Drying and crackling

Three-quarters of the earth’s surface is covered with water but most of it is saline. If the entire water were to be put in a gallon jerry can, then the fresh water available — in rivers, in lakes, and beneath the earth’s surface — would just fill a tablespoon. Most of this ‘tablespoon’ is in the rich West and the remainder, quite a bit polluted, in the poor, over-populated underdeveloped East. Now imagine if someone were careless and allowed some of the water from the ‘tablespoon’ to spill over. This loss is permanent and there is no substitute for water. A person can live without food for a month, but only a week without water. Nothing will quench thirst the way water can. Only water can irrigate farms and give life. Unfortunately, mankind has grossly misused and abused this precious life-giver.
Environmentalists and scientists believe that the biggest potential destabilisers in the world are water scarcity and global warming. Boutros Boutros-Ghali had warned in the Eighties that future wars could be fought over water. His successor Kofi Annan was also worried about fierce national competition over water resources that contained the seeds of violent conflict. Ismael Serageldin, vice-president, World Bank, had predicted in 1995 that “if wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water”.
Egypt, which is dependent on the Nile for 98 per cent of its needs, has threatened war if Ethiopia carried through its plans to divert water from the Blue Nile. Across the Suez, water scarcity is becoming acute in the Jordan river shared by Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and parts of Syria. Israel is the main water consumer in the region consuming four to six times more water than the Palestinians and the Arab neighbours.
Environmental activists believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is partly linked to the scarcity of water in the Palestinian areas. If Turkey constructs two more dams on the Euphrates and the Tigris, it would deprive Syria and Iraq of their main sources of water. By 2025, 18 countries in the region will be water scarce according to UN studies. Muslim fundamentalists, active in the region, have now begun to include the water issue in their radical literature as another weapon in their conflict with Israel.
Some of the world’s largest cities, including Beijing, Buenos Aires, Dhaka and Mexico City, depend heavily on ground water for their water supply. Drawing water from underground resources, instead of relying on rainfall and surface water, is like sipping water from a glass yet hoping that the water level will not go down. In South Asia, the water table is dropping by about two to three metres a year.
In China, the lower estuaries of the Yellow River are now dry two-thirds of the year, the water table is falling by 1.5 metres a year and a third of Beijing’s wells have dried up. China wants to construct two more dams equal to the size of the massive Three Gorges Project on the Yangtse. China is also planning a series of giant dams across the Mekong, the Salween and Brahmaputra rivers whose waters are vital to all the downstream countries.
By 2025, all of West Asia, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Singapore and South Africa and parts of India and China will face absolute water scarcity — defined as less than 1,000 cubic metres of water per person per year. These countries would not be able to meet their needs for irrigated agriculture, or for domestic, industrial and environmental purposes. Water will have to be transferred out of agriculture to other needs, making these countries increasingly dependent on imported food.
If there is no water, then there is no food either. The ecological cycle having been broken we could get into an endless cycle of droughts, famines, floods and cyclones. The poorer countries will be left with no alternative but to import not only food but also water and oil. The pity is that this could happen to those who are self-sufficient in food today and with better water management even ward off the perils of 2025. But the possibility that the same transnational company could be controlling supply of oil, water and food only means the return of the East India Company in another incarnation.
Potential conflicts are likely where rivers and lakes are shared by more than one country. The Nile, the Jordan, the Indus, the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Mekong are some of these. In times of water stress and shortages, regions will face water refugees from one region to the other within the country or between two countries.
There could be wars for the control of water supplies; or water resources or systems used as a weapon during a military conflict; or used for a political goal; terrorists could threaten using water sources as a weapon of coercion. Water systems themselves could be targets of military action. Then, with multinational giants having entered the business of supplying water privately, for profit, there could be wars for entrepreneurial control. Inequitable pricing and monopolistic practices have already caused distress in Latin America and South Africa. The most dangerous is naturally the one fought with weapons.
Pakistanis fear that India, as the upper riparian, could one day choke off the Indus waters with disastrous consequences to Pakistani Punjab. Kashmir is thus a matter of life and death. Should the rivers that flow into Pakistan begin to lose their flow because of natural reasons, the Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan will come under stress.
Sindhi nationalists in Pakistan have accused the Punjabi-dominated establishment of signing away Sindh’s needs by accepting the Indus Waters Treaty which ignored their needs from the waters of the Sutlej, Ravi and Beas — whose waters flows to Sindh. They also accuse Punjab of diverting more than its share of the Indus waters and regard plans to construct the Kalabagh Dam upstream as another way of depriving Sindh of water. The distributaries of the Indus Delta are dying and the salt water from the sea is creeping up to destroy the mangroves of Sindh.
If better water management and all that goes with it is not put in place quickly enough, it is possible that one day reservoirs like the Nagarjuna Sagar or the Nangal or the Mangla Dam could run dry. It is difficult to imagine a situation where the mighty rivers of South Asia become rivulets unable to reach the sea. As the taps run dry and the crops wither away, there would be upheavals — mixed as they would be with regional, caste, sectarian and communal colour. All this may be difficult to imagine, but this is a calamity waiting to happen. It is a nightmare about to come true.
The future of this planet will be determined by the decisions mankind takes now and how it implements them in the next few years. If there is no change in our pattern of consumption and wastage and pollution, if there is no effort to change our way of life, then that day is not far off when this planet will become a dustbowl. Only sustained early action can prevent this country from becoming a 21st century Mohenjo Daro. India must not wait for the rest of the world. A beginning has to be made here and now; we must learn to worship and conserve water like our ancestors did.
The writer was Secretary, R&AW, before retiring last year


Source : Hindustan Times 30th July 2004