New Treaty Aims to Protect Shared Transboundary Aquifers
PARIS, France, October 23, 2008 (ENS) - Underground aquifers contain 100 times the volume of fresh water found on the Earth’s surface but they have been neglected under international law despite their environmental, social, economic and strategic importance.
On Monday, that will change as the UN General Assembly receives the draft of a new international treaty to safeguard these enormous pools of underground water shared by more than one country.
The draft Convention on Transboundary Aquifers applies to 96 percent of the planet’s freshwater resources - those that are to be found in underground aquifers, most of which straddle national boundaries.
Many shared aquifers are under environmental threats caused by climate change, growing population pressure, over-exploitation, and human induced water pollution.
Blue Eye Spring in southern Albania is fed by the Vjosa / Pogoni Aquifer shared by Albania and Greece.
The draft treaty requires that aquifer states not harm existing aquifers and cooperate to prevent and control their pollution. Prepared over the past six years by the UN International Law Commission with the assistance of experts from UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme, the treaty is intended to fill a gap in the law.
To accompany the draft treaty, UNESCO is publishing the first-ever world map of shared aquifers. It shows the aquifer locations and provides information about the quality of their water and rate of replenishment by rainfall.
So far, the inventory includes 273 shared aquifers - 68 are in the Americas, 38 in Africa, 65 in eastern Europe, 90 in western Europe and 12 in Asia.
The growth in the demand for water since 1950 has been met by the increased use of underground resources. Globally, 65 percent of this water is devoted to irrigation, 25 percent to the supply of drinking water and 10 percent to industry.
Underground aquifers account for more than 70 percent of the water used in the European Union, and are often the only source of supply in arid and semi-arid zones.
Aquifers supply 100 percent of the water used in Saudi Arabia and Malta, 95 percent in Tunisia and 75 percent in Morocco.
Irrigation systems in many countries depend very largely on groundwater resources - 90 percent in the Libya, 89 percent in India, 84 percent in South Africa and 80 percent in Spain.
One of the largest aquifers in the world is the Guarani Aquifer, extending over 1.2 million square kilometers, shared by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Although aquifer systems exist in all continents, not all of them are fed on a regular basis by rainfall. Those in north Africa and the Arabian peninsula were formed more than 10,000 years ago when the climate was more humid and are no longer replenished.
This well in Africa’s Sahara desert taps into an underground aquifer. (Photo by J.R. Virtue)
In some regions, even if the aquifers are renewable, they may be endangered by over-exploitation or pollution. In the small islands and coastal zones of the Mediterranean, people often use groundwater more rapidly than it is replenished.
The aquifers in Africa, which are some of the biggest in the world, are still under-exploited, the UN agency says, adding, “They have considerable potential, provided that their resources are managed on a sustainable basis.”
Since they generally extend across several national boundaries, the sustainable use of African aquifers depends on agreed management mechanisms that will help prevent pollution or over-exploitation.
Mechanisms of this kind have begun to emerge. In the 1990s Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan established a joint authority to manage the Nubian aquifer system.
In their project concerning the Iullemeden aquifer that extends over 500 000 square kilometers in the semi-arid tropical savanna ecoregion of West Africa, Niger, Nigeria and Mali have approved in principle a consultative mechanism for administering the aquifer system. UNESCO says such mechanisms still are rare but the new treaty may encourage their formation.
FROM:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2008/2008-10-23-01.asp
Is this the beginning of water wars?
18:00 11 April 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Catherine Brahic
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As Barcelona runs out of water, Spain has been forced to consider importing water from France by boat. It is the latest example of the growing struggle for water around the world – the “water wars”.
Barcelona and the surrounding region are suffering the worst drought in decades. There are several possible solutions, including diverting a river, and desalinating water. But the city looks like it will ship water from the French port of Marseilles.
The water services authority in Marseille say that no contracts have been signed, and would not say how much the water would cost, although it is unlikely to cost any more than it costs the inhabitants of Marseilles. And the amounts of water than have been discussed are small – 25,000 cubic metres, less than what’s needed to grow an acre of wheat, and not enough to keep 30 Spaniards going for a year, based on their average consumption.
But the proposal is interesting because it turns a local drought into an international situation.
Water conflict
Climatologists predict that certain regions, the Mediterranean basin among them, will increasingly suffer from water shortages as global temperatures are pushed up by greenhouse gas emissions.
Combined with reports that water scarcity can escalate conflicts, the forecasts have raised fears that climate change could bring about water wars.
“People will not go to war over water,” says Mark Zeitoun, from the London School of Economics’ Centre for Environmental Policy and Governance in the UK. “But that’s not to say water shortages will not contributing to existing tensions.”
This is already happening. Zeitoun advises the Palestinian authorities in their water negotiations with Israel. The latter controls 90% of the two territories’ shared water resources. “The fact that the Palestinians are deprived of their water doesn’t help the situation,” Zeitoun says.
Like Spain, the Palestinian authorities are considering their options, and like Spain one of them is to import water – in this case from Turkey, a country which is already involved in its own water disputes with Syria and Iraq.
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers start in Turkey and supply Syria and Iraq. The Turkish government is building dams on those rivers, reducing the flow downstream and stoking long-standing tensions with its neighbours. “Iraq desperately needs that water,” says Zeitoun.
Water for arms
Turkey already exports water to Cyprus and in 2004 signed a “water for arms” deal with none other than Israel, an agreement which sees Turkey deliver converted oil tankers full of water to Israel in exchange for tanks and air force technology.
Israel’s situation is typical of a state that is severely mismanaging its water resources, says Zeitoun. Climate change models predict that while water will become scarcer in some regions, it will be more abundant elsewhere, suggesting efficient water management is key.
“If Spain is drawing a lot of water to grow oranges for the UK, the city of Barcelona doesn’t benefit. The only people profiting are a few large farmers,” he says.
So while the water wars may not spark conflict between states, Zeitoun’s colleague Elena Lopez-Gunn says we could well see water riots. “Whether the political systems can cope with that, we don’t know,” she says.
FROM:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn13655-is-this-the-beginning-of-water-wars.html
Here’s a couple links to a good movie on fresh water scarcity.
Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world!s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel. Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?! Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/flow/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGd9D4J0lag
An AFP article below on the floods in eastern India. This comes on the heels of a recent report I read that stated India has a third of the world’s poorest people - sure, there is a growing mega-rich, and there is certainly the poorest of the poor and I doubt that they can suppress those people as China can. I see major problems in India’s not-too distant future, trouble that will take more than new water pumps and GM foods to overcome this time. The country and its major farming areas is still very much in desperate drought, there are security flash-points in all the usual areas of trouble, and good leadership and change is needed now, not later. Recently Shekhar Kapur said on his site “Water is the new global weapon of social control and exploitation.” He’s right and sadly wrong: it IS a global weapon of social control and exploitation but it is not new. The word “rival” comes from Latin “rivalis” - one using the same stream as another.
India floods a ‘calamity’, says premier
August 28, 2008 - 9:54PM
Massive flooding in eastern India has caused a “national calamity”, the prime minister said after touring the devastated region where more than a million remain trapped.
Manmohan Singh announced a relief package of $US228 million ($A265.8 million) and 125,000 tonnes of grain for those affected when a monsoon-swollen river changed course, flooding huge swathes of the country’s impoverished Bihar state.
“If there is a need for more, we will give more,” he told reporters. “We would like to assure the people of Bihar that all India will support them through this difficulty.”
The Kosi river breached its banks ten days ago on the border with Nepal, flowing through a channel it had previously abandoned.
“About 90,000 victims have been evacuated from villages in the flood affected area by government rescue agencies,” disaster management official Prataya Amrit told AFP.
More than 400 boats had been pressed into service and hundreds more would be used to shift people to relief shelters and higher land, official Amrit said.
At least 46 people are reported to have died in the floods, as army troops and air force helicopters rushed to help police in the rescue operation.
Thousands of residents abandoned their homes as the floodwater spread and have taken shelter in crowded relief camps or in buildings on higher ground.
Nepalese disaster management officials told AFP the river had washed away a series of dams and spurs, which control the water, sending huge torrents downstream that washed away further flood defences.
Authorities on both sides of the border have been in dispute over maintenance of flood control structures and uncleared silt, officials said.
The Kosi, which flows into the Ganges, is known as the “River of Sorrow” due to its record of disastrous floods during the monsoon season.
More than 800 people have been killed in monsoon-related accidents following the heavy June-to-September rains across India.
Bihar officials said the death toll could climb further as many areas were inaccessible.
© 2008 AFP
Very sad news about the Ahmedabad blasts, and more bombs are being found in Surat.
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080059451
http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/31/stories/2008073161531000.htm
