MUMBAI -
Suicides, water riots and strikes over the Cauvery River
in south India are an acrimonious preview to predicted
worldwide conflicts over water. For decades, the two
south Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have
bitterly squabbled over sharing Cauvery waters. Harassed
Indian prime ministers and the Supreme Court have
futilely tried to broker peace.
The Cauvery
spat, which started in 19th century British-ruled India
between the Madras presidency and Mysore, is a nagging
sub-plot in South Asian river basins. It is a classic
squabble between upstream Karnataka and downstream Tamil
Nadu. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court forced
Karnataka to release critical amounts of water for
irrigated rice farming in Tamil Nadu. But by the time
the water was released, it was too late for farmers in
Tamil Nadu to seed the season's crops. The decision to
release the water was greeted by a storm of protests and
strikes in Karnataka. Police were actually posted on
dams to prevent people from committing suicide in
protest by leaping into the water.
The Cauvery
dispute may be extreme. But water quantity on earth has
been static for at least 2,000 years, when the world
population less than 3 percent of its present size. The
International Water Management Institute predicts that
2.7 billion people, or one-third of the world's
projected population, will not have enough water by
2025. Some 97 percent of the world's water is in oceans
and seas. Of the remaining fresh water, the World Health
Organization (WHO) estimates that only 0.007 percent is
drinkable.
In essence, more people will have
less water to share. Some 60 percent of the world's
human population depends on water sources shared by more
than two countries with conflicting interests. Only 37
violent incidents over water were reported worldwide
since 1948, 21 of them involving armies. Thirty of these
were confined to Israel and its neighbors. But
fast-growing populations, particularly in less-developed
regions, can be expected to change temperature levels.
Even though a relatively comforting history
exists describing negotiated settlements of water
quarrels, 158 of the world's 263 international basins
lack feasible water-sharing frameworks. The UN study
noted that most treaties do not involve all the affected
riparian nations. Four of the six most disputed basins
in the world are in Asia and the Middle East: the
Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, the Jordan, Tigris-Euphrates
and the Mekong. South Asia, with five river basins, and
Southeast Asia with 18, the study found, recorded the
highest incidence of water disputes. None went beyond an
outburst of political bombast - for now.
But in
future "things can go wrong", said Professor Aaron Wolf
of Oregon State University, whose research was part of
the study.
Things have already gone wrong. Some
20 percent of Asians have no easy access to water.
Village women trek over 2 kilometers for their daily
needs. Millions of urban households in Indian cities
wake up in the pre-dawn hours to store water in drums
and plastic buckets. Squabbles break out over public
faucets, and slum dwellers routinely steal water from
municipality pipelines.
Economically important
cities like Mumbai, with their populations expected to
double over the next 25 years, have a water bomb
ticking. Prominent Indian filmmaker Shekar Kapur,
announced his next film Paani, would be on urban
power struggles over water in the 25 years ahead.
Water scarcity, like death, is a great leveler
between urban and rural India, rich and poor. Tap water
comes on for a few hours twice a day in parts of
suburban Juhu in Mumbai where movie stars and business
moguls reside. The poor quality of available water
sharpens scarcity and increases potential for conflict.
India's 14 major rivers carry 50 million cubic
meters of untreated sewage. New Delhi dumps more than
200 million liters of raw sewage and 20 million of
industrial waste into the Yamuna River. Karachi,
Pakistan's largest city, has an ancient sewage treatment
plant that contaminates drinking water wells. In
Bangladesh, an estimated three-quarters of diseases are
linked to unsafe water and poor sanitation. Arsenic
poisoning of drinking water is reportedly much more
severe in South Asia and China. The Bangladesh
government acknowledged this month that arsenic in water
is poisoning 35 million of its people, causing skin
infections, skin cancer, blindness and physical
disability.
Benchmarks vary on the freshwater
needed for normal living. The international standard -
the water stress index - defines a region as
water-stressed if per-capita water availability is below
1,700 cubic meters annually (1 cubic meter = 1,000
liters). A country is water-scarce if its water per
capita dips below 1,000 cubic meters. Then food
production, economic development and ecosystems suffer.
In India, per-capita annual freshwater availability is
estimated to shrink from 1,820 cubic meters in 2001 to
1,341 cubic meters in 2025 and 1,140 cubic meters in
2050. A report for the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report says
that India will be "water stressed" by 2017.
To
head off conflicts in water-stressed regions, a United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO)-created "Water Cooperation
Facility" was announced in March this year, during the
Third World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan. The
fire-fighting mechanism, involving the World Water
Council and the Permanent Court of Arbitration, was
recognition that existing international water treaties
are being swamped by new demands for an increasing
population.
For instance, Bangladesh complained
to the UN in 1995 about India diverting the Bramaputra
river waters as a "gross violation of human rights and
justice". Pakistan objected to the new 450-megawatt
Balighar hydropower project India planned on the river
Chenab. Pakistan said the project violated the 1960
Indus treaty between the two countries.
Conflicts could also erupt through gaps in
international law. Presently, water disputes fall under
four broad principles: absolute sovereignty, prior
appropriation, riparian and equitable utilization. Under
absolute sovereignty, also known as the Harmon Doctrine,
a country owns all its water resources, neighboring
countries be damned. Prior-appropriation doctrine,
otherwise "the early bird gets the water" rule, lets the
upstream country enjoy first rights to the water. So
Bangladesh is entitled to only leftover river water that
India does not need. The principles of riparian and
equitable utilization, though, promise a fairer deal for
downstream countries.
South Asian governments
are slowly waking up to the looming crisis. To stir
public awareness about water, India followed the UN's
example and declared 2003 as "Freshwater Year". Last
October, Pakistan and the Asian Development Bank
instituted a Water Resources Strategy Study to road map
future water solutions.
"Twenty-two million
acres of barren land are in dire need of water,"
Pakistani leader President General Pervez Musharraf told
his country on September 13 in a 55-minute speech
unusually devoted to water scarcity. He called for new
dams to be built or upgraded in Skardu, Bhasha,
Kalabagh, Akori and told opponents of dams to shut up,
saying 70 percent of Pakistanis lived in villages and
need the water from dams. Musharraf called for 50 years
advance planning to overcome water needs.
The
Indian government caused a major stir when it announced
a $12.5 billion project to link India's rivers, mainly
the Ganges, Bramaputra and Mohanadi basins. Indian
environmentalists were not the only ones aghast at the
environmental and monetary costs of the project. "The
very existence of Bangladesh will be at a stake," said
the Padma-Jamuna-Meghna Bachao Andolon, a protest group
in Bangladesh. "India's project will severely affect
Bangladesh's economy, ecology, livelihood, ecosystem and
also the very existence of this lower riparian country."
To fight water woes less controversially and
inexpensively, Chennai has turned to the ancient Indian
water conservation method of rainwater harvesting. Water
from catchment surfaces such as the rooftops of houses
and buildings is diverted into dugout ponds, vessels or
underground tanks to store for long periods.
By
July 31, 318,979 houses and commercial buildings were
fitted with simple rainwater-harvesting systems. The
Chennai municipality said it would approve new water,
sewage connections and building plans only if
rainwater-harvesting systems were included. It hopes to
generate 370 million liters of rain-harvested water
daily, giving each household an average of 213 liters.
Rainwater harvesting, recycling, drip irrigation
and water meters to reduce consumption could be the
short-term solutions with long-term impact. Or the year
2025 could see air jets for washing and bathing, if not
armed conflicts for the new liquid gold.
Raja M is an independent writer based
in Mumbai.
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Sep 17, 2003
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