1996 when doctors from the Dhaka Community Hospital (DCH) joined scientists from the School of Environmental Studies (SOES), Jadavpur University, West Bengal, India, to go public.

Dipankar Chakraborti, research director at SOES, told IPS: "The government in Bangladesh had thought that sinking deep tube wells would solve its water problems, but 40 percent of the wells turned out to be contaminated with arsenic."

Chakraborti, who has been carrying out tests on hundreds of water samples sent to him from Bangladesh, said many tube wells in the country still show dangerous levels of contamination – though the magnitude of the problem is far less than initially thought.

Arsenic contamination of groundwater occurs in many parts of the world, including locations in India, Thailand, China, Argentina, Chile and the United States. But nowhere has the problem been as severe as in Bangladesh.

Arsenic contamination in Bangladesh was not officially acknowledged until the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF and the National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine jointly conducted a series of tests in 1995.

The enormity of the problem emerged as water samples in parts of the country revealed arsenic at concentrations of 250 parts per billion (ppb), though this is mostly limited to underground layers between 10 and 150 metres. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deems concentrations exceeding 10 ppb to be toxic.

During the late 1950s, UNICEF, with the good intention of reducing infant mortality from surface water-borne diseases, introduced tube well technology. As deaths from diseases such as cholera and shigella declined, millions of tube wells sprang up across the country with disastrous consequences.

About 22 percent of all tube wells in the country are still arsenic contaminated, according to Mahmud Shamsul Gafur, who works for WHO which once described Bangladesh’s situation as the "largest mass poisoning of a population in history."

"From what we know there are 38,430 patients suffering from various degrees of arsenic poisoning," Gafur told IPS. "It is commendable that there is now a massive government-led awareness programme with the close involvement of women who are the worst sufferers."

Traditionally, in Bangladesh, fetching water is a woman’s chore. Since the advent of tube wells, women have also taken on the responsibility of their maintenance and repair.

Arsenic poisoning can – apart from severely damaging the circulatory and respiratory systems, and causing kidney, bladder and liver diseases – be disfiguring. Women who suffer from the typical skin lesions tend to shy away from public gaze.

Arati Karmaker, who lives in Dakobe village of Khulna district, and has skin lesions caused by arsenic in drinking water, says she is socially isolated. This mother of three always wears a full-sleeved blouse and uses a shawl to cover the disfigurement.

"I opted for a deep tube well which is safe and can be used by other affected families in my neighbourhood," she said.

Some experts say solving Bangladesh’s arsenic problem calls for a return to surface water, which is easily treated for microbes by boiling and does not call for the use of expensive filters. Concentrated arsenic sludge, the byproduct of filtration, presents another serious problem – that of safe disposal.

"If we do not return to using surface water quickly the problem could turn catastrophic," says Prof. Mahmudur Rahman at the DCH. "By drilling so many tube wells we disturbed the underground environment and put ourselves in this crisis."

But surface water sources in densely populated Bangladesh have been drying up and half of the country’s original 300 rivers have vanished. For now, the best option is still the simple hand-operated pump and constant vigil for arsenic contamination by women in the communities.

*With inputs from Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Asia, Development, Environment, Featured, Health Tagged With: , ,

CENTRAL ASIA: Together They Lose

November 18, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Christopher Pala

ALMATY, Kazakhstan, Nov 18, 2011 (IPS) – Rarely have so many donor countries spent so much for so long to achieve so little. In fact, the scores of Western countries ranging from the Netherlands to the United States that have tried for 20 years to coax the Central Asian nations to use their water cooperatively and create a win-win situation for all have found that the Central Asians are cooperating less and less, not more and more.

Water-sharing problems among any neighbouring countries from the Danube to the Nile are among the most intractable, but what sets the Central Asians apart is that today’s waters managers know first-hand the advantages of cooperating – they practised it themselves only 20 years ago. "The centralised Soviet system made Central Asians use water for the mutual benefits of both sets of countries: the ones that have a lot of water but not much land, and the ones that have no water but a lot of land that needs irrigation," said Iskandar Abdullaev during a conference in Almaty organised by the Germain aid agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), his employer. "Now the independent countries are stuck in a lose-lose situation."

Central Asia, far from any ocean, gets little rain. Much of it falls on the Pamir mountains, from which the region’s two great rivers travel due east, the Amu Darya just a few hundred kilometres south of the larger Syr Darya. Both end up in the Aral Sea, from which no river flows out. All but the northern part of the sea has dried up because most the water from the two rivers that compensated for evaporation is now used for irrigation before it reaches the Aral.

To support this irrigation, the Soviet authorities built a series of dams on the Syr Darya so that upstream Kyrgyzstan could release the water to maximum advantage for the irrigation-based agriculture of downstream Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The dams were equipped with power-generating turbines that also furnished Kyrgyzstan with cheap electricity when the water was released downstream.

Thus for decades, part or all of the summer’s snowmelt water was held in these reservoirs until the following spring’s planting season. Uzbekistan used its abundant gas and coal to cover the winter heating needs of Kyrgyzstan.

But after independence in 1991, Uzbekistan ceased deliveries of heating materials so Kyrgyzstan started releasing the water from its dams in winter, when people use electric heaters and demand soars. Much of the winter water goes to waste in the Uzbek desert, though some is hoarded in small reservoirs. As a result, a quarter of Uzbekistan’s farmland can no longer be irrigated and is no longer productive.

Meanwhile, Tajikistan is working to complete a giant, 2-billion-dollar dam on a tributary of Uzbekistan’s other major source of water, the Amu Darya, which so far has seen little man-made regulation. The Roghun dam, in a steep gorge, would be the tallest in the world and could generate 3,600 megawatts of electricity, six times more than a typical coal-burning power station.

The dam, initially designed by Soviet engineers to regulate water for irrigation, is now seen primarily as a tool to produce electricity for export, which means the release of water would not be optimised for Uzbek agriculture.

After the project sparked strong protests from Uzbekistan, the Tajiks asked the World Bank for a low- interest loan to finance a series of feasibility studies supervised by the bank.

"We won’t make a decision until the studies are finished," said Tajik water resources minister Rahmat Bobokalonov. "So far, it’s too early to tell what the studies will conclude," added World Bank water specialist Daryl Fields.

Hydrologist Vadim Sokolov of the Interstate Commission of Water Coordination of Central Asia in Tashkent says that if the dam is built and used primarily for electricity, it will not only ruin much of the remaining Uzbek farmland, it will also damage wetlands at the former estuary of the Amu Darya on the dried-up southern part of the Aral Sea.

The Roghun dam is the latest of a series of costly policies by the Central Asian states based on the belief that cooperation is unlikely and that each country needs to build a system that doesn’t depend on its neighbours’ goodwill.

Sokolov says the go-alone policies have forced Uzbekistan to seek expensive ways of storing the water in winter and obliged all countries to build new roads to reach a small number of border crossings after the rest of the borders were closed. Meanwhile, he adds, Kyrgyzstan’s and Tajikistan’s already creaky energy grids have been put under great strain by surging winter demand for electric heating, increasing the frequency of blackouts.

"Even Kyrgyz farmers suffer," Sokolov says. "In 2008, it was a dry year, they only got 60 percent of their irrigation water needs, even less than the Uzbeks, who got 70 percent."

The situation is all the more galling because in 1998, following an initiative by the United States, the four countries signed an agreement under which they would return to the Soviet model: the Syr Darya downstream countries, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, would supply electricity, coal and gas to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in exchange for the others releasing the water in spring and summer.

But the downstream countries only held their part of the deal for three years and ever since, the upstream countries have emptied their reservoirs in winter to spin their turbines, despite multiple attempts to get the countries to cooperate again.

Meanwhile, climate change is darkening the outlook. Glaciers are melting, providing a temporary boost to be followed by a shortfall – it’s unclear how big – when they will be gone for good. What is more certain is that warmer temperatures will mean more evaporation, therefore less water available for irrigation.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Analysis, Asia, Development, Environment Tagged With: , , ,

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Majority Still Lack Access to Safe Water

July 12, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Charles M. Mushizi

MBABANE, Swaziland, Jul 12, 2011 (IPS) – Only two in every five people in the Southern African Development Community has access to safe water for drinking and household use. Three quarters of those lacking access, live in rural areas and the majority of these are women and children.

Chrispin Sedeke, head of the Transboundary Water Management Division of the Ministry for the Environment of the Democratic Republic of Congo, believes that even these discouraging figures are likely understated.

"The statistics from certain countries – like the DRC – are not up to date. The numbers are approximate; those from other countries are only partial. And all the numbers do not cover the same period; that’s what makes the global statistics presented less than reliable," Sedeke told IPS on the sidelines of the Fifth SADC Water Dialogue, held in the Swazi capital, Mbabane, on Jun. 28 and 29.

"If we refer just to some of the large countries in the region, like the DRC where more than 75 percent of the population lacked access to potable water at the end of 2010, one can readily see how the reality for SADC is worse than the statistics show," he added.

"More than 60 percent of the population without access to water in DRC is made up of women and children; to put it another way, more than 35 million Congolese women and children do not have access to potable water," Cyrille Masamba, another Congolese delegate in Mbabane, told IPS.

According to a report published in March 2011 by the United Nations Environment Programme, the DRC possesses half of the water resources in Africa, but more than 50 million Congolese do not have access to water.

"With the support of development partners like the United Nations Development Programme, the Congolese government could extend water to only [an additional] two percent of the population between 2005 and 2010," Masamba said.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has just provided two million dollars from its Africa Water Supply programme to strengthen the efforts of the DRC and other SADC member states to address weaknesses in the water sector.

According to Phera Ramoeli, head of SADC’s Water Division, "This amount will help to support member states in conceiving and implementing national policies that can help people to access water for drinking and household use."

He said the funding from AfDB would cover project expenses for 27 months.

"Despite the assistance provided," Ramoeli said, "the question of finance for water projects remains a political and social engagement that states take on individually. It is above all a political commitment that decision-makers must take for their own citizens," Ramoeli told IPS.

"It’s in this sense that each state has a national policy to finance access to water as well as to guide sustainable management of water in the context of climate change," said Jonathan Kampata, a Zambian expert in water finance. According to him, "water is becoming a big asset for adaptation to greenhouse effects and in the struggle against food insecurity through agriculture."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Development, Environment, Health, Report Tagged With: ,

ZIMBABWE: Harvesting Water for Food Security

June 28, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Busani Bafana

GWANDA, Zimbabwe, Jun 28, 2011 (IPS) – Earth mounds running across her field hold back the water that Caroline Ndlovu uses to grow maize, pumpkins, beans and watermelons long after the short rainy season in this arid part of Zimbabwe.

Ndlovu, a mother of three who trains other farmers, is one of over 100 smallholder farmers practising the water harvesting technique of using earth dams. The water collected in the field allows farmers to increase their crop yields, which ordinarily are poor in this region.

Almost four years ago Ndlovu harvested one 50-kilogram bag of maize from her 1.5 hectare piece of land, which sits on an undulating slope. Thanks to harvesting water, Ndlovu’s maize yield has quadrupled and her neighbours wonder what she is doing they are not.

"For a long time I was worried about poor harvest because of low rainfall until I heard about water harvesting," Ndlovu, told IPS pointing to full granary of maize. "The poor rainfall limitsed me to grow shorghum and millet but that was not for me because I am not able to (protect) the crops from the birds. I grow maize and have realised good harvests because of implementing water harvesting."

The secret to water harvesting is hard work and a passion for farming, Ndlovu revealed. "I work hard and put to practise the skills I have learnt on pegging and digging the contours in the most suitable location to ensure that they hold the water after the rains," said Ndlovu.

"I have encouraged other farmers to try water harvesting and some of them wonder if I am using a tractor when they see my harvest yet it all about learning the technique and applying it correctly."

Dead level contours are a useful technology for farmers farming on sloping fields to harvest rainwater. The trenches, around 50 centimetres deep and 1 metre wide, are dug across the slope. During rainfall, they capture run off, which is then slowly released to the field below over the next few weeks, giving crops moisture during dry spells.

Farmers have faced the challenge of not having the tools to dig the contours as well as not having the labour involved in making the contours. So communities in Sizhulube village work together to dig the contours. While older or disabled members look after the children and help prepare food.

Gwanda, 180 kilometres north of Bulawayo, is tucked away in the southern part of the country and is classified as a natural region suitable for semi extensive farming as it receives up to 400 millimetres rainfall annually. Farmers have learnt and practise rainwater harvesting to survive the long dry spells.

Village head and ward coordinator for the water harvesting project in Sizhubane village, Phineas Maphosa, said the project has empowered farmers in the area. Following a training workshop in 2006, 15 economic groups were identified in the six villages that make up the ward, which prioritised food security using water harvesting.

"Our rainfall is really pathetic and each year farmers get nothing from their fields. But now we see a difference in the harvests," said Maphosa. "I practise water harvesting and train other farmers on using it because I have improved my harvest as a result."

Maphosa said at first some farmers were sceptical and lazy to adopt the technique. But ‘look and learn’ tours were used to encourage them and some now grow pumpkins and beans.

International non-governmental organisation Practical Action has trained farmers to use water harvesting techniques.

Rockwell Matengarufu, the district facilitator for Practical Action’s ‘Enhancing Livelihoods and Food Security in Vulnerable Semi-Arid Areas of Matabeleland South’ programme, told IPS that water harvesting techniques are an insurance against the uncertainty of rain-fed agriculture in a changing climate. Practical Action has trained farmers to use improved farming methods and extension services they can share at village level in Gwanda.

According to the Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Network (SearNet) hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre in Kenya, most sub-Saharan African countries are currently using at most five percent of their rainwater potential. By recognising and incorporating the greenwater — the water ignored in hydrological planning — it may be possible to improve the food insecurity situation while also protecting the environment.

"There is an overdependence on rain-fed agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and not enough ways to deal with the effects of dry spells and droughts," said Maimbo Malesu, the World Agroforestry Centre’s water-management programme coordinator for Eastern Africa writing on the SearNet website. "As a result, grain yields are below one tonne per hectare in most of the region. This has mistakenly been blamed on physical water scarcity. But it is not physical as much as it is economic. There is simply a lack of investments to both capture and boost water storage."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


Filed Under: Africa, Development, Environment, Report Tagged With: , ,
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