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of a drink
A special report on water l May 22nd 2010
The Economist May 22nd 2010 A special report on water 1
2 tea. With 2 billion people around the world and will not soon be reconstituted. But if
Where the water comes from... 1
about to enter the middle class, the agricul- you drain a tank of water for your shower,
tural demands on water would increase have you used it? Yes, in a sense. But could Global water resources, %
even if the population stood still. it not be collected to invigorate the plants
Industry, too, needs water. It takes in your garden? And will some of it not Oceans
97.5
about 22% of the world’s withdrawals. Do- then seep into the ground to rell an aqui-
mestic activities take the other 8%. Togeth- fer, or perhaps run into a river, from either
er, the demands of these two categories of which someone else may draw it? This
quadrupled in the second half of the 20th water has been used, but not in the sense
century, growing twice as fast as those of of rendered incapable of further use. Wa-
farming, and forecasters see nothing but ter is not the new oil.
further increases in demand on all fronts. However, there are some uses that Fresh water
leave it unusable for anyone else. That is ei- 2.5
That’s your lot ther when it evaporates, from elds, swim-
Meeting that demand is a di
erent task ming pools, reservoirs or cooling towers,
from meeting the demand for almost any or when it transpires, in the photosyn- Permafrost
other commodity. One reason is that the thetic process whereby water vapour Glaciers and 0.8
ice caps
supply of water is nite. The world will passes from the leaves of growing plants 68.7
have no more of it in 2025, or 2050, or into the atmosphere. These two processes,
when the cows come home, than it has to- known in combination as evapotranspira-
day, or when it lapped at the sides of tion (ET), tend to be overlooked by water
Noah’s ark. This is because the law of con- policymakers. Yet over 60% of all the rain
servation of mass says, broadly, that how- and snow that hits the ground cannot be Surface and
atmosphere Groundwater
ever you use it, you cannot destroy the captured because it evaporates from the 0.4 30.1
stu
. Neither can you readily make it. If soil or transpires through plants. Like wa-
some of it seems to come from the skies, ter that cannot be recovered for a specic
that is because it has evaporated from the use because it has run into the sea or per-
Earth’s surface, condensed and returned. haps a saline aquifer, water lost through ET Soil moisture
12.2
Most of this surface is sea, and the wa- is, at least until nature recycles it, well and Lakes
67.4 Atmosphere
ter below itover 97% of the total on truly usedor, in the language of the water 9.5
Earthis salty. In principle the salt can be world, consumed, ie, not returned to the Wetlands
removed to increase the supply of fresh system for possible reuse. 8.5
water, but at present desalination is expen- The problems caused by inexact ter- Rivers
sive and uses lots of energy. Although costs minology do not end here. Concepts like 1.6
have come down, no one expects it to pro- eciency, productivity and saving attract Vegetation
vide wide-scale irrigation soon. woolly thinking. Chris Perry, an irrigation 0.8
Of the 2½% of water that is not salty, economist widely considered the high
...and where it goes
about 70% is frozen, either at the poles, in priest of water accounting, points out that
glaciers or in permafrost. So all living ecient domestic systems involve virtu- Water abstraction from rivers, lakes and
things, except those in the sea, have about ally no escape of water through evapora- groundwater, %
0.75% of the total to survive on. Most of this tion or irrecoverable seepage. Ecient ir- Agriculture Domestic and
available water is underground, in aqui- rigation, though, is often used to describe 67 other industrial
20
fers or similar formations. The rest is falling systems that result in 85% of the water dis-
as rain, sitting in lakes and reservoirs or appearing in vapour. Similarly, water is
Power
owing in rivers where it is, with luck, re- not saved by merely using less of it for a 10
placed by rainfall and melting snow and purpose such as washing or irrigation; it is
ice. There is also, take note, water vapour in saved only if less is rendered irrecoverable.
Evaporation
the atmosphere. from reservoirs
These geophysical facts a
ect the use of Soaked, parched, poached 3
language in discussions about water, and Many of these conceptual diculties arise Consumptive use* of abstracted water, %
the ways in which to think about the pro- from other unusual aspects of water. It is a
blems of scarcity. As Julia Bucknall, the commodity whose value varies according Agriculture Domestic and
World Bank’s water supremo, points out, to locality, purpose and circumstance. Take 93 industrial
7
demand and supply are economic con- locality rst. Water is not evenly distri-
cepts, which the matchmakers of the dis- butedjust nine countries account for 60%
mal science are constantly trying to bring of all available fresh suppliesand among
into balance. In the context of water, them only Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Con-
though, supply is also a physical concept go, Indonesia and Russia have an abun-
and its maximum is xed. dance. America is relatively well o
, but
Use is another awkward word. If your China and India, with over a third of the
car runs out of petrol, you have used a world’s population between them, have Source: World Bank: World *Water unavailable for
Development Report 2010 further use in the system
tankful. The petrol has been broken down less than 10% of its water. 1
The Economist May 22nd 2010 A special report on water 3
2 ject, formulated in Brazil in 2003, cut its to- tric-power companies surveyed even pro- but they do not usually reect current ener-
tal water use by 8% and reduced the load vided data on total water withdrawals. gy costs or, increasingly, the non-energy
per tonne of production by 15%. SABMiller, Still, companies like Coca-Cola and costs of desalination. When it was mainly
which brews all over the world, has em- Nestlé are being joined by others who are rich Gulf states and ocean liners that re-
barked on a programme to save a quarter worried about being cast as villains. At the moved salt from sea water, ecological and
of the water needed to make a litre of beer same time more and more companies are nancing concerns were generally over-
by 2015. Nestlé, which aims to be the most bringing forward new products and tech- looked. With desalination now favoured
ecient water user among food manufac- nologies designed to save water. These in places like Australia, California and
turers, has cut water withdrawals by a vary from genetically modied crop variet- Spain, those considerations have become
third since 2000 even though the volume ies that are drought-resistant to technol- more important. The city of Sydney, for in-
of the foods and drinks it makes has risen ogies that replace chemicals with eco- stance, has had to install elaborate disposal
by 60%. Cisco, which supplies internet rou- friendly enzymes in the making of knit- systems for the briny waste of its desalina-
ters, switches and the like, uses recycled wear; from low-lather detergents (which tion plant and use wind power in order to
water in its gardens and fountains in Cali- use less water) to dual-ush lavatories; reduce CO2. All this is expensive.
fornia and has installed waterless urinals from lasers that detect the amount of mois-
and low-ow showers in its buildings. ture in the air above crops to wireless de- A no-briner?
Such measures make good nancial vices that help reduce the water needed on Even so, several countries are going ahead,
sense and good public relations. Some of golf courses (which account for 0.5% of and Spain, the European Union’s driest
the companies at the forefront of water- America’s annual water use, though some country, uses some desalinated seawater
saving campaigns are also acutely aware must help recharge aquifers). to irrigate high-value crops in its driest
of their vulnerability to the growing scarci- Desalination is the great hope. The con- province, Almería. But its choice of desali-
ty of water, and to charges that they are ventional method involves boiling and nation goes back to 2004, when it aban-
guzzlers. Coca-Cola, for example, has been then distilling water. An alternative works doned a hugely expensive and controver-
ercely attacked in India for its depen- by reverse osmosis, in which water is sial scheme to divert water from the Ebro
dence on groundwater and the e
ects on forced through a semi-permeable mem- river in the north to the arid south. In gen-
the water table. Yet even if it takes two li- brane. Both methods use quite a lot of en- eral, people go for desalination when they
tres of groundwater to produce a litre of ergy. New membranes now being devel- have few other options and are able to
bottled water, companies like Coca-Cola oped need less power, and new bear the costs. That explains why both
and PepsiCo are hardly signicant users techniques require neither evaporation new capacity and investment in desalina-
compared with farmers and even many in- nor membranes nor futuristic nanotubes tion plants have actually fallen since 2007,
dustrial producers (undesirable in your drinking water). though Christopher Gasson of Global Wa-
PepsiCo has nevertheless become the Reverse osmosis is the most favoured ter Intelligence expects them to rise this
rst big company to declare its support for method, though, and in Israel and Algeria year. The hope is that, in the long run, solar
the human right to water. For its part, Coca- contracts have been signed for salt-free wa- power will make desalination economic.
Cola is one of a consortium of companies ter at about 55 cents a cubic metre. Even In parts of Australia and America irriga-
that in 2008 formed the 2030 Water Re- lower prices have been cited elsewhere, tion is becoming a sophisticated business
sources Group, which strives to deal with in other ways. The gadgets involved may
the issue of water scarcity. Last year it com- be computerised gates that control canal
missioned a consultancy, McKinsey, to pro- water, fancy ow meters or huge machines
duce a report on the economics of a range that sprinkle water sparingly from rotating
of solutions. pipes. And in time farmers and others
In China, where pollution rivals scarci- everywhere should be able to take advan-
ty as a pressing problem, large foreign com- tage of technology that measures evapo-
panies now regularly consult a website transpiration eld by eld.
run by the Institute of Public and Environ- This is already used by water-manage-
mental A
airs, an NGO that collects gov- ment agencies in the American West,
ernment facts and statistics and publishes thanks to a system developed by the Idaho
them online. Its maps reveal details of state water department and the University
thousands of incidents in which compa- of Idaho, which calculates the consump-
nies have broken the pollution codes. Mul- tion of water from two Landsat satellites
tinationals like Adidas, General Electric, orbiting the Earth. Indeed, the use of sen-
Nike and Wal-Mart can now see which of sors to take measurements from space is
their suppliers are repeat o
enders, and developing apace. The information they
may put pressure on them to clean up. provide, perhaps conveyed straight to a
Not all big companies are water-con- farmer’s mobile phone, should before long
scious, though, even if they are big users. A enable him to take intelligent decisions
report issued this year by Ceres, a coalition about how, when and where to grow his
of American investors, found that the vast crops, even if he is scarcely literate.
majority of leading companies in water- His urban counterparts, and the utili-
intensive industries have weak manage- ties that serve them, may seem unimpor-
ment and disclosure of water-related risks tant in terms of the amounts of water they
and opportunities. Less than half the elec- With the compliments of Mr Neptune use and lose. But domestic water supplies, 1
The Economist May 22nd 2010 A special report on water 7
2 though relatively small in volume, are ex- both Senegal and Uganda are judged to companies on a large scale, many of them
pensive both to treat and to deliver. Water have well-run utilities, but Senegal’s is foreign, and they have prospered there. In
losses therefore matter, even if they help to private-sector whereas Uganda’s is public. other places they have not always been a
replenish aquifers. And nancial losses In general, Africa’s utilities work better success. Some have su
ered because the
matter, too, because they discourage in- than, say, India’s, largely because in Africa incoming company has accepted responsi-
vestment and encourage subsidies, which central governments are ready to give au- bility for the utility’s foreign-currency
tend to benet the better o
, not the poor. tonomy to professionals. In India water debt, and then su
ered exchange-rate
The utilities’ reaction to water scarcity power lies with the states, often in huge, losses that it had little choice but to pass on
has been mixed. Many, including the torpid, oversta
ed and undernanced bu- to customers. This happened in Cocha-
World Bank, once believed that privatisa- reaucracies. Vast quantities of water es- bamba, a Bolivian town riven by water ri-
tion was the solution to the inecient pro- cape through leaking pipes; prices are un- ots in 2000. It also happened to a company
vision of water, but the new consensus, related to costs; meters are broken; and no that took on one of two concessions in Ma-
certainly in the bank, is that the crucial fea- e
ort is made to collect revenues. Accord- nila, which duly foundered. The company
ture of any system is that it should be sensi- ingly, no money is available for repairs. that won the other concession, however,
tive to its customers’ needs. Thus, in Africa, China has brought in private water was largely free of exchange-rate liabilities 1
8 A special report on water The Economist May 22nd 2010
2 and has proved expansively successful. tised. Thus the better o
sink wells or ll atory of sorts; and in Indonesia a range of
Often the provision of water ranks too their cisterns with deliveries from tankers, sanitary xtures sell for $18-90, and may
low among politicians’ interests to make and the poor drink water bought in bottles even come with a warranty.
them do much. They would rather keep and wash with whatever they can nd. To get service from bad utilities, though,
charges low or, in some places, non-exis- Luckily, there are exceptions in places it is sometimes necessary to shame them.
tent than spend money on new pipes or like Brazil, where simple sewers built One way of doing this is to publicise their
treatment plants. They also see no votes in cheaply in some favelas are proving highly position in the rankings of the Internation-
cutting the ribbon outside a new public e
ective. Entrepreneurs are also coming al Benchmarking Network for Water and
lavatory. The result is that many utilities, into the market with low-tech products. In Sanitation, published online. This is now
especially in India, have spent so little on Tanzania, masons will provide a concrete causing several city governments some
maintenance and new investment that the slab to install above a pit latrine for $5. In embarrassmentand at the same time giv-
provision of water is, faute de mieux, priva- Cambodia $30 should buy you a ush lav- ing hope to their ill-served customers. 7
2 states, it has passed laws to cancel earlier are displayed on a wall in the village and
inter-state agreements. Its depletion of the updated over the year with information
aquifer also robs its neighbours in the In- about rain, harvests and even revenues.
dus basin. Yet Punjab’s farmers benet No one is compelled to take part; the en-
from (state or central) government spend- terprise is voluntary and collaborative. But
ing on dams and canals; on help with in- so far most farmers, and their families,
puts such as new seeds and fertilisers; on seem pleased. The local diet has become
the security of a guaranteed support price more varied, since 13 crops are now grown
for their produce; and on subsidies for elec- in the area, compared with eight in the
tricity (which is in e
ect free). Lastly, in past. Those that need most water
Punjab at least, the water pumped is not bananas, rice and cottonhave yielded to
even metered, let alone paid for. others that need less, such as peanuts and
Down in the south-east, Andhra Pra- a locally bred variety of green lentils.
desh also sees its groundwater disappear- Chemical fertilisers have been replaced by
ing. But unlike Punjab, whose alluvial compost, a change welcomed for both
aquifers in equilibrium are recharged by health and nancial reasons. Mulch, ma-
monsoonal rain and leakage from irriga- Hydrological budgeting in Andhra Pradesh nure and organic weedkillers are also
tion canals, Andhra Pradesh relies entirely used. The upshot is that although incomes
on the monsoon for its groundwater re- which also runs a clinic, an orphanage and have not risenmost of the crop is eaten,
plenishment. Moreover, since it sits on a microcredit organisation. One of the rst not sold for cashthe cost of inputs has
hard rock, only about 12% of the annual water-management tasks for an organisa- fallen and those involved feel they are en-
rainfall goes to recharge the aquifers, com- tion such as this is to map the locality and gaged in a sustainable activity.
pared with perhaps 30% in Punjab, and dene its hydrological units, each of which That is because the scheme puts the
subterranean water tends to run away into is an area drained by a single stream with people who invest the money, grow the
rivers after a month or two, so under- one inlet and one outlet. The region en- crops and live or die by their e
orts in
ground storage is limited. compasses 11 hydrological units, one con- charge of their most crucial resource; they
Out in the arid west of the state, taining 41 villages. Some are much smaller. are all barefoot hydrogeologists. The re-
drought is almost the normal condition The farmers taking part in the project lentless drilling of wells has abated: in two
and, for the rst time in India, a large num- measure and record rainfall, the water ta- units near Mutyalapadu no new wells
ber of farmers are starting to deal with it by ble, withdrawals and other data for their were bored over two recent seasons, and
reducing their demand rather than by land. They calculate how much water will in the wider region only eight out of 58 un-
pumping more and more from deeper and be available if the table is not to fall, decide its showed no reduction in pumping. Over-
deeper. The idea behind a project that now which crops to grow and estimate how drawing is judged to be under control,
involves nearly 1m people in 650 villages is much water they will use, bearing in mind partly because everyone knows what is
to monitor, demystify and thus manage that about half will go in evapotranspira- happening. And the idea is catching on.
groundwater. The nine NGOs that run the tion. They then sit down together in a The entire water department of Andhra
scheme o
er no subsidies, just knowledge. groupthere are several of these for each Pradesh has been trained in the basic prin-
At Mutyalapadu and round about, this hydrological unitand draw up a water ciples; Maharashtra has three similar pro-
comes from the Rev V. Paul Raja Rao’s Bha- budget. Details of the eventual agreement, jects under way; and Gujarat, Orissa and
rati Integrated Rural Development Society, showing who should grow what and how, Tamil Nadu are keen to follow suit. 7
few of the 200 or so large dams built in the small ponds, dams and suchlike. But India,
past ve years, but that is mainly because says Mr Thakkar, is still obsessed with big
dam-buildersof which China is much the projects like the Bhakhra dam that the
biggestdo not care for the bank’s time- country’s rst prime minister, Jawaharlal
and money-consuming regulations, de- Nehru, saw as one of the temples of Indi-
signed to ensure decent technical, social an modernity. Only when the small tem-
and environmental standards. Their strict- ples can no longer provide solutions does
ness partly reects greater knowledge he see a need for big ones.
about the consequences of building dams, Not all the big temples are dams. India
partly the related political controversies of has a dormant but not dead $120 billion
the 1980s. Even so, the bank was involved scheme to bring surplus water from
in 101 dam and hydro projects in 2007, up north to south by linking up the country’s
from 89 in 1997 and 76 in 2003; and it ap- main rivers. China has its south-north
proved over $800m in hydro lending in equivalent, which, if it comes to pass, may
2008, up from $250m in 2002. involve spending $62 billion and shifting
The politician’s delight Suspicions of big dams still run high 250,000 people. Spain had its Ebro
and with some reason. Mr Thakkar, scruti- scheme, involving 830km of waterways,
2 covered. In Niger a 15-year project involv- neer of the Indian water scene, says that al- now abandoned, though some Spaniards
ing dams and reclamation has restored though the installed capacity of India’s hy- remain wistful. Each of these has, or had,
nearly 20,000 hectares of unproductive dro projects increased at a compound rate beguiling attractions, but vast costs.
land to forestry or agricultural use. of 4.4% a year between 1991 and 2005, the
Everyone loves projects like these, es- amount of energy generated actually fell. Big can also be beautiful
pecially if they can be given a romantic Some of the projects, poorly sited or poorly Dams and reservoirs certainly need con-
name like water harvesting. Some, per- designed, were doomed to be uneconomic stant repairs and careful maintenance and
haps, may simply be intercepting water for from the start. Others have been badly do not always get them, usually because
one user that would otherwise have gone maintained or have simply silted up. But the necessary institutions are not in place.
to another, but almost every country could though 89% of the country’s hydro projects But when they are, a well-sited dam or em-
reduce its evaporation losses by capturing operate below design capacity, the build- bankment can transform lives for the bet-
water and delivering it more e
ectively to ing continues wastefully apace. ter. In the late 1970s John Briscoe, an old
the farmer, bather, drinker or manufactur- Mr Thakkar argues that small projects water hand at the World Bank who is now
erand then, ideally, using it again. The o
er much better returns, even for the cru- at Harvard, spent a year in a Bangladeshi
harder question is whether that is enough. cial task of relling aquifers by capturing village and predicted terrible conse-
Many believe it is not. Throughout his- monsoon rainfall. He points to the success quences if a proposed ood-control and ir-
tory, man has made e
orts to control wa- of micro-irrigation in semi-arid Gujarat, rigation scheme were to go ahead. It did,
ter, divert it by means of canals, carry it via whose agriculture has grown at an average but on his return 22 years later he found the
aqueducts, store it in reservoirs, harness it of 9.6% a year since the turn of the century, new embankment had vastly improved
with water wheels and so on. The costs of partly thanks to the creation of 500,000 every aspect of the villagers’ lives. He be- 1
these endeavours have been huge: valleys
ooded, villages and habitats destroyed,
wetlands drained and inland seas reduced
to mere puddles. But the benets have also
been enormous.
The Aswan high dam, for example, is of-
ten cited as a cautionary example, a quix-
otic construction that now reduces the
mighty Nile to a dribble before it trickles to
the sea, leaving behind an explosion of
water hyacinth, outbreaks of bilharzia,
polluted irrigation channels and a
build-up of sediment inland that would
otherwise compensate for coastal erosion
from Egypt to Lebanon. Yet, according to
the World Bank, it has provided a bulwark
against ooding for buildings and crops, a
huge expansion of farming and Nile navi-
gation (lots of tourism) and enough elec-
tricity for the whole of Egyptall of which
amounts to the equivalent each year of 2%
of GDP in net benets.
So would the World Bank today lend
money for an Aswan dam if it did not al-
ready exist? The bank has been involved in Overdammed Colorado
12 A special report on water The Economist May 22nd 2010
2 came an advocate of large projects. in near synch with their rainfall, which va- more from climate change than other con-
In the rich world these are now largely ries wildly from year to year. If they had tinents. As it is, it contains 35 of the 45 most
unnecessary; the damage has been done more storage, they could use it to get water-stressed countries.
and the benets are being reaped. South- through the country’s frequent droughts, Hydro generation uses a known and
ern California is an example, a region that but their man-made storage amounts to tested technology that neither adds di-
gets all its water expensively from either only 30 cubic metres per person, com- rectly to greenhouse gases nor produces
the north of the state or the Colorado, a riv- pared with 6,000 in the United States. Ethi- nuclear waste. Last month the World Bank
er so dammed and drained that it dies long opia’s electricity consumption per person announced a controversial $3.75 billion
before it reaches its delta7,500 square ki- is among the lowest in the world, whereas loan for a coal-red plant in South Africa.
lometres of wetlands formerly crammed its potential for hydro power is one of the Some hydro projects might be no more un-
with wildlife, now invaded by the salty Pa- highest. Indeed, electricity could be a valu- popular. Congo’s Inga dams, for example,
cic. But Hollywood survives, and in it able export. have the potential to provide the equiva-
such environmentalists as James Camer- Africa as a whole stands to benet from lent of South Africa’s existing capacity.
on, the director of Avatar and new cham- more hydro projects, large and small. Cli- The South African authorities would be
pion of the Amazonian opponents of the mate change seems likely to shorten the pleased to have it today. Their ngers are
planned Belo Monte dam in Brazil. rainy seasons and intensify variability, crossed that the hydro power from Mo-
Many Ethiopians would be happy to making storage even more important. zambique will not cut out during the foot-
have a few dams. Their GDP rises and falls Moreover, Africa seems likely to su
er ball World Cup next month. 7
2 probably the nearest thing to a real water Pakistani wars in 1965, 1971 and 1999, it is make it possible to build dams that were
war being fought today, and may perhaps usually cited as a notable example of dur- not foreseen when the deal was signed.
be a portent of others to come. If so, they ability in adversity, but it is now threat- Third, Pakistan badly needs more reser-
will be dangerous, because so many water ened by three developments. voirs. Storage is essential to provide sup-
disagreements are not internal but interna- First, India proposes to build a water- plies in winter (two-fths of the Indus’s
tional a
airs. diversion scheme in Indian Kashmir that ow comes from the summer melting of
would take water from the Kishanganga glaciers) but Pakistan’s two big dams are
Arid disputes river to the Jhelum river before it could silting up. It would like to build a new one
The world has already had a taste of some. reach Pakistani Kashmir. Second, India, in Pakistani Kashmir, but India has object-
The six-day war in the Middle East in 1967, which already has more than 20 hydro ed, and the money is not forthcoming.
for example, was partly prompted by Jor- projects on the three western rivers allocat- Another example, the Nile, looks more
dan’s proposal to divert the Jordan river, ed to Pakistan in its part of Kashmir, is now worrying but is perhaps more hopeful.
and water remains a divisive issue be- building at least another ten and has more The Blue Nile rises in Lake Tana in the Ethi-
tween Israel and its neighbours to this day. planned. Each of these conforms to the let- opian highlands, the White Nile in Lake
Israel extracts about 65% of the upper Jor- ter of the treaty, since it does not involve Victoria in Uganda (into which ow rivers
dan, leaving the occupied West Bank de- storage but merely run-of-the-river dams, from Rwanda and Tanzania). The two
pendent on a brackish trickle and a moun- in which water is returned downstream Niles meet in Sudan and ow through
tain aquifer, access to which Israel also after it has been used to generate power. Egypt, which gets almost no water from
controls. In 2004 the average Israeli had a However, Pakistan is worried about the anywhere else. For years most of the terri-
daily allowance of 290 litres of domestic cumulative e
ects. When, in 2005, it com- tories that now form the riparian countries
water, the average Palestinian 70. plained about another Indian hydro pro- were under the direct or indirect control of
Turkey’s South-Eastern Anatolia Pro- ject, the dispute went to arbitration. That Britain, which was xated on Egypt. Brit-
ject, intended to double the country’s irri- resulted in a ruling broadly favourable to ain stopped any development upstream
gated farmland, involves the building of a India which left Pakistan unhappy. It feels that would reduce the ow of water to
series of dams on the Tigris and Euphrates that the spirit of the agreement has been Egypt and, in 1929, allotted 96% of the wa-
rivers; one of them, the Ataturk dam, n- breached and the treaty needs revision, ter owing north from Sudan to the Egyp-
ished in 1990, ranks among the biggest in partly because advances in technology tians and only 4% to the Sudanese.
the world. Iraq and Syria downstream are Thirty years later Gamal Abdel Nasser
dismayed. Similarly, Uzbekistan views had to make a new treaty with Sudan in or-
with alarm Tajikistan’s plan to go ahead der to build the Aswan high dam. It would
with an old Soviet project to build a huge have made more sense to build a dam in
barrage across the River Vakhsh. This, the the Ethiopian mountains: not only would
Rogun dam, will be the highest in the the ow have then been easier to control
world, at least for a while, and was expect- but it would also have been cheaper and
ed in 2008 to cost about $2.2 billion, or 43% environmentally less damagingand with
of the country’s national income. The dam less evaporation. But demagogues like
will, it is hoped, generate enough power their own dams. The waters were split 75%
for all Tajikistan’s needs and have plenty to Egypt and 25% to Sudan.
over to export as far aeld as Afghanistan The other riparian states have been un-
and Pakistan. But since it may take 18 years happy ever since, Kenya and Ethiopia par-
to ll the dam (compared with 18 days, in ticularly so, and all e
orts to draw up a
principle, for China’s Three Gorges), there new treaty, fairer to all, have failed. They
may be no water left over, or at any rate not have not, however, failed to achieve any-
enough for Uzbekistan’s cotton-growers. thing. On the contrary, for the past 11 years
International river basins extend across the ten riparians have been amicably
the borders of 145 countries, and some riv- meeting in an organisation called the Nile
ers ow through several countries. The Basin Initiative, and since 2001 have had a
Congo, Niger, Nile, Rhine and Zambezi are secretariat that deals with technical mat-
each shared among 9-11 countries, the Da- ters and holds ministerial gatherings.
nube among 19. Adding to the complica- In this group, irrigation and other pro-
tions is the fact that some countries, espe- jects are agreed on, many with World Bank
cially in Africa, rely on several rivers; 22, for support. Ethiopia is building three dams,
instance, rise in Guinea. And about 280 two of them large and one controversial,
aquifers also cross borders. Yet a multiplic- for environmental reasons; and Egypt will
ity of countries, though it makes river man- take some of the electricity generated, via
agement complicated, does not necessar- Sudan. In this way will two old antagonists
ily add to the intractability of a dispute. yoke themselves together with water, the
One arrangement now under strain is very commodity that has so long driven
the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty between In- them apart. No one would say that a new
dia and Pakistan. This agreement was the agreement among all the interested parties
basis for the division of rivers after India’s is imminent, but, after more than 100 trips
partition in 1947. Having withstood Indo- Too quiet ows the Mekong to Egypt and Ethiopia to help promote har- 1
The Economist May 22nd 2010 A special report on water 15
2 mony, Mr Grey, World Banker turned Ox- the drop in the Mekong seems under con- The co-operative approach has also
ford professor, is hopeful. He believes that, trol. At a meeting of the Mekong River been successful elsewhere. Thailand, for
in time, Ethiopia could be an exporter of Commission last monthall the riparian instance, has helped pay for a hydro
electricity to Europe. states except China and Myanmar are scheme in Laos in return for power; South
A third neuralgic dispute concerns the membersChina sent a vice-minister of Africa has done the same with Lesotho, in
Mekong, one of at least eight rivers that rise foreign a
airs, who was fairly forthcoming return for drinking water in its industrial
on the Tibetan plateau, fed partly by melt- about hydrological data. This was some- province of Gauteng; and, in the Syr Darya
ing glaciers in Tibet. The Mekong then runs thing of a breakthrough, even if he did not grouping, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan
through China’s Yunnan province, Myan- o
er compensation to shermen. The compensate Kyrgyzstan in return for sup-
mar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Viet- neighbours’ resentment has not disap- plies of excess power.
nam. Recently, though, it has been running peared, and China will not stop building The way such organisations work,
thinly. Sandbanks have appeared, naviga- dams. But a water war seems unlikely. when they work, is to look for the benets
tion has slowed, shermen complain of The most hopeful development is the that can be gained from organising water
derisory catches, and the 60m people success of other river-basin organisations better, and then to share them. An arrange-
whose livelihoods directly or indirectly like the Nile and the Mekong groups. Such ment can usually, though not always, be
depend on the river are worried. The worst outts now exist for various rivers, includ- found that benets each state. It may be
drought in southern China for 50 years is ing the Danube, the Niger, the Okavango, hard to achieve in a group that includes a
partly, perhaps mainly, to blame, but the the Red, the Sava and so on. In the Senegal dominant member, such as Egypt. And it
downstream users also blame the Chinese river group, Mali, Senegal, Guinea and will also be more dicult in groups that
government, and in particular the three Mauritania have agreed to disagree about bring together ocials appointed political-
dams it has built and its blasting of rapids who is entitled to how much water, and in- ly rather than competitively, on their tech-
to ease navigation. stead concentrate on sharing out various nical qualications. In the case of the In-
China has plans for more dams. It is hy- projects, so that a dam may go to one but dus the two sides’ representatives get
peractive in the world of water, not only at the electricity generated, or a part of it, to along well. The reason the treaty is under
home but abroadbuilding dams in Africa another. This has worked so well that the strain is that it starts with the water and
and Pakistan, looking for land in Mozam- president of the group has established con- then tries to divide it equitably. The secret
bique and the Philippines, diverting rivers siderable authority, enough to enable him is to look for benets and then try to share
for its own purposes. Neighbouring states, to broker unrelated agreements among them. If that is done, water can bring com-
notably India, are uneasy. Yet the row over squabbling tribesmen. petitors together. 7