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Abstract
This paper is about the current global water sources distribution and conflict in water
sharing scenario. Global water sources and conflict scenario is designed to address
water source mapping and transboundary water conflict. We collect information on
water crisis, transboundary water sharing, water conflict and water source mapping
and fit into the paper to share with the concerned stakeholders.
Keywords: Water crisis, transboundary water sharing, water conflict, water source mapping.
1.0 Introduction
Water is a vital resource needs for all human activities. Water is an input for daily life
and economy as example: drinking for survival, food growing, industrial product
processing, energy production and many others. However, most supplies come from
surface runoff and ground water. Basically, significant percent human consumption
water is surface water and shallow aquifers (Adzlan et al., 2013). But all water is not
in recycling process.
2.0 Water Consumption and Water Cycle
The water on Earth is not fully recyclable. However, a great deal of water use is nonconsumptive, which means that the significant amount of water is returned to surface
runoff (Postel et al., 1996). A portion of the water is not coming back to mainstream
due to presence of consumptive water. Mainly, consumptive water belongs to
agriculture, human and animal bodies that contribute to reduce the availability of the
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fresh water. However, recyclable water moves naturally over the ground level that we
can identify by water source and distribution mapping.
2.1 Water Distribution
The water on Earth surface is not distributed evenly. Distribution of global runoff
corresponds poorly to the distribution of the world population (Gizelis and Wooden,
2010). For example, Asia has 69% of world population but it only has 36% of global
runoff. Even though South America has 5% of world population with 25% runoff but
much of runoff is inaccessible. As an example, Amazon River contains 15% of runoff
and only accessible to 0.4% of world population (25 million people). It is recorded
that about 27% of global runoff (11,100 km3) is renewable source water and base river
flow (Giordano, et al., 2002). The other part is flood water and very difficult to utilize.
This scenario is linking with global water conflict and becoming barrier to future
economic growth.
In the future, fresh water will be a critical limiting resource for many regions. About
one-third of the world's population lives in water stress countries and experiencing
shortage of water. As an example in Asia, 69% of world population living with 36% of
water source but population size is increasing within this limited source of water; this
scenario suggest that by the year 2025 most of the Asian country will be water-poor.
In the aspect of Africa, historically this region is experiencing water shortage.
The historical water consumption is listed by Wolf (1998) which is presented in Table
1.
Table 1: Chronological Events Related to Human Water Use
Timeline
12,000 years
Events
Hunter-gatherers continually return to fertile river valleys
ago
7,000 years. ago
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1858
notably Chicago
"Year of the Great Stink" in London, due to sewage and wastes in
Late 1800s-
Thames
Dams became popular as a water management tool
early 1900
1900s
World War II
1972
for agriculture
Water quality impacted by industrial and agricultural chemicals
Clean Water Act passed; humans recognize need to protect water
The sources of water disputes are quality and quantity (Wolf, 1998). It is reported that
water get unusable due to agriculture and industrial pollution, high level of salt. It is
also mentioned that low quality water has serious effect on human and ecosystem
(Hishammudin et. al., 2013). It is also evident that people tend to avoid poor quality
water and it appears as source of water shortage and water conflict. Whether water
quality is good or accessible by the people, significant percentage of water flowing
through transboundary.
2.2 Water Sharing and Conflict
Water sharing can cause conflict. About 50% of all available water is transboundary
which means water located in the rivers, lakes or groundwater systems is sharing by
two or more countries as an example Indu-Bangla, Indu-Pak water basins. Sharing of
this water is often troublesome; some highlighted events of transboundary water
conflict is shown in Table 2 (Wolf, 1998; Conca, 2006; Kameri-Mbote, 2007). It is
reported that around two thirds of the worlds transboundary rivers lack agreements
between the countries for sharing. This situation often linked to political conflicts in
the sharing regions (Reuveny, 2007). Hence, transboundary water has appeared the
reasons conflict and even war. Water sharing is often appears a source of cooperation,
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even in situations of political tension (Bernauer and Kalbhenn, 2010). For example,
India and Pakistan have worked together in the management of the Indus River despite
fighting three wars during the last fifty years. Israelis and Palestinians also cooperate
on water in spite of their political conflict. Transboundary river could be a sources of
regional economic, environmental and social cooperation (Sarsons, 2015).
Table 2: Transboundary Water Conflict
Time
1948-1960
Events
Disputes over Indus basin water sharing lead to Indus Water
1951-1953
1958
1963-1964
1965-1966
1975
July 1966.
Tension risen between Iraq and Syria over low flow year along
the Euphrates. Military troops were reportedly transfer between
1989-1991
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sustainability instead of military and political strength. The Helsinki Rules provides
guideline for proper utilization and administration of international rivers (El-Fadel et
al., 2003). At the same time, however, diplomacy process too often dividing water
supplies for infrastructure projects such as building dams and reducing water conflicts
while neglecting the needs of the people living in the basin. As a result, this may
accelerate exploitation of water resources and destroy the source of economy and
environment of that area. Therefore, all relevant stakeholders must cooperate to
formulate plan in accordance to economic and environmental sustainability to reduce
water conflict.
3.0 Conclusion
This study presents water source mapping, water conflict and solution to reduce
conflict. Nowadays, water conflict involving military action is uncivilized and should
be avoided at all cost. Governments, policy makers and relevant stakeholders must cooperate to formulate water peace strategies to reduce water conflicts without
sacrificing economic and environmental sustainability. The findings of this paper
indicate that our water is not recyclable and quality of runoff water is deteriorating.
Soon the available runoff water will be insignificant to support growing world
population. Therefore, a holistic approach is essential including redefining the water
use, water productivity performance, capacity utilization of water production
resources, and sustainability in economy and environment (Shahidul et al., 2015). In
this regards, future research should design to increase water production capacity
utilization and improve quality of output water to reduce global water conflict.
References
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About the Authors
Dr. Shahidul Islam is a Professor of Manufacturing operations research and sustainability. He is
working at Faculty of Engineering in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. He authored many papers and
book on Operations Research relating to manufacturing productivity, technical efficiency,
economic efficiency, and value added process. The focusing areas of his research and publication
are input-outputs of production process of industrial goods, electricity, water desalination, water
demineralization, industrial waste water. He possessed special skills in optimization of inputs for
maximizing the output for achieving sustainable economic performance and environmental
sustainability. He got 8 awards including two Gold medals for performing higher value added
research and innovation.
Lee Man Djun has Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak graduated in 2013. Currently he is a PhD research student in
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. His postgraduate study is about capacity utilization of water
desalination machineries which giving huge impact on water desalination production performance.
He has published quite a number of papers in water desalination. His field of research is
manufacturing operations sustainability. His recent work and publication can be found at Google
Scholar.
Ting Ching Hung has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical and Manufacturing
Engineering from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak graduated in 2012. His final year project was
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