Climate Change and Its Effects on
Water Quality and Quantity:
The Escalating Need
for Conflict Management
Introduction
• There is a growing likelihood that the number and
frequency of trans-national conflicts over shared water
resources will increase in the near future.
• This likelihood may be exacerbated by the impacts of
global climate change.
Global Water Shortages
• To understand the nature of the crisis, it is essential to
understand that very little of the earth’s water is available
for use by all of the species that inhabit the planet.
• 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by water.
• However, 97% of the world’s water is saline.
• Of the remaining 3%, 75% locked-up in glaciers and ice.
• 25% may be available.
• Of the 25% that is available:
• 0.03% is in rivers
• 0.06% is in soils
• 0.3% is in lakes
• 11 % is in shallow groundwater (< 2500 foot depth)
• 14% is in deep groundwater (> 2500 foot depth)
Two primary reasons for the pending global water shortage:
Growth of demand and reduction of supply
Growth of demand
• Population growth: Since 1950, renewable water supplies
per capita have fallen 50% due entirely to population
growth.
• Increasing per capita demand, especially in urbanizing
areas.
• Per capita consumption:
– US: 1,700 meters3/year (1,230 gallons/day )
– Domestic water use in US approximately 176
gallons/day
– Canada higher at 209 gallons/day
• Per capita consumption (continued):
– Europe: 1,300 meters3/year (940 gallons/day)
– Africa: 250 meters3/year
– Domestic water use:
• Mozambique: 3 gallons/day
• Ghana: 9 gallons/day
• Since 1940, per capita consumption in Africa has increased
faster than population.
• Increasing industrial use - need for economic development
• Increasing irrigated agriculture, especially in parts of world
where water supplies may already be inadequate.
Reduction of Supplies
• Contamination of existing supplies (especially ground
water)
• “Mining” of ground water (utilization of “fossil” ground
water)
Reduction of Supplies (continued)
• Climate change - present global warming models indicate
likelihood of:
– Significant reduction of water supplies in areas which
have had abundant supplies
– Less rainfall, need for more intensive irrigation,
potential for conflicts between users
Future shortages
• By 2025, 48 countries expected to face water supply
shortages:
– 19 will be water stressed: annual water supplies of
between 1,700 and 1,000 meters3/person
– 29 will be water scarce: annual water supplies of less
than 1,000 meters3/person
• Total population total of 2.8 billion people (35% of
projected world population) will live under water short
conditions.
World Bank study:
• Child born in 1960 in North Africa - available water supply
approximately 3,430 meters3/person
• When child reaches 65 years old in 2025 - available water
supply will be approximately 667 meters3/person
• Reduction of approximately 80%
• By 2050:
– 54 countries expected to face water shortages
– Total population of 4 billion people (40% of projected
world population) will live under water short conditions
From Postel & Wolf, Dehydrating Conflict, Foreign Policy, October/November (2001).
Strategic Implications
• 1998 Johns Hopkins’ study: “A water-short world is an
inherently unstable world.”
• Potential for conflict – National:
– Situation: chronic water shortages in different areas of
a single country
• China – chronic water shortages throughout the
northern part of the country
• India – 19 major Indian cities face chronic water
shortages
• Potential for conflict – National (continued):
– Trigger: Reduced supplies to downstream areas of
over-utilized rivers
• July 2000 – police and farmers clashed in Chinese
province of Shandong over plans to reallocate
irrigation supplies
• Lower Indus – conflict between Punjab and Sind
provinces over water has been ongoing
• Potential for conflict – National (continued):
– Areas where conflict potential greatest
• Asia (60% of world population, 36% of renewable
supplies of freshwater, heavily dependent on
irrigation, future municipal supplies likely to come
from irrigation water supplies)
• China, India, Iran and Pakistan (increasing depletion
of groundwater, reduced or increasingly variable
surface water flows, buildup of salts in soils, “zerosum game” in water management)
• Potential for conflict – International:
– Situation: Nearly 100 countries share just 13 major
rivers and lakes
– In Africa alone there are some 50 rivers that are shared
by two or more countries
– Some 261 rivers cross international boundaries
– These shared watersheds contain 60% of the world’s
renewable supplies of freshwater
– These watersheds also contain approximately 40% of
the global population
• Potential for conflict – International (continued):
– Triggers:
• unilateral action to change the hydrology of a transnational water resources
• existing international institutions unable to respond
to the change
• conflict potential is greatest if both are present
• greater the size of the unilateral action, greater the
potential for conflict
• Potential for conflict – International (continued):
– Postel and Wolf: A unilateral action affecting other
countries “is highly destabilizing to a region, often
spurring decades of hostility before cooperation is
pursued.”
– During the 20th century, there were 37 recorded
incidents regarding water supplies where dams have
been destroyed, shots have been fired or there has been
some other form of military action.
• Potential for conflict – International (continued):
– Proposed diversions from the headwaters of the Jordan
River resulted in armed clashes between Syria and
Israel between March of 1965 and July of 1966
– India’s rechanneling of the Ganges resulted in reduced
flows in Bangladesh and 20 years of intermittent
hostility (also included increased immigration from
Bangladesh to India)
• Potential for conflict – International (continued):
– Potential for conflict is greatest wherever there are
shared water resources, such as the Salween River:
• Arises in China, flows into Myanmar, then into
Thailand
• Each country has water development plans
• Plans are not mutually compatible
• No institutional capacity to resolve the conflict
– Postel and Wolf: 51 countries sharing 17 river basins
on 5 continents are “spiraling toward water disputes”
From Postel & Wolf, Dehydrating Conflict, Foreign Policy, October/November (2001).
The Escalating Need
for Conflict Management
• At both the national and the international levels, there will
be increasing conflict among different water users.
• Such conflicts are never resolved.
• The need is for conflict management.
• Four key components
• Four key components (continued)
1.
Reduction of demand
• More efficient use of water resources (improved
irrigation systems, municipal and industrial systems
designed to minimize water requirements)
• Population stabilization
• Four key components (continued)
2.
Increase of supply
• Potential for desalinization (but must consider
energy costs and waste disposal issues)
• Climate change may make additional water supplies
available in some parts of the world
• Four key components (continued)
3.
Recognition and control of the
destabilizing impacts of unilateral actions.
• World Bank funding policies (also regional
development banks)
• Dialogue among stakeholders (sustainable water
management and best practices, Switzerland, April
2002)
• Political pressure and economic incentives
• Economic development initiatives
• Four key components (continued)
4.
Development of new multilateral
institutions
• 1997 Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigable
Uses of International Watercourses
– Incorporated concept of “equitable utilization”
of shared water resources
– Based in part on the equitable apportionment
decisions of the United States Supreme court
4.
Development of new
multilateral institutions
(continued)
• Four key components (continued)
4.
Development of new multilateral
institutions
• Utton Center at the University of New Mexico
(October 2002 conference to begin the process of
drafting a model ground water agreement)
• Similar American Society of Civil Engineers
initiative
• “Neutral Corner” at the University of Dundee