Blue Gold, European Water Partnership Blog

With the launch of Blue Gold, the European Water Partnership (EWP) is creating a communication platform for the EWP, its members, the European water community, stakeholders and those interested in water at large.

Blue Gold is in important tool in achieving EWP's mission to be an action-oriented forum for all stakeholders including local, national and European governmental agencies, knowledge institutes, business, non-governmental organizations, public and private financial institutions, end-users and civil society groups. It constitutes a platform for exchanging views, finding solutions for water challenges in wider Europe and stimulating cooperation and partnerships.

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Hilary Clinton on Water

“Perhaps no two issues are more important to human health, economic development, and peace and security than basic sanitation and access to sustainable supplies of water. I have witnessed this first-hand. Without reliable supplies of clean water, people cannot live, farmers cannot grow crops, and the environment on which we all depend cannot survive. Without proper sanitation, human health and dignity suffer, and the environment and water supplies often become contaminated. Together, we must work to ensure that no child dies from a preventable water-related disease, that no girl fears going to school for lack of access to a separate toilet, that no woman walks six kilometers to collect water for her family, and that no war is ever fought over water”.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State, USA, in her introduction to the Report to Congress of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act, June 2009

Israelis get four-fifths of scarce West Bank water, says World Bank

By Rory McCarthy, The Guardian

Palestinians losing out in access to vital shared aquifer in the occupied territories

A deepening drought in the Middle East is aggravating a dispute over water resources after the World Bank found that Israel is taking four times as much water as the Palestinians from a vital shared aquifer.
The region faces a fifth consecutive year of drought this summer, but the World Bank report found huge disparities in water use between Israelis and Palestinians, although both share the mountain aquifer that runs the length of the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have access to only a fifth of the water supply, while Israel, which controls the area, takes the rest, the bank said.
Israelis use 240 cubic metres of water a person each year, against 75 cubic metres for West Bank Palestinians and 125 for Gazans, the bank said. Increasingly, West Bank Palestinians must rely on water bought from the Israeli national water company, Mekorot.

In some areas of the West Bank, Palestinians are surviving on as little as 10 to 15 litres a person each day, which is at or below humanitarian disaster response levels recommended to avoid epidemics. In Gaza, where Palestinians rely on an aquifer that has become increasingly saline and polluted, the situation is worse. Only 5%-10% of the available water is clean enough to drink.

The World Bank report, published last month, provoked sharp criticism from Israel, which disputed the figures and the scale of the problem on the Palestinian side. But others have welcomed the study and its findings.
Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli head of Friends of the Earth Middle East, said there was a clear failure to meet basic water needs for both Israelis and Palestinians, and that Israelis were taking “the lion’s share”.

“The bottom line is there is a severe water crisis out there, predominantly on the Palestinian side, and it will be felt even worse this coming summer,” Bromberg said at a conference on the issue in Jerusalem.
He said the Joint Water Committee, established in 1995 with Israelis and Palestinians as an interim measure under the Oslo peace accords, had failed to produce results and needed reform.

The World Bank report said the hopes that the Oslo accords might bring water resources for a viable Palestinian state and improve the life of Palestinians had “only very partially been realised”.
It said failings in water resource and management and chronic underinvestment were to blame. In Gaza, the continued Israeli economic blockade played a key role in preventing maintenance and construction of sewage and water projects. In the West Bank, Israeli military controls over the Palestinians were a factor, with Palestinians still waiting for approval on 143 water projects.

“We consider that the efficiency of our aid in the current situation is compromised,” said Pier Mantovani, a Middle East water specialist for the World Bank, which is an important source of aid for the Palestinians.
Most went on short-term emergency projects with limited long-term strategic value. It was a “piecemeal, ad hoc” approach, he said.
Yossi Dreisen, a former official and now adviser at the Israeli water authority, disputed the Bank’s findings and said many remarks in the report were “not correct”. He produced figures suggesting Israeli water consumption per person had fallen since 1967, when Israel captured and occupied the West Bank, while Palestinian consumption had risen.
Israel argues that the water problem should be solved by finding new sources, through desalination and water treatment.

“There is not enough water in this area,” said Dreisen. “Something must be done. The solution where one is giving water to the other is not acceptable to us.”
However, Fuad Bateh, an adviser to the Palestinian water authority, said Israel continued to have obligations under international law as the occupying power and should allow Palestinians water resources through an “equitable and reasonable allocation in accordance with international law”.

He accepted that there was a lack of institutional development and capacity on the Palestinian side, but he said the Palestinians were caught in an unequal, asymmetric dispute. Palestinians had not been allowed to develop any new production wells in the West Bank since the 1967 war.

“Palestinians have no say in the Israeli development of these shared, trans-boundary, water resources,” he said. “It is a situation in which Israel has a de facto veto over Palestinian water development.”

Water Wars

by Jeffrey D. Sachs

NEW YORK – Many conflicts are caused or inflamed by water scarcity. The conflicts from Chad to Darfur, Sudan, to the Ogaden Desert in Ethiopia, to Somalia and its pirates, and across to Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, lie in a great arc of arid lands where water scarcity is leading to failed crops, dying livestock, extreme poverty, and desperation.

Extremist groups like the Taliban find ample recruitment possibilities in such impoverished communities. Governments lose their legitimacy when they cannot guarantee their populations’ most basic needs: safe drinking water, staple food crops, and fodder and water for the animal herds on which communities depend for their meager livelihoods.

Politicians, diplomats, and generals in conflict-ridden countries typically treat these crises as they would any other political or military challenge. They mobilize armies, organize political factions, combat warlords, or try to grapple with religious extremism.

But these responses overlook the underlying challenge of helping communities meet their urgent needs for water, food, and livelihoods. As a result, the United States and Europe often spend tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars to send troops or bombers to quell uprisings or target “failed states,” but do not send one-tenth or even one-hundredth of that amount to address the underlying crises of water scarcity and under-development.

Water problems will not go away by themselves. On the contrary, they will worsen unless we, as a global community, respond. A series of recent studies shows how fragile the water balance is for many impoverished and unstable parts of the world. The United Nations agency UNESCO recently issued The UN World Water Development Report 2009 ; the World Bank issued powerful studies on India ( India’s Water Economy: Bracing for a Turbulent Future ) and Pakistan ( Pakistan’s Water Economy: Running Dry ); and the Asia Society issued an overview of Asia’s water crises ( Asia’s Next Challenge: Securing the Region’s Water Future ).

These reports tell a similar story. Water supplies are increasingly under stress in large parts of the world, especially in the world’s arid regions. Rapidly intensifying water scarcity reflects bulging populations, depletion of groundwater, waste and pollution, and the enormous and increasingly dire effects of manmade climate change.

The consequences are harrowing: drought and famine, loss of livelihood, the spread of water-borne diseases, forced migrations, and even open conflict. Practical solutions will include many components, including better water management, improved technologies to increase the efficiency of water use, and new investments undertaken jointly by governments, the business sector, and civic organizations.

I have seen such solutions in the Millennium Villages in rural Africa, a project in which my colleagues and I are working with poor communities, governments, and businesses to find practical solutions to the challenges of extreme rural poverty. In Senegal, for example, a world-leading pipe manufacturer, JM Eagle, donated more than 100 kilometers of piping to enable an impoverished community to join forces with the government water agency PEPAM to bring safe water to tens of thousands of people. The overall project is so cost effective, replicable, and sustainable that JM Eagle and other corporate partners will now undertake similar efforts elsewhere in Africa.

But future water stresses will be widespread, including both rich and poor countries. The US, for example, encouraged a population boom in its arid southwestern states in recent decades, despite water scarcity that climate change is likely to intensify. Australia, too, is grappling with serious droughts in the agricultural heartland of the Murray-Darling River basin. The Mediterranean Basin, including Southern Europe and North Africa is also likely to experience serious drying as a result of climate change.

However, the precise nature of the water crisis will vary, with different pressure points in different regions. For example, Pakistan, an already arid country, will suffer under the pressures of a rapidly rising population, which has grown from 42 million in 1950 to 184 million in 2010, and may increase further to 335 million in 2050, according to the UN’s “medium” scenario. Even worse, farmers are now relying on groundwater that is being depleted by over-pumping. Moreover, the Himalayan glaciers that feed Pakistan’s rivers may melt by 2050, owing to global warming.

Solutions will have to be found at all “scales,” meaning that we will need water solutions within individual communities (as in the piped-water project in Senegal), along the length of a river (even as it crosses national boundaries), and globally, for example, to head off the worst effects of global climate change. Lasting solutions will require partnerships between government, business, and civil society, which can be hard to negotiate and manage, since these different sectors of society often have little or no experience in dealing with each other and may mistrust each other considerably.

Most governments are poorly equipped to deal with serious water challenges. Water ministries are typically staffed with engineers and generalist civil servants. Yet lasting solutions to water challenges require a broad range of expert knowledge about climate, ecology, farming, population, engineering, economics, community politics, and local cultures. Government officials also need the skill and flexibility to work with local communities, private businesses, international organizations, and potential donors.

A crucial next step is to bring together scientific, political, and business leaders from societies that share the problems of water scarcity – for example, Sudan, Pakistan, the US, Australia, Spain, and Mexico – to brainstorm about creative approaches to overcoming them. Such a gathering would enable information-sharing, which could save lives and economies. It would also underscore a basic truth: the common challenge of sustainable development should unify a world divided by income, religion, and geography.

Source: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sachs152/English

Cyprus water boards seek to ease rationing squeeze

An easing of water cuts to households is expected to be agreed upon today during a high level meeting at the Agriculture Ministry.

Although recent wet weather has helped to replenish water resources it hasn’t been enough to wipe away more than two years of drought.

A complete lifting of water rationing has been ruled out but Agriculture Minister Michalis Polynikis has suggested conditions are ripe to minimise the duration of cuts.

Increased desalinated water output has enabled the government to become more confident over managing the island’s precious water resources so Cyprus is no longer dependent on the weather.

Water boards from the major districts will be stating their case for reducing cuts during the summer at today’s top level meeting.

Farmers are also lobbying for an easing of quantity restrictions for irrigation.

Any decision taken on national water strategy will have to go to the Cabinet for approval.

There were heavy showers and hailstorms yesterday coming at the end of another month of stormy weather that spells good news for dam capacity.

A good start to the year, rain wise, has enabled dams to more than double their capacity compared to the drastic situation in 2008.

Frequent rain clouds have allowed reservoirs to reach 27% of total capacity compared to only 11.4% at this time last year.

More encouragingly, the wet weather has enabled total winter precipitation to surpass 93% of the seasonal average, since October, while February rainfall reached 80% of the norm.

Water ferried from Greece in tankers will end in March, with the government ruling out the need for more.

The unstable weather is expected to continue today, with local showers, while sleet or snow is forecast on Troodos.

Fresh winds will also prevail while temperatures remain below the norm at around 17 °C and drop to 4°C on higher ground.

From Saturday onwards the weather should become more settled with clearer skies ushering a gradual rise in temperatures.

Source: Cyprus Weekly

Europe calls for more cooperation on water

At the 2009 World Water Forum in Istanbul, Europe called for more cooperation on water between all sectors and countries to avoid conflict over this increasingly scarce resource.
Background:

The World Water Forum is the world’s largest international gathering on water policy. It has been organised by the World Water Council (WWC) every three years since 1997.

The Fifth World Water Forumexternal this week in Istanbul addressed a variety of issues, ranging from water scarcity and sanitation to climate refugees and water financing.

A high-level panel on climate change also prepared recommendations for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations, which are expected to deliver a post-Kyoto global deal in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

A document summing up Europe’s regional water policy process preceding the Fifth World Water Forum was presented this week as Europe’s input to debate on a global water policy.

It is also designed to serve as a guidance document for future policy developments in Europe on water-related issues, and should form part of negotiations leading to post-Kyoto climate deal in Copenhagen in December.

The report’s main message is that “Europe needs greater cooperation at all levels” to avoid conflicts between sectors, countries and transboundary regions.

Secondly, it calls for awareness-raising efforts to convince the public of the need for more efficient and sustainable water use as well as financial incentives, like taxes and tariffs, alongside legal and regulatory instruments regarding water.

New, “more holistic ways of thinking about water challenges” are also needed, the report states. Such an approach would consider climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts together, and shift the focus from supply management to managing water quality and quantity demand.

In addition to horizontal recommendations for a sustainable water future, the report provides detailed policy guidance on eight theamtic areas of “critical importance” to Europe.

The main issues identified include climate change, on which “Europe is in a position to take a leading role on adaptation, as it did on mitigation,” the report says. But greater regional cooperation is needed to push individual countries to enact legislation and plan adaptation actions, it warns.

Innovative technologies and coordinated policies are expected to reduce the energy footprint of water supply and treatment, as well as water needed for energy production. Meanwhile, governments are encouraged to make use of assessment tools, like water and energy footprinting.

The report draws attention to growing climate change-induced water scarcity and droughts, and welcomes current moves to develop an early-warning and monitoring system in this regard.

While the majority of Europeans are connected to sanitation and waste-water treatment systems, “more than 20 million citizens do not have access to proper sanitation systems,” the report notes. Particularly those living in rural areas and small communities in Eastern and South Eastern Europe and the Caucasus still lack improved systems.

Because many of Europe’s major rivers, lakes and aquifers are shared, addressing droughts, floods, pollution, water scarcity and climate change “requires strong transboundary cooperation,” the report states, acknowledging the effectiveness on the EU’s Water Framework Directive in promoting this.

Finally, Europe is urged to improve data collection and monitoring of the impacts of trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals, personal care products and industrial chemicals “that are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in our water supplies”. More research in water reuse and carbon neutral desalination technologies, implementing integrated water resources management and water-energy-climate links, is also necessary, the report notes.

According to the policy recommendations, a “pro-active and sector-wide approach” is needed to finance water through “sector consolidation”. Restructuring is expected to lead to cost-effective design, and technical and operational economies of scale.

Financial economies of scale by pooling revenues and taxes and risk-sharing via multiutilities or corporate structures is also possible, with mediation from water banks or dedicated funds, the report says.

UAE Authorities call for water conservation

by Tim Brooks, The National

Dubai Electricity Water Authority (DEWA) is calling for even greater water conservation as figures released today revealed a 10 per cent increase in both water use and demand for desalinated water last year.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, championed the importance of conservation in his opening address at the Water and Energy Technology and Environment Exhibition (WETEX) today, where DEWA said it was looking to build on the awareness raising, educational initiatives and regulations launched last year to ensure supply can meet increasing demand.

Amal Koshak, senior manager, demand and tariff management, DEWA, said 60 per cent of 2008 consumption came from the residential sector. She said simple behaviour changes, like not keeping a tap running, have led to significant reductions in water consumption but encouraged all users to be responsible and play their part in the conservation drive.

Initiatives would include a permanent conservation centre, which will house an exhibition and seminars to increase awareness of water wastage and promote conservation, and an interactive display at the Kidzania family entertainment park in Dubai Mall where children will be in role-play and have to deal with the scenario of water supply running out.

“They will then have to fix leaks and find a way to increase the water supply. It will be a fun exercise but also be a powerful way of showing the consequences of water wastage,” Mrs Koshak said.

It follows incentives introduced last year including so-called slab tariffs for water under which the cost per gallon per household increases as consumption increases. This was followed by the ‘Your Decisions” awareness campaign which aimed to demonstrate the consequences of wasting water.

Through the campaign people could volunteer to have their water usage monitored and those that demonstrated commitment to cutting consumption were given recognition in the Best Consumer Award.

Dubai boosts utilities

By Tim Brooks, The National

Plans for an electricity-generation and water-desalination plant that will more than double Dubai’s electricity production and provide almost four times the volume of water now available were unveiled today.

The projects are part of plans by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) to meet increasing demand and cater for hotel and residential developments under construction.

The plans for the ambitious development accompanied the publishing of DEWA’s 2008 statistics that showed the gap between supply and demand for electricity and water was closing, and that with projected population growth and new housing and hospitality facilities being built, an increase in capacity was required.

Salim Mohamed, the senior instrumentation and control engineer at DEWA, said that with Dubai expanding in both size and population there was a need to increase capacity.

“Currently we have seven stations generating electricity and several desalination plants,” he said. “These have the capacity to meet current demand but we are planning for the future … however much that might be.

“There are many residential projects being completed and also a growth in the number of hotels, so the new plant will ensure their needs are met.”

The Hassyan complex, powered by natural gas and situated close to the Abu Dhabi border at Saih Ash Sheib, will be much larger than existing facilities.

It will produce 9,000 megawatts (Mw) of electricity, which dwarfs the 6,676Mw capacity of all other plants combined. The desalination plant will produce 3.27 billion litres of water a day, increasing capacity in the emirate to more than 4.5 billion litres a day.

The 450-hectare site will include three complexes, each with two phases. One phase, to be completed by 2014, will provide 1,500Mw of electricity and 545.5 million litres of desalinised water.

DEWA has opened the tender for construction of the first phase, with a contract expected to be awarded in September. No target dates have been set for subsequent phases of construction. While water from the complex will be for the sole use of Dubai, the electricity generated will benefit all seven emirates.

“The Hassyan complex will increase the capacity on the national grid and will be able to meet the combined demands of all emirates,” said Mr Mohamed.

A scale model of the complex was displayed at the WETEX exhibition in Dubai, where DEWA sought to raise public awareness of water wastage and promote conservation.

Last year a fee system was introduced under which the cost of water per litre rose as more volume was consumed.

This system was intended to encourage water conservation and was being supported by campaigns on television and radio.

With the completion of the first phase of the Hassyan complex five years away, DEWA is encouraging action to cut water wastage.

DEWA monitoring has shown that by eliminating such bad habits as excessive car washing and leaving taps running, water use could be cut by 10 per cent. Such conservation could help balance the population increase.

The Hassyan complex will add a further construction site to the coastline between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, much of which is already earmarked for residential developments.

At the WETEX exhibition, four contracts also were signed to build 13 sub-stations to increase the electricity supply network across the country at a total cost of Dh1.53bn. The sub-stations are to be built by Jan 2011.

Water meters in all UK homes by 2030 to ease shortages

Report calls for strict controls as climate change threatens to dry up British rivers

By Robin McKie, science editor, The Observer

Many parts of the country face crippling water shortages in the near future unless immediate action is taken to protect precious supplies, according to an Environment Agency (EA) report to be published this week. Measures include compulsory water meters in every home.

The EA warns in the Water Resources Strategy document that many rivers, particularly those in south-east England, could be reduced to a trickle in summer by the middle of the century because of climate change. On average, flows are likely to be cut by 50 to 80%.

As a result, the report urges that a series of key measures be introduced as a matter of urgency:

• A major review of funding of the water industry, so companies are rewarded for reducing, rather than increasing, the amount of water they sell.
• The construction of desalination plants at several sites round the country.
• Compulsory water meters for every household within the next 20 years.

At the same time, the report warns that carbon dioxide from water and sewage treatments now accounts for 6% of the UK’s entire emissions output - more than the nation’s aviation industry - and this needs to be cut urgently.

The authors also warn that some wildlife will be put under severe environmental stress and farmers will have far less water available for irrigation as climate change takes its grip. “Everyone will have to play a part in cutting water use,” said Trevor Bishop, head of the agency’s water resources policy. “It will touch all our lives.”

The report’s release coincides with news that water bills for Britain’s 26 million households are to rise 4.1 %, taking the average to £342, compared with £285 at the start of the decade.

Ultimately, Britain should aim to cut each citizen’s average daily use of water from 148 litres, one of the highest figures in Europe, to less than 130 litres, he added. To do that, a series of domestic measures will have to be introduced, including the redesign of houses so that they become fully water-efficient. For example, “grey water” - old bath or washing machine water - could be used to supply toilet flushes, while rainwater will need to be collected so gardens and parklands do not dry up in summer.

“Fresh water is a fragile and vulnerable resource,” said Chris Smith, the agency’s chairman. “Already there is less water available per person in England and Wales than in Egypt or Spain. If we fail to act now, we could face severe consequences such as water rationing, standpipes in our streets and the loss of wetlands and native wildlife.”

The EA report uses the latest data to outline how England and Wales will fare as the world heats up over the next 40 years. “That data shows that the impact of climate change will be much more severe than was conceived only a few years ago,” said Bishop. “At the same time there is still enough uncertainty to make it impossible to be absolutely sure about what measures to take.”

Meteorologists say climate change will lead to more frequent bouts of heavy downpours and heavy flooding in Britain over the next four decades. However, the overall effect will be to reduce the amount of water available in rivers in England and Wales.

Among the worst affected will be the Lee, Colne, Medway and Stour in south-east England, where population and temperatures are both destined to rise more sharply than in other areas. In addition, many aquifers - underground stores of water - are likely to dry up as average rainfall figures drop.

As a result, the report urges that water meters be installed throughout Britain to minimise waste and that a number of desalination plants are built. Britain’s first is under construction at Beckton, east London. It will cost £200m, produce 140m litres of water a day - enough for a million Londoners - and will run on biofuel, including recycled fat and oil from restaurants and homes.

“We will need a number of these, but I don’t envisage them being built every 50 miles round the cost,” added Bishop. “They will form only a part of our approach to water policy.”

Forecasters expect climate change to occur in slow, incremental steps. However, there is no guarantee that a major event will not appear fairly rapidly.

“In Australia, its national drought began as a two-year anomaly, grew to a three-year event and is now in its 10th year,” said Bishop. “We have got to be ready in case something like that happens here.”

Water Footprint Reporting Summit

A water strategy that sets targets for real reductions in supply chain and internal water use will generate savings and create indirect benefits for stakeholders. European Water Partnership is the Association Partner of E.N.G.’s (European Networking Group) Water Footprint summit, taking place in Brussels on 5, 6 and 7 May 2009. This co-operation entitles EWP members to a preferential rate to attend the summit (and pre-summit Masterclass), a saving of 20% .

This event will provide tools to assessing water use throughout the global supply chain and to brainstorm with environmental executives who need insights in the challenges and risk in water management. The summit will investigate the role of business versus the role of governments and consumers, and will map out the road to shared global standards.

Confirmed experts who will share their stories on ‘water foot printing’ include: Anglo American; European Investment Bank; Borealis Polymers; Better Sugar Cane Initiative; Cisco Systems; Coca-Cola Europe; Diageo; DSM; European Water Partnership; Henkel; Nestlé; Royal Dutch Shell; SAB Miller; STMicroelectronics; Unilever; Water Footprint Network; WWF

To join the global network of Water Footprint executives meeting in Brussels, and enjoy EWP members’ 20% discount, download and complete the programme and registration form.

Supplier: European Networking Group

Israeli water technology exports double in 2008

The Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute reports that water technology exports totaled $1.4 billion in 2008 - double the 2005 amount. The global water market is worth $400 billion annually and is expected to rise to $537 billion next year.

To mark World Water Day, the Export Institute published figures about the country’s water technologies industry. There are 250 companies in the sector of which 200 export their products. 50 companies in the sector are defined as start-ups.

These companies are involved in sectors including water management systems, safety and security for water sources, irrigation management systems, desalination, water recycling and purification.

Israel is ranked first in the world in recycling water for agriculture: 75% of sewage is recycled for agriculture.

Source: Cleantech Investing in Israel

Making water women’s work

By Jennifer Hattam, The National

ISTANBUL—In the rural areas near Edéa, Cameroon, women leave home before dawn, walking for two or three hours to fetch water, a journey they make again each evening. Carrying the heavy loads on their heads, and sometimes their babies on their backs, they endure searing heat and difficult terrain.

“Our country is so hot, and sometimes the roads are slippery,” said Ndjebet Cécile.
“Women have to go over hills and through forests, where they sometimes get bitten by snakes.” Girls often make the trip too, arriving late to school if they get there at all.
In the Congo, and other conflict areas, it is not snakebites women fear as they trek along the deserted roads in search of water, but rape from marauding rebels.

Women in towns lucky enough to have public water pumps face fewer dangers, but save little, if any, time.

“I see them queuing for hours, from five in the morning to 10 at night,” Ms Cécile said.
“There are not enough pumps, so women come from all over.”

Reema Walia, a masters student at the University of Pennsylvania, has calculated that a 150 million work days and 10 billion rupees are lost annually in India because women must walk up to nine kilometres each day to get water.

Water is a universal need and right, but traditional cultural roles mean that the lack of it affects women and girls more severely than men.

Women have traditionally been the caretakers of water, they collect it, cook with it and bathe children with it, and subsequently deal with the consequences of those who become sick through consuming dirty water.

With water scarcity becoming an ever more urgent issue – the UN says nearly half of the world’s population will be living in areas of acute waters shortages by 2030 – the role of women in protecting and managing the resource has taken centre stage.

At the World Water Forum in Istanbul this week, where more than 20,000 people gathered to discuss the looming crisis, women were tapped as one of nine major groups crucial to the conservation of water.

“We are talking about survival in a crisis situation,” said Kusum Athukorala, the chair of NetWater Sri Lanka, a women’s organisation. “Women could be agents of change if they are allowed to reach their potential.”

In many countries, that possibility still seems remote.
In rural areas of Turkey, for example, traditional agriculture is usually carried out by women – in the Aegean region, 75 to 80 per cent of people working in agriculture are female – but they generally lack decision-making power, often working as unpaid family labour.

The situation is similar in Sri Lanka, where “women have a traditionally defined support role in paddy farming”, said Badra Kamaladasa, an irrigation engineer.
Diminishing water supplies has reduced agricultural productivity forcing men to leave their villages to try to find work in urban areas.

“Women are now assuming heavier duties, preparing the land for harvest, and sharing in the family economic burden,” said Mr Kamaladasa. “But men still own the land and make the decisions.”

The forum was also expected to promote investment in improving water supplies, but critics said this was tantamount to selling water to the highest bidder and would have an adverse affect on the poor.

They are calling for more public-sector investment.

“Privatisation raises prices, leaving women to carry out their household responsibilities with less, or less clean water,” said Monika Schierenberg, with the German environmental group EcoMujer.

“It is only possible to solve the problems if you accept access to water as a human right that cannot be sold. The World Water Forum does not.”

Members of EcoMujer and other international non-governmental agencies were in Istanbul this week too, a few to attend the water forum, but most to organise protests and participate in the Alternative Water Forum being held this weekend just down the road from the main event.

Some 300 people protesting outside the World Water Forum venue on its opening day on Monday were blasted with water cannons and tear gas.

At the opening ceremony a few hours later, two protesters working for International Rivers held up a banner reading “No Risky Dams”. They were detained, and promptly deported.

Dams are a sensitive issue in the forum’s host country, Turkey. In his opening-day speech, Veysel Eroglu, the environment and forestry minister, called building dams “an absolute necessity” for Turkey.

But the 1.2 billion euro (Dh5.7bn) Ilsu Dam project on the Tigris River in southeastern Turkey is the subject of much controversy, as it would submerge part of the ancient town of Hasankeyf and force relocations.

Women forced to migrate as a result of dams often fare poorly, possessing few of the skills necessary to cope with city living.

Many urban areas in developing countries have acute sanitation and hygiene problems.

Though problematic to everyone, such conditions again hit women especially hard.
Women need more water for personal hygiene; spend more time washing and bathing, increasing exposure to contaminated water. The lack of sanitation has other, less obvious, effects too.

According to a report sponsored by Unicef and the Gender and Water Alliance (GWA), more than 50 per cent of girls in rural Pakistan drop out because their schools lack proper toilets.

Girls in rural Tajikistan skip class when they are menstruating, for the same reason.
“Sometimes parents don’t allow girls to go to school if there are no private facilities,” said Mariet Verhoef-Cohen, president of Soroptimist International of Europe (SI/E).

Sanitation blocks sponsored by SI/E in rural Ghana and in Nairobi slums provide one solution, containing private toilet and shower facilities with safe water sources, sometimes even a place to do laundry, and generating cleaning and administrative jobs for women.

They are often also a place for women to learn about hygiene and sanitation, knowledge that they take home to their families.

While such projects show the importance of considering women’s special water-related needs, others tap their unique knowledge and skills. The Unicef/GWA report gives a telling example from Tanzania, where a new well created by an aid agency quickly dried up.

Follow-up visits to the village revealed that the committee that determined the location of the well had been comprised only of men, though women are usually the ones digging by hand for water in scarce conditions – and thus the ones who know where the most water flows.

Women have been shown to be better water caretakers than men, and, when given the tools, can transfer their household-management skills to the community level.

“Women are suffering too much to get water, so they care very much how it is used,” said Ms Cécile. “They know, ‘If I misuse it, I have to go back and fetch more.’”

Abu Dhabi faces water crisis

By Vesela Todorova, The National

Abu Dhabi will face a serious shortage of water if nothing is done to use it more efficiently, the Government said yesterday.

A strategic water plan for the emirate stressed that groundwater supplies are so over-tapped they would not be able to sustain current levels of use for more than 50 years.

The document outlined a series of reforms necessary across all sectors if the Government is to reverse the trend of dwindling supplies.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed, UAE Deputy Prime Minister and the chairman of the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD), said that the future would be very challenging unless action was taken to reduce water consumption, which is among the highest per capita in the world.

Majid al Mansouri, EAD’s secretary general, expressed a similar opinion. “Water is life, it is the most precious resource we have here in Abu Dhabi,” he said. “Water is misused here.”

According to the master plan, inefficiency and misuse have contributed to depletion of supplies.

Measures recommended in the study include ways to increase efficient use of treated effluent for irrigating forests.

It also recommends that excess desalinated water be used to recharge underground reservoirs for use in times of emergency.

The need to use drought-tolerant plants in landscaping is highlighted, while a new plumbing code, expected to be introduced in new buildings later this year, will emphasise the need for water-saving technologies.

The study also recommends a campaign to educate the public on the need to be prudent with water.

Prepared in collaboration with experts from government departments and from the Dubai-based, International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, the master plan calls for institutional reform..

“We developed this master plan to help us achieve sustainable utilisation of water resources in an economically and environmentally friendly way that would enhance the sustainable development of the emirate of Abu Dhabi and the UAE,” Mr al Mansouri said.

Groundwater contributes 71.2 per cent of total water demand, yet it is being over-exploited at a rapid rate.

Sheikh Hamdan said the emirate’s groundwater supply had fallen by 18 per cent since 2003, while the consumption of water resources in the emirate exceeded their natural recharging capacity by 24 times.

Abu Dhabi’s groundwater reserves stand at 641 million cubic metres. However, more than 97 per cent is brackish, containing high amounts of dissolved salts known to cause deterioration in the quality of soil when used for agricultural purposes.

While the country’s overall brackish groundwater supplies can last no longer than 50 years, its reserves of sweet or moderately brackish water that can be easily tapped can last only 20 to 40 years, the study says.

Besides inefficiency in the agricultural sector, the report also focuses on residents’ misuse. On average each Abu Dhabi resident uses 550 litres of water per day. While flat residents consume on average from 170 to 200 litres of water per day – a figure comparable to statistics in developed countries – villa dwellers’ water footprint is 270 to 1,760 litres per person per day.

Most of the potable water is provided through desalination, a process which removes the dissolved solids in seawater. Desalinated water accounts for 24 per cent of total demand and is costly: a cubic metre of desalinated water costs between Dh3 and Dh4 to produce, with consumers paying a fraction of the price.

Mr al Mansouri said the projected population of the emirate in 2030 is 3.5 million people. This growth is a major challenge in the next decade, he said. Previous studies by the Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority have clearly shown a significant deficit in water supply in the coming years.

Last year, a survey of 2,363 people in the emirate showed that water conservation was the area of least concern. Only 42.8 per cent of respondents were aware that water scarcity should be a concern in the UAE.

Crops may be watered by sewage

By Vesela Todorova, The National

Treated sewage effluent could be used to irrigate crops in Abu Dhabi for the first time as the Government tackles the emirate’s water shortage. At the same time, more water-saving devices are to be fitted in public buildings and homes.

Details of the plan emerged yesterday during the announcement of education programmes to be run by the Abu Dhabi-based Arab Water Academy, established last year.

The use of treated sewage in agriculture is common practice globally, especially in arid zones, but until now the UAE has relied on groundwater and, to a lesser extent, desalination.

Now, however, the Government is concerned that underground water supplies are fast running out. On Saturday the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD) outlined its fear that if water continues to be used at present levels, aquifers – natural underground reservoirs – will be depleted within 50 years. Much of these supplies are of brackish water; sweet water could be gone in as little as 20 years.

Speaking yesterday on the sidelines of a presentation of the academy’s plans, Majid al Mansouri, secretary general of the EAD, said a steering committee had been set up to implement the recommendations of a master plan to address Abu Dhabi’s water needs until 2030. One of the issues it would address was expanding the use of treated sewage effluent, currently used only for watering public gardens, to introduce it for agricultural use – a move previously resisted because of what one official described as “cultural sensitivities”.

“We are working to develop regulations,” said Mr Mansouri. “This water will have advanced treatment to achieve bottled-water quality.” A draft was expected in two to three months and a pilot project was expected to begin on 200 farms near Al Ain within nine to 10 months.

Currently, such water is treated to a lower standard and is either used to irrigate public gardens or discharged into the sea. Under the new plans, reverse-osmosis filtration technology will be used to remove solid particles and ultraviolet purification will kill harmful microorganisms.

Under a second strand of the water conservation plans that emerged yesterday, public buildings and private homes would be fitted with a variety of water-saving devices, paid for by the Government. This project has been put out to tender. Work is expected to begin in two months and take two years to complete.

Experts believe that, depending on the type and use of the building, savings could range from 20 to 40 per cent.

Abu Dhabi relies on six large desalination plants and more than 10 smaller units, in oil industry compounds and remote settlements, to supply its potable water. That capacity, said Mr Mansouri, would have to be doubled by 2030 if no savings were made.

“We are working on two parallel lines,” he said. The savings made through water demand management would affect decisions regarding investment in new desalination capacity.

Yesterday’s gathering in Abu Dhabi of water experts, diplomats and high-ranking government officials was told that starting the reforms necessary to avert a water-shortage crisis in the region would first require a change in the mindset of decision-makers.

The Arab Water Academy, initiated by the Cairo-based Arab Water Council, is hosted by the EAD in partnership with the Dubai-based International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture.

It supporters hope it will act as an agent of change in the way water resources are managed. Yesterday, World Water Day, the academy unveiled its first four programmes, which will begin in June with the first, “Water diplomacy and water sharing”, an issue of particular relevance in a region where about 70 per cent of the water is shared in rivers, aquifers or seas.

The GCC countries, for example, shared water from two vast underground formations, known to scientists as Dammam and Um ar Radhuma, said Dr Mohammed Raouf, manager of the environment programme at the Gulf Research Centre.

At present, he said, there is little co-ordination between the involved states, which could lead to conflict as water becomes more scarce in future. Subsequent programmes will focus on water governance, the implementation of utility reform and what experts call “unconventional water” – supplies that have been obtained through desalination and the treatment of sewage effluent.

The training programme targets senior decision-makers, including ministers, directors-general, CEOs of large companies and heads of academic institutions and non-government organisations, as well as middle-management employees.

Yesterday, Mohammed Ahmad al Bowardi, secretary general of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and managing director of EAD, reiterated the need for decisive action.

It is expected that climate change will make Gulf summers hotter and lead to a decrease in the amount of rain.

“By 2050, per capita water availability is expected to fall by half,” he said. “This will have serious consequences for our region’s already stressed aquifers and natural hydrological systems.

“The question we must ask ourselves is this: are countries in the Arab region able to adapt their current water management practices and meet the challenges? If the answer is no, then drinking water services will become more erratic and cities will come to rely more and more on expensive desalination.”

World Water Forum diary

Anita McNaught, Al Jazeera‘s reporter in Istanbul, has been writing daily dispatches from the World Water Forum in Istanbul from Monday, March 16 to Friday, March 20.

12:00 GMT, Friday, March 19, 2009:  Session on natural disasters

“The Dutch are the Bangladesh of Europe, living on land mostly below sea level” [EPA]
These things catch your eye. Sellotaped to the wall, big arrow in marker pen:

“Special Session on Mega-Disasters, this way”.

The room is full. The Chinese are chairing the session. Are we about to see some unprecedented transparency here?

The interpreters in their glass booths are looking harried. Tineke Huizinga, the Dutch environment minister, is on the podium.

“I am doing everything I can to save my country from disaster.”

She has my complete attention.

The Dutch have a reassuring mien, but if we are honest they are the Bangladesh of Europe, living on borrowed land mostly well below sea level, more than half of their GDP produced from terrain which Mother Nature is intent on repossessing right now.

Put it this way: You would not tick the ‘NL’ box, if you were a Bangladeshi climate refugee.

“We are preparing for the worst. There is little use in bracing ourselves and playing tough,” she says.

I am glad the Chinese are running this, because my understanding of the planet right now is that it does not matter what any of the rest of us do to mitigate the effects of global warming.

If the Chinese do not stop building coal-fired power stations, we are all going down together.

So our future is in Chinese hands. And the Chinese minister for water resources Chen Lei does agree, without dissembling, in response to a question from the floor, that global warming is a fact.

But that was not what they had come to talk about. They had come to talk about bursting dams. Which won’t burst in China because they have a central plan, and “Flood Control Commanding Centres”.

As far as flash floods went, they had reservoirs to catch the excess. Around 176,000 of them.

Sure, there were a few that needed fixing because right now they were too weak to hold much water. But they had a repair plan. They were working on the first 4,000, and they had another 6,204 to go.

The Japanese had a word about flash floods, too. They gave birth to Kyoto after all, but that has not spared them the deluge.

“We classify 50mm per hour as ‘torrential’” said the minister.

“Several times last year, we had 100mm per hour. That’s never happened before.”

Then a clean-cut type from the US Army Corps of Engineers took the podium. I got quite excited, because I thought he might be coming to talk about the Mosul Dam in Northern Iraq.

I had gone there myself in 2008, when the rumours started flying in the Iraqi press that al-Qaeda had sent a team of 150 frogmen with limpet mines to blow it up.

Your Views

“Water is not like electricity that a human being can be deprived of if he doesn’t pay the bill.”

SM, Cairo, Egypt

Send us your views
In fact, Mosul Dam has so many engineering problems, it may not need al- Qaeda’s assistance to collapse. But it turned out the USACE man wanted to talk about lessons learned from New Orleans.

Engineers, of course, do not do hyperbole.

“We learned that evacuating a major city is not easy. You have to overcome the ‘Why should I leave now?’ argument,” he explained.

Perhaps Americans would just rather hear it from Bruce Willis.

It was time for Big Water. Time to see what commercial deals were being done, far from the theory and the philosophy, public anxiety and good intentions.

I made for the Big Expo Tent. It was, as some people had said, a trade fair, a style common the world over.

Near the entrance is a booth for the magazine Global Water Intelligence. This is where you find out who is doing what, with their water resources.

I think Maude Barlow, a UN adviser, would consider this publication oxymoronic at best, as its commercial basis seems to be listing (for a hefty price to subscribers) all the water projects all over the world which are going out for international tender.

Further along, the Norwegians had a lovely stand, with lots of colour posters which rather left me pining for the fjords.

“Norwegian water to the world” said their slogan. Well, that was very generous of them, I said. How much were they planning to send to the world?

“One million cubic metres per annum” was the answer.

And how much of the Norwegian national total was that?

“Only one-third”, they said.

“Our surface resource of three million cubic metres per annum is refreshed all the time. In fact, these days it’s raining MORE in Norway.”

The tall blonde man shook his head sadly.

“Global warming is not fair.”

So without giving away any trade secrets, their concept is to fill shipping containers with internal skins and a tap, each container holding 24 tonnes of fresh, sparkling Norwegian water, and pop them all on a container ship and send them anywhere the customer is willing to pay. A bit like wine-in-a-box, but on a slightly bigger scale.

I do wonder if the Norwegian public has been consulted about this..

The expo is ordered in national groups. You start to see what their particular skills are.

The Chinese are very good on hardware – valves, sprockets, pipes and pumps.

Others, like the Italians, are a little further downstream (you might say) offering a range of services designed to restore places back to the tourist-friendly pristine.

Meanwhile, I read in on the stand of the Weekly Water Report of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (OOSKA News) that Kyrgyzstan’s ministry of extreme situations “intends to straighten a few hundred kilometres of riverbeds in the country this year”.

I’m worried the fish in Kyrgyzstan are going to get really bored.

Intriguingly, that same magazine reports: “Nestle to cut investment in bottled water this year”.

This was, the article continues, “the only segment of the conglomerate that reported a loss in 2008”.  Nestle blamed the world economic downturn, and the fact the environmental groups were campaigning against bottled water, which was a “healthy beverage”.

Paul Buckle, the Nestle chief executive, said “criticism of bottled water was irresponsible, because it was pushing the consumer towards high calorie drinks”.

Ah, that is the problem then. Over in Sub-Saharan Africa, they are all guzzling Fanta, because they have been persuaded that bottled water is ethically bad. 

I am no longer sure about transparency. Or philosophy. This Water Forum is beginning to have a stream of surreality running through it.

At the conference on Thursday, a suggestion from the Palestinian delegation to the Water Forum, that Turkey might like to sell the Palestinian Territories some clean water. It is fair to assume the water supply in Gaza is not great right now.

The Palestinians better get those negotiations happening quickly, because before the conference even started officials of the Jewish National Fund in Tel Aviv announced that they were in discussion with the Turkish and Israeli governments – and Israeli companies – to revive the long-abandoned business proposal to import water to Israel from Turkey.

The idea to either use tankers or a new pipeline, routing via Cyprus, had been dropped years ago because it was not economically feasible.

It is all rather strange, because since then it is widely understood that with the aid of a big fence, Israel has managed to secure some rather good water sources previously considered to have been in Palestinian land.

Israeli domestic per capita consumption of water is 295 litres a day, while Palestinians are among the lowest in the world at 78 litres a day, said Shaddad al- Attili, head of the Palestinian Water Authority.

Another day, another test for the Turkey-Israel relationship in the post-Davos era.

09:30 GMT, Thursday, March 19, 2009: Monsieur Private Sector answers back

Turkish police dispersed ‘water justice’ demonstrators with water cannons [AFP]
I have not found the Moroccans yet. But my quest is not over. It is only Thursday, and there are many more seminars to come.

However, the issue of water cannons - used so deftly by the Turkish security forces on Monday to deal with an unruly “water justice” demonstration - had been drifting through my head in my few idle moments here.

Were the manufacturers of water cannons also exhibitors at the forum, along with all the other companies at the trade fair, like the specialist dam constructors, the drillers, the pump manufacturers, the water-level measurers and the pipe companies?

If not, had the water cannon company, perhaps, missed a marketing oportunity?

I also found myself pondering the Turkish sense of humour. Was the water cannon perhaps an ironic Turkish flourish? Or a defiant act of political IN-correctness, as seminar after seminar reminded us all of our mis-use of this vital element.

Of course, I had also worried that this was gratuitous.

Then, yesterday afternoon this story appeared on the Turkish wires:

Water is the cheapest way to disperse demonstrators protesting the 5th WorldWater Forum held in Istanbul, Turkish police officials said on Wednesday

Police department officials told the Anatolian Agency they preferred the use water canons to disperse groups of demonstrators as it does not cause serious harm and it is also the cheapest method.

Police used 13-14 tons of water to disperse a crowded demonstration at a cost of 400 TL ($235), officials said. Police authorities said when they used tear gas in a similar demonstration, the cost was nearly 12,500 TL ($7,350).

Clearly, the Turkish police had put a lot of thought into this. Water cannons must have a smaller carbon footprint than tear gas.

“I hope [the police] pumped water out the Golden Horn,” remarked a colleague. “I mean, it wouldn’t be sensible to use drinking water for that job.”
“I hope they pumped that water out the Golden Horn,” remarked a colleague. “I mean, it wouldn’t be sensible to use drinking water for that job.”

The Water Forum is most definitely having an influence on thinking here in Istanbul.

I strolled through the bustling halls of the forum after lunch, browsing discussion groups.

In the seminar on how new technology might save agriculture in a tighter water environment, a charismatic middle-aged male Russian delivers a passionate appeal for more leadership training for women holding the farm together in many countries as their men flee to the cities in search of different work.

“We have a saying in my country: ‘Woman boss. I stupid’.”

A group of women from Bangladesh in the audience looked unsurprised.

Meanwhile in the interests of hearing from all participants in the forum, I went in search of someone from the private sector.

They are taking a little ideological abuse at this event from some quarters, which may account for the fact that most of the specialised business and water themed events are held in a separate set of exhibition halls on the other side of the Golden Horn inlet.

I am regretting having already missed Beyond Bribery, Show me the Money! Financial sustainability - importance, progress and emerging issues, and Get real! A strategic approach to financing water and sanitation services.

Monsieur Private Sector

Instead, I teed-up a meeting with Gerard Payen, from AQUAFED, the main association for private operators of water systems in areas as diverse as Chile, Brazil, Malaysia, China and Africa.

He introduces himself: “I am Monsieur Private Sector.”

He is also, intriguingly, a special adviser to UN chief Ban Ki Moon on water and sanitation.

“Je porte deux chapeaux,” he explains. He is French.

How does that work?

“Well, we are not a lobby group. I would never say, personally, that private companies do a better job than public, because I know it’s wrong. There are many good publicly managed utilities, and some not.

“Its the same in the private sector. Some are good, and some have problems delivering the services expected of them.

“There are many similarities between the two. I want to stop the artificial divide between public and private.

“My mission from Ban Ki Moon is consistent with the goals of AQUAFED, to stimulate government to do more for access to water and sanitation and to improve awareness among decision-makers.

“I try to advise and shape good policies and I’m very good about not mixing things. Every time, I ask myself: Which hat am I wearing?”

At this point, I have a slightly crazed flight of fancy.

When he goes to see Ban, what hat does he imagine he is wearing? What does his UN hat look like? If his AQUAFED hat is, perhaps an engineer’s helmet, then is the UN hat something softer, a hat of the people? A Panama? A gallic beret?

Gerard Payen looks at me, appalled. I realise one should not embark on games of creative visualisation with technically-focused professionals.

Profit and investment

“When private companies make a profit, the profit is a result of increased efficiency. It does not take a penny from anybody.”

Gerard Payen, aka Monsieur Private Sector
Time to move back onto safer ground: Profit. Surely the big difference with publicly-managed utilities is that profits made are reinvested in the community or country, whereas with private companies profits go to foreign shareholders?

“Profit,” declares Gerard Payen, “is not what many people think it is.”

We are getting philosphical here, I venture. Not at all, insists Monsieur Payen.

“Some governments might use it [profit] for building infrastructure, but other governments might use it for building swimming pools or buying arms.”

He continues: “When private companies make a profit, the profit is a result of increased efficiency. It does not take a penny from anybody.”

I suggest if efficiencies in these devoloping countries are achieved by cutting the labour force, then it takes their jobs instead.

“Look,” says Gerard Payen, “in the past 15 years, private companies have provided water to 25 million people, mostly poor. Their lives have been changed. In most cases, water is less expensive for them.”

And what does water operator industry association AQUAFED do, I ask, when one of its members does not get it right, and is criticised or even fined locally for its work?

“These are not our subsidiaries, they are our members. There is no reason for dismissing a company if it encounters local difficulties. In most cases, difficulties have many causes.”

It is getting late. Monsieur Private Sector gets up to leave. He is not entirely happy with the interview.

“In your philosophical concerns, try to remember when the priorities lie,” he says.

This Water Forum IS an intriguing cocktail of the practical and the philosophical. Take the End of the World, for example.

To discuss this trifling matter, I tracked down eminent Canadian Maude Barlow, who I had first seen in action on Monday.

She is another UN adviser. There are a few of them out there, it would seem, and they are all very different. Quite a collection of chapeaux, you might say.

Barlow is a force of nature. No treading water here – she is jet-propelled. Which is just as well, because she would have to be one of the most sought-after people at the conference, where her message of urgency, social and environmental collapse, justice and the need to focus political thinking is finding a thirsty audience.

But do not just take it from me. Well, not from me right here. Click here to watch Inside Story on Al Jazeera, where I talk to Maude Barlow about the End of the World As We Know It, and then there is a panel discussion.

Now, I am off to find the Moroccans…

14:00 GMT, Wednesday, March 18, 2009: The privatisation debate

Protestors have said the water crisis is mostly about a failure to properly invest [AFP]

PollyAnna would not last long around here.

At the World Water Forum the contest is over who has the biggest crisis, and the end of the world is, if not nigh, most certainly dry.

Instead, we find Peter, policy director of environmental and human rights organisation International Rivers, gamely handing out press releases.

His group acquired heroic notoriety here for having the first two delegates deported for peacefully unfurling a medium-sized hand-painted cloth protest banner in the auditorium at the official opening.

“Ahhh”, I observe, scanning the release. “There’s a few of you left.”

“Only me. I’m the last man standing,” Peter explains, with a nervous smile. He is a slight, bookish, bespectacled type, looking every inch the PhD printed on his card.

In video

- Water forum provokes water worries in Istanbul
- Watch Inside Story: Running out of water
What we had discovered, in the wake of the speedy deportations of his two colleagues, was that there is an act in Turkish legislation - the Turkish Meetings Law - which states quite clearly that any foreigner engaged in unauthorised protest action is liable to immediate deportation.

The two unfurlers of International Rivers were charged with “trying to influence public opinion”. They were given two choices: immediate removal or charges laid with a possible sentence of more than one year in jail. They left.

All of this is, of course, a gratuitous distraction from the important matters at hand. Like the End of the World.  But more on that in tomorrow’s diary.

It had been niggling at me for some time, that somewhere in the crowd of 20,000 experts, scientists, philosophers, researchers, policymakers, company directors, campaigners and unfurlers at the forum, there must be someone, somewhere who could tell me whether it has been conclusively established, one way or another, if the “business model” worked in water management.

Business getting ‘a bad rap’?

Business, after all, gets a bad rap these days. It would be unfair to blame untrammelled, unregulated, under-inspected runaway capitalism for the entire global financial meltdown, surely?

Then I come across a biography in a conference-related email, make a call to the University of Greenwich, England, and managed to summon up the sort of person most beloved of journalists: Someone Who Has Done the Research and Has the Answer.

Here also, I find the closest I’m going to get to PollyAnna.

“Investigations by the World Bank, us and others have shown that the private sector, when involved in utilities like water, failed to deliver any significant capital investment”

David Hall
Engineer-turned-academic
David Hall is a trained engineer, turned academic. His papers on the private sector and the water industry, private-public partnerships, public finance and public-public partnerships are all about what has worked, and what has not, and why.

And he is the first person I have met for a while, who is happy about the global financial crisis.

“It’s a terrific opportunity”, he explains to me, eyes twinkling under thick specs. “Public spending is no longer a problem, but a solution.”

Stimulus packages get spent on infrastructure, he explains. The only time most governments have spent serious money on essential services is when they have needed to keep the workforce busy.

And for him, the global water crisis is mostly about a failure to make proper investments; in pipes, sewers catchment and storage.

There are only two main things the world’s water delivery system really needs to dramatically improve access for all, David Hall continues.

“The first is finance for decent infrastructure, the second is institutions capable of providing transparent, honest and efficient provision of water.

“Investigations by the World Bank, us and others have shown that the private sector, when involved in utilities like water, failed to deliver any significant capital investment.

“They [private companies] were widely promoted 20 years ago as the answer. They would come in an invest lots of money. The simple reason why they didn’t was because they couldn’t make enough profit.”

As for the issue of transparency, see my previous diary entry further down the page.

Hall continues: “In terms of contributions to efficiency, overall the evidence on the performance of the private sector comes out neutral, I would say.

“A World Bank 2009 study says there are some improvements, but local people still don’t benefit in terms of lower prices or investments. If there was a gain, it all went to company shareholders, and ‘efficiency gains’ were mostly achieved by cutting local jobs.”

So what does work in water policy, David? I ask.

And here he hands me a business card, saying rather conspiratorially: “I want you to find the Moroccans.”

Have I entered the ‘Water Matrix’, perhaps?  There are a few men here who look a bit like Agent Smith…

For the business point of view on investing in water supply management, read Anita’s diary entry on Thursday, March 19.

06:00 GMT, Tuesday, March 17, 2009: The battle lines are drawn

Turkish police fired tear gas to disperse protesters outside the water forum venue [Reuters]
Istanbul’s hosting of the fifth World Water Forum began on a slightly less triumphal note than the Turkish government had planned.

The much-heralded Leaders’ Summit – Turkey had reportedly invited the leaders of all the nations attending, perhaps more than 150 - was whittled down to a handful with the final list being released quietly, overnight on Sunday.

The World Water Forum may have been quite a desirable invite, till a change of plans by Barack Obama, the US president, suddenly made the formerly obscure Istanbul Alliance of Civilisations Forum in April the hottest ticket on the planet.

Still, Turkish President Abdullah Gul managed a 300-kilowatt smile as he strode into the conference room, flanked by Prince Albert of Monaco, the presidents of Somalia and Tajikistan and the prime ministers of Tuvalu, South Korea and Azerbaijan.

With a large portion of the nearly 2,000-strong international press corps trying not to fall asleep in the stifling heat of the main auditorium, the welcoming speeches kicked off.

- Turkish dam project threatens historic sites

A small protest group, the International Rivers Network, unfurled a banner calling for Turkey’s rivers to be saved from what they say are exploitative multinational water companies. They were quietly hustled out of the dress circle.

I later discovered they were deported.

The same delicacy was not exercised when a crowd of 50 protesters arrived an hour or so later outside the venue to demand a stop to the water privatisation agenda. They were greeted by the full armoured force of the Turkish Gendarmerie, who had been rehearsing this moment for weeks.

Defending national honour, they moved in on the protesters when – as seen in an AP news agency video – some demonstrators began using slings to hurl rocks at the massed security forces.

“‘We need to understand why companies under-report,’ declared one researcher, without a trace of cynicism”
It was at this point that more genteel participants claim they were quite seriously roughed up. Seventeen were detained, and a shocked group made it back to the forum to register their outrage at a lunchtime press conference.

Ger Bergkamp, director of the World Water Council and convenor of the forum responded by saying there was scope for people to make their views known within the context of the forum discussion sessions.

But, at 100 euros a ticket for admission, there were always going to be a lot of people left outside.

Meanwhile, the sessions rolled on throughout the building, some displaying an impressive degree of pragmatic optimism: “Running dry! How to turn droughts into opportunities for better management.”

‘Lack of transparency’

The United Nation’s sobering report on the world’s dwindling water supplies was released later in the afternoon. We interviewed the head of the UN’s world water assessment programme, who admitted on air that one of the foremost problems they faced was getting adequate data on how bad the crisis really is.

“The reliable data in many places,” Olcay Onver said “is really not there”.

So does that mean the situation is even worse than the UN says it is?

“We don’t really have enough data to tell,” he replied.

“Water must… belong to everyone. No one should be allowed to appropriate it for private profit while others are dying for the lack of it.”

Maude Barlow, UN
There was much more discussion about missing data at a forum session at the end of the day, on how transparent companies were being about the environmental footprint of their businesses.

Under the umbrella of a UN initiative on corporate responsibility, companies are embarking on a process of environmental accountability. Or at least, that is what they are supposed to be doing; posting regular internal audits of their conduct, whether environmentally sound and sustainable, or not.

Except that getting meaningful data from most of them, according to the authors of the research report, was proving more than a little tricky. Especially on the issue of water.

“We need to understand why companies under-report,” declared one of the researchers, without a trace of cynicism.

One of the other speakers, the head of an ethical investment consultancy, put it more bluntly: “The lack of transparency is abysmal ... private water utilities have lamentable reporting” and ‘commercially senstive’ was no longer a get-out clause.

“Where water is concerned, there is no such thing as proprietary information. We believe that there should be a data commons for water, open to all,” she continued.

One ‘water justice’ activist took it further: “How does anyone know what companies say in your reports is true?” he asked.

‘Testy exchange’

After a testy exchange, the researcher conceded “companies’ water-related disclosure is shockingly bad”. But, he said, back in his research chair, “we need to give guidance to companies” on how to improve.

It was soon after this, Greg Coch, managing director of Coca-Cola’s Global Water Stewardship and Environmental Water Resource programme, leapt to his feet, declaring that the issue of water was a special case, that everyone cared too much about it, which was why discussions became so heated and passionate.

UN water elder-stateswoman, Maude Barlow, then offered her views on the corporate world’s relationship with the dwindling water supply.

“Water must be a public trust and belong to everyone. No one should be allowed to appropriate it for private profit while others are dying for the lack of it.”

The issues, she said, were conservation and water justice.

“If you are in the ‘water business’, you cannot move towards those two goals,” she said.

Coch from Coca-cola observed to me afterwards: “It’s good to look the enemy in the eye.”

It is only day one and already the battle lines are being drawn.

Is the Dead Sea Dying?

Study shows human water extraction threatens Dead Sea levels

The water levels in the Dead Sea — the deepest point on Earth — are dropping at an alarming rate with serious environmental consequences, according to Shahrazad Abu Ghazleh and colleagues from the University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany. The projected Dead Sea-Red Sea or Mediterranean-Dead Sea Channels therefore need a significant carrying capacity to refill the Dead Sea to its former level, in order to sustainably generate electricity and produce freshwater by desalinization. The study1, published online this week in Springer’s journal, Naturwissenschaften, also shows that the drop in water levels is not the result of climate change; rather it is due to ever-increasing human water consumption in the area.

Normally, the water levels of closed lakes such as the Dead Sea reflect climatic conditions — they are the result of the balance between water running into the lake from the tributary area and direct precipitation, minus water evaporation. In the case of the Dead Sea, the change in water level is due to intensive human water consumption from the Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers for irrigation, as well as the use of Dead Sea water for the potash industry by both Israel and Jordan. Over the last 30 years, this water consumption has caused an accelerated decrease in water level (0.7 m/a), volume (0.47 km³/a) and surface area (4 km² /a), according to this study.

Abu Ghazleh and colleagues developed a model of the surface area and water volume of the Dead Sea and found that the lake has lost 14 km³ of water in the last 30 years. The receding water has left leveled sections on the lake’s sides — erosional terraces — which the authors recorded precisely for the first time using Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) field surveys. They were able to date the terraces to specific years.

The authors point out that this rapid drop in the level of the Dead Sea has a number of detrimental consequences, including higher pumping costs for the factories using the Dead Sea to extract potash, salt and magnesium; an accelerated outflow of fresh water from surrounding underground water aquifers; receding shorelines making it difficult for tourists to access the water for medicinal purposes; and the creation of a treacherous landscape of sinkholes and mud as a result of the dissolution of buried salt which causes severe damage to roads and civil engineering structures.

To address the mounting stress on water resources in the Dead Sea basin and the environmental hazards caused by its lowering, the authors suggest that the diversion of Jordan water to the Mediterranean coast could be replaced by desalinization of seawater, causing the recession of the Dead Sea to be considerably slowed, and buying time to consider the long-term alternatives such as the Red Sea-Dead Sea Channel or the Mediterranean-Dead Sea Channel.

The authors conclude that either of these channels will require a carrying capacity of more than 0.9 km³ per year to slowly fill the lake back to its levels of 30 years ago and to ensure its long-term sustainability for energy production and desalinization to fresh water. Such a channel will also maintain tourism and potash industry on both sides of the Dead Sea.

Reference
1. Abu Ghazleh S et al (2009). Water input requirements of the rapidly shrinking Dead Sea. Naturwissenschaften; DOI 10.1007/s00114-009-0514-0

Source: Water Online