Asia’s looming water crisis

The water situation in California is very bad, by any rational measure, but it’s minuscule compared to what’s just beginning to unfold in Asia.

Melting Glaciers Threaten Asia Security as Water Supplies Fall:

China and India water supplies will decline as global warming shrinks Himalayan Mountain glaciers, increasing the likelihood of regional disputes, according to a report by the Asia Society.

Asia, with half the world’s population, has less fresh water than any continent except Antarctica, said Suzanne DiMaggio, director of social issues for the Asia Society, a New York-based nonprofit group that promotes Asian-U.S. relations. Water scarcity could trigger conflicts between villages in China and rivals India and Pakistan, and fuel water-borne disease and “large-scale” migration, according to today’s report.

Global warming from fossil fuel emissions is increasing the frequency of extreme weather, intensifying dry and wet seasons that can overwhelm crops, the report said. Lower crop yields from water shortages in China or India, the world’s most populous nations and the top producers of wheat and rice, could affect world food prices.

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Glaciers, the primary fresh water source for many Asian countries, are melting more rapidly than in the past because of climate change, the report said. Melting Himalayan glaciers now account for up to 70 percent of the summer flow of the Ganges River and about 55 percent of Asia’s other major river systems, according to the report.

In 30 years, as the glaciers continue to retreat, the Indus and Mekong rivers could be dry during part of the year, according to the report.

The web page for the report by the Asia Society is Asia’s Next Challenge: Securing the Region’s Water Future. From there you can download the report mentioned above, Asia’s Next Challenge: Securing the Region’s Water Future [59 page, 2.1 MB PDF], or view an interactive country briefing. (Note: Parts of the briefing didn’t work properly in my browser, FireFox, as it displayed two sets of text that overlapped.)

From the executive summary of the report:

The global demand for freshwater is soaring as supply is becoming more uncertain. Today, one out of six people-more than a billion-do not have adequate access to safe water. The United Nations projects that by 2025, half of the countries worldwide will face water stress or outright shortages. By 2050, as many as three out of four people around the globe could be affected by water scarcity.

Water-related problems are particularly acute in Asia. Although Asia is home to more than half of the world’s population, it has less freshwater-3,920 cubic meters per person per year-than any continent other than Antarctica. Almost two-thirds of global population growth is occurring in Asia, where the population is expected to increase by nearly 500 million people within the next 10 years. Asia’s rural population will remain almost the same between now and 2025, but the urban population is likely to increase by a staggering 60%.

As population growth and urbanization rates in Asia rise rapidly, stress on the region’s water resources is intensifying. Climate change is expected to worsen the situation significantly. Experts agree that reduced access to freshwater will lead to a cascading set of consequences, including impaired food production, the loss of livelihood security, large-scale migration within and across borders, and increased economic and geopolitical tensions and instabilities. Over time, these effects will have a profound impact on security throughout the region.

Through this report, the Asia Society’s Leadership Group on Water Security aims to raise awareness of the importance of water as a means of security at multiple levels in Asia. We take as our immediate point of departure the Asian Water Development Outlook 2007, an assessment of Asia’s possible water future published by the Asian Development Bank in cooperation with the Asia-Pacific Water Forum1. The Outlook emphasizes that the majority of Asia’s water problems are not attributable to an actual shortage, but rather are the result of poor water governance. As such, they are solvable through more effective governance and better management practices.

Our goal is to build on the far-ranging findings presented in the Outlook by considering the security dimensions associated with decreased access to a safe, stable water supply in Asia. The term “security” is often used to connote conflict, but it has a much broader meaning for the purposes of this effort. The nexus between an essential resource such as water and security encompasses individual physical safety, livelihoods, health and human welfare, as well as a realization of the cooperative potential between nation-states and subnational jurisdictions. The report highlights the significance of water as a source of livelihoods, a vector of pathogens, a potent force behind extreme events and natural disasters, and also a mechanism for cooperation among governments and communities.

The report also draws attention to some of the most significant current and future water- related challenges facing the region-from water disputes involving hostile states such as India and Pakistan to water conflicts in China’s villages and provinces resulting from agricultural and industrial pollution, and from the alarming rise in waterborne diseases, especially among children, in Indonesia attributable to inadequate wastewater facilities to the negative impact that climate change will have on Asia’s glaciers, which for many countries are the primary freshwater source. The scope and scale of these problems demonstrate in stark relief that no matter how we approach water resources-whether it is on the basis of quality and quantity, or as the most potent manifestation of extreme climatic events-hydropolitics is likely to be a growing force in Asian security that will require a broader understanding of and strengthened institutional capacities for water governance.

This effort does not seek to “securitize” water. Indeed, the problems highlighted in this report cannot be addressed by traditional tools of national defense. However, the current approach, which views water scarcity and quality issues through a predominantly environmental lens, is not sufficient either. The U.S. National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2025 report has forecasted that “cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to become more difficult within and between states” in Asia2. The emerging picture underscores an urgent need to reframe the debate and to begin looking at these issues in a more comprehensive way that takes into account the complex national security and development challenges that countries and communities will face as water scarcity intensifies.

Solutions are well within reach, but they will require high-level political will and a sufficient amount of investment. Governments need to develop coherent national responses and policies to simultaneously address multiple problems, with the aim of reducing security risks and vulnerabilities and providing economic benefits, such as investments in infrastructure for water conservation and management. Countries should forge a regional approach in which governments and other key stakeholders, including nongovernmental organizations, civil society groups, and businesses, work together to clarify responsibilities and coordination mechanisms to address water security concerns.

The critical change in our mindset over the next few years and decades will be the realization that we’re now living what I call a “measured life on a managed planet”. The number of human beings on the planet combined with the way many of us want to (or already do) live mean that the time when we could indulge in the luxuries of ignorance and casual behavior are gone. The easy, cheap sources of fossil fuels are in their twilight, and we’re quickly saturating some of the natural sinks for our waste, most notably the atmosphere with CO2. It took us a long time (in human terms) to get here, but it’s finally happened, and the sooner we realize it and start acting like responsible adults, the better off we’ll be.