WORLD'S FRESH WATER RAPIDLY BEING DEPLETED, GLOBAL SHORTAGE FEARED IN COMING YEARS
19 July 2004

The United Nations has been pushing for some time for a global strategy to deal with the looming scarcity of fresh water. A BBC report from June 2000 indicated 1 in 5 of all living human beings already lacks access to safe drinking water. Dramatically making the point that our oceans cannot solve the problem, the report says "Only 2.5% of the world's water is not salty, and two-thirds of that is locked up in the icecaps and glaciers."

Immediately available, clean fresh water, not contaminated by industrial chemicals, parasites or natural toxins, simply does not exist in the abundance needed to feed a global marketplace with industrial standards of water usage. Already, the poorest areas of the world are going without, due to extensive overconsumption, population growth and overpumping of aquifers.

Researcher Sandra Postel has estimated that the world's aquifers (underground reserves of fresh water) are being depleted beyond replacement by as much as 160 billion cubic meters (160 billion tons). It requires about twice that much water to produce the annual U.S. harvest of grain products. Demographic estimates suggest the world's population will swell from 6 billion to 9 billion during the next 50 years, with nearly all of the 3 billion new people born in countries where water is already scarce.

The UN estimates water usage will increase by 40% over just the next 2 decades, due in part to the spread of industrial urbanization around the world, which brings the promise of higher living standards, which means more demand for clean water. The depletion of aquifers is not simply a matter of weather cycles, runoff and replacement: many of the world's largest aquifers are "fossil aquifers", created millions of years ago, and unable to replenish themselves through natural weather patterns.

The current standard for dealing with depletion is to dig deeper, to pump more water from the lower limits of the world's reserves, in order to feed the growing need for irrigation, industrial uses and personal consumption. The depletion of aquifers also has the negative effect of undermining surface terrain, causing parts of cities like Venice, Mexico City and Bangkok to "sink" below normal levels.

In 2002, the UN warned that 2.7 billion people would be facing severe water scarcity by 2025. In terms of a global ecological crisis, that leaves very little time to address the problem. Wealthy countries may first experience the crisis as a blow to their economic assumptions. Inexpensive safe drinking water may be a thing of the past. Where water is provided by government subsidy, prices are normally kept artificially low, because water is the most essential resource necessary to sustain life. Where private companies have explored the use of market dynamics to price water, or where public funds have been withdrawn, huge price increases have resulted, sometimes provoking political unrest.

In Bolivia, in the year 2000, an attempt at privatization went disastrously wrong, when prices skyrocketed and citizens revolted against the policy. The Resource Center of the Americas lists reports which detail the evolution of the crisis. The Bolivian government, under pressure from the World Bank, sold the water utility of Cochabamba to a group of private foreign investors who promised to invest millions to improve the quality and availability of clean drinking water. The result was prices which went to more than double, even triple the going rate.

Monthly bills were as high as $30 for people earning as little as $100 per month. The effect was devastating, and the people organized a general strike in protest. In early February of 2000, while negotiations went on, the Bolivian government sent 1,000 military personnel to Cochabamba and banned the march that had been scheduled. The country's president was Hugo Banzer, who had ruled as dictator for 7 years in the 1970's; organizers of the strike declared his hardline tactics “an expression of fascism that reflects a total incapacity of the government to have a dialogue.”

By early April, citizens took to the streets in massive numbers, with half a million people shutting down the city of Cochabamba. The protests overwhelmed the government's will to sustain the unpopular water contracts. The government announced it would break the deal. Rumors were rampant that Banzer would declare martial law, so the concession came as a surprise. Nevertheless, the rumors persisted, and on the following day the Bolivian government declared martial law, removing virtually all civil rights from Bolivian citizens.

The concession was reversed, and the local governor resigned, warning of imminent bloodshed. At least 6 people were killed by the Bolivian military in attempts to disperse the peaceful demonstrations, and within two days, after public burials, protesters were still turning out in the thousands. The President appointed a military strongman, known for brutally repressive tactics that killed dissenters in 1998, to be local governor, but talks continued to reach a settlement.

Privatization failed in Cochabamba, because the market does not effectively deliver vital sustenance the way it does commodities. But coming shortages promise to make demand all the more severe around the world, causing intense competition among governments to purchase or to control mass imports of fresh water from wherever it is available.

Ecological research, as reported by the Earth Policy Institute, finds that falling water tables also contribute to food scarcity, by reducing or limiting the total worldwide harvest. This also has the effect of driving prices higher on world markets, and some warn of looming economic degradation on a global scale. If China, for instance, becomes a major importer of grain, no longer able to feed itself or to help feed the rest of the world, then the demand on other major producers' harvests will be extreme, and prices on the world market may soar.

Food security is a real issue of national security, and can exacerbate the problems of water scarcity which led to conflict in Bolivia and have led to military conflicts in countries like Ethiopia and Sudan, both of which claim parts of the Nile River's water. In the 1980's, Egypt was forced to defend Sudan militarily against a Libyan-backed coup attempt, in order to guarantee the flow of much needed Nile water. The problem of competing claims between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt is increasingly complex, as the Nile water now only trickles into the Mediterranean for part of the year.

Other great rivers of the world are also now running dry for part of the year, as their water is drained away upstream for irrigation and industrial uses. The Yemeni capital is threatened by chronic shortages. The U.S. and México are in constant negotiation over rights to the waters of the Río Grande, the terms of which both sides claim are not followed by the other. Bangladesh, one of the world's wettest places, faces desperate shortages unless India guarantees a certain amount of water will flow down through shared river systems.

The world is in crisis, over an issue that for most in the West is a thorny, confusing hodge-podge of complex political and economic calculations, but really comes down to one fundamental fact: people need water to live, and so does everything else that lives. The goal of sustainable hydrological policy is now coming into the harsh light of day.

POPULATION GROWTH SENTENCING MILLIONS TO HYDROLOGICAL POVERTY
21 June 2000 | Lester R. Brown

At a time when drought in the United States, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan is in the news, it is easy to forget that far more serious water shortages are emerging as the demand for water in many countries simply outruns the supply. Water tables are now falling on every continent. Literally scores of countries are facing water shortages as water tables fall and wells go dry.

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We live in a water-challenged world, one that is becoming more so each year as 80 million additional people stake their claims to the Earth’s water resources. Unfortunately, nearly all the projected 3 billion people to be added over the next half century will be born in countries that are already experiencing water shortages. [Keep Reading]