Useful websites on water management:

www.wateraid.org.uk
www.irn.org
www.worldwaterforum.org
www.nilebasin.org

"The world has no more fresh water than it did 2,000 years ago when the population was less than 3% its present size" Alex Kirby, BBC Environment.

The Unequal Distribution of Water

Globally

With 70% of the planet covered in water, it is hard to imagine that there may be problems with the world's water supply. However, less than 3% of the earth's water is fresh, and most of this is difficult to obtain. At the same time, water supplies are very unequal on a global scale, depending on the differences in climate, and the balance between the amount of precipitation on the one hand and the loss of moisture from the soil, rocks and plants, known as evapotranspiration, on the other. In much of the Middle East, evapotranspiration is higher than precipitation, creating a water deficit. In North-West Europe, the opposite is the case and we benefit from a water surplus.

...and Locally

Distribution of water on a local scale is not just a result of nature. People who live upstream of a river may use up or waste water at the expense of people who live further downstream. Even in arid areas, there are richer people who have all the water they need. Meanwhile, poorer communities have the greatest difficulty in having enough water. In water-scarce western India, powerful irrigation pumps work twenty-four hours a day, while poorer women find their drinking wells run dry. Therefore water shortages are often as much to do with inequality amongst people as well as the natural conditions of an area.

Wasted Water

For thousands of years, people have been developing ways to extract water from rivers and the groundwater supply to irrigate the land. Large-scale development projects using mechanical pumps have made irrigation much easier but there are signs that they can create problems as much as solve them. Some rivers have been reduced to a trickle by the time they reach the sea. In parts of China, India, Mexico and Yemen, water tables are dropping by a metre a year as people pump up waterfrom underlying aquifers.

 

�Bruce Paton/Panos Pictures

An irrigation channel in Tamale, Ghan.

 

To make matters worse, scientists have discovered that only 15% of the irrigation water is actually taken up by crops. The rest either evaporates or escapes through broken pipes and unlined channels. This inefficient management of water can lead to two twin problems, waterlogging and salinisation. When too much water flows over the land it can become waterlogged, and crops quickly rot and die. Salinisation occurs when the natural salts contained in irrigation water seep into the ground and build up in the soil, making it too salty (saline) to grow crops.

 

Click on the picture for a larger image

� Jim Holmes/Panos Pictures

In the Indus valley, Pakistan salinisation is a major problem for farmers. Hot temperatures cause the water in the soil to evaporate. As a result, the salts are left behind and ruin the farmland.

 

Water Security for All

Article 24 of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stated that every child should have the right to clean drinking water... For more information on the Convention, look at www.unicef.org/crc

In March 2000, over 4,000 representatives from governments, private businesses, international and non-government organisations met at the World Water Forum in the Hague, Holland to discuss the future of global water resources. A common goal was to find ways in which everyone has access to safe water at an affordable cost without causing irreversible damage to the natural environment. This way, water management would be more sustainable.

'Water security for all' is not easy to achieve, but many experts at the conference recognised that water management must be considered alongside other development needs to enable people to escape a vicious cycle of poverty. Improving access to clean water frees up time for other things rather than collecting water like growing food and expanding new income-generating businesses. At the same time, reliable, clean water greatly reduces the risk of catching water-related diseases that prevent people from producing food and earning a living.

Building on Local Expertise

Instead of investing in large-scale irrigation projects, maybe the answer to long-term water security is to put water management in the hands of local communities. After all, it is local people who have the best idea of what they need and they have to manage their water needs on a daily basis long after the experts have gone home. Crucial to this is the involvement of women who despite playing a vital role in water use are often left out of any decision-making to do with water.

�Caroline Penn/Panos Pictures

Women in arid parts of Sudan can spend as much as six hours a day collecting water.

Already local expertise has been used to make more efficient use of valuable water, such as ways of capturing water before it is evaporated or drained away. This is known as water harvesting. Similarly, locally made hand pumps are easier to maintain, therefore they have a better chance of sustainability. Combining this local technical know-how with modern technology could enable new cheap and locally managed schemes without starting from scratch. To give you an idea of how this can work in practice, have a look at the Marunda Project case study.