D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 1, January/February 2000, p. 16-18)

Leonardo da Vinci, the eminent Renaissance scholar and philosopher said, "water is the driver of nature". Many may have considered it to be an overstatement in the past, but at the threshold of the third millennium, no sane individual would disagree with Leonardo's view. Water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource for most of the world's citizens. The current trends indicate that the overall situation is likely to deteriorate further, at least for the next decade, unless the water profession eschews "business as usual" practices, which can only allow incremental changes to occur.

Strangely enough, the water profession as a whole neither realised nor appreciated the seriousness of the global water situation as late as 1990, even though a few serious scholars have been pointing out the increasing urgency of the situation from around 1982. For example, the crisis was not a major issue, either at the International Conference on Water and the Environment, which was organised by the UN system in Dublin or at the UN Conference on Environment and Development at Rio de Janeiro. Held in 1992, both are considered to be important events for the water sector for the current decade. It is now being increasingly recognised that the Dublin Conference was poorly planned and organised, and thus not surprisingly it produced very little, if any, worthwhile results. Furthermore, as the Dublin Conference was expected to make the necessary inputs to the Rio discussions, water did not receive adequate emphasis at Rio. For all practical purposes, at Rio, water was basically ignored by all the heads of states, whose primary interests were focussed on issues like climate change, biodiversity, and deforestation. Water at best was a very minor issue during the plenary session at Rio. Equally, the chapter on water in Agenda 21 is not only the longest but also the most poorly formulated. Thus, inspite of the rhetorics of many international institutions, the impacts of Dublin and Rio Conferences on water management globally and regionally have not been discernible. In all probability, the development in the water sector would not have been materially different even if these two events had not occurred. Thus, both Dublin and Rio constituted a lost opportunity, since they failed to put water on the international agenda.

Important role of
Stockholm Water Symposium

This happened mainly through the efforts of the Stockholm Water Symposium, an annual event which is now attended by leading water experts from all over the world. By constantly focusing on the importance and relevance of water to the future socio-economic development of the world and its importance to environmental conservation, the Stockholm Water Symposium managed to convince the water profession that the global water situation, at least during the early part of the 21st century, is likely to get worse, and thus must be considered most seriously. This is a remarkable achievement since the Symposium is not an institution, and its overall direction is provided by a small Scientific Programme Committee. Furthermore, the Symposium itself has managed to reach this pre-eminent position of influencing the global water discussions in only nine years. Viewed from any direction, it is a most laudable feat.

Facing a water crisis?

By the second half of the 1990s, much of the water profession had accepted that the world is heading for a water crisis that is unprecedented in the human history. Now nearly everyone believes such a crisis is inevitable. It would be argued later that just as the previous position was erroneous, so is the current thinking.

Another water-oriented development of the late 1990s is worth noting. During the 1972-1992 period, the global discussions on water were mostly carried out under the aegis of the United Nations agencies. The UN system during the 1970s and the early 1980s had many competent, dedicated and charismatic water leaders, who provided the leadership for these discussions. With their departure from the global scene, the UN system has played a less and less relevant role on global water discussions as the 1990s progressed. Current trends indicate that this process is likely to accelerate further in the future.

During the last five years, new institutions like the World Water Council (WWC), and the Global Water Partnership (GWP) have filled the vacuum created by the continually diminishing role of the UN System. Also, increasingly, the Stockholm Water Symposium is providing a focus where global and regional discussions are taking place each year, either within the framework of the Symposium itself, or within the events associated with it during the same week in Stockholm. Thus, the Symposium, by providing a clear focus for timely, relevant and objective discussions on the various aspects of water, on a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral basis, has now firmly established itself as the "global centrepiece" for discussions on water. In addition, increasingly important water-oriented institutions like WWC and GWP have started to congregate each year in Stockholm to conduct their own activities, thus giving added impetus to the importance of the Symposium. However while this has added considerable weight to the Stockholm Water Symposium, it also may pose a major threat to its future, as the world's most important annual water event. Too many activities in one week and in one place may start to detract from the overall technical focus of the Symposium, and thus dilute its overall impacts.

Setting the water agenda

Two other global developments of the current decade are also worth noting. First is the establishment of the World Commission on Water (WCW). This blue-ribbon Commission clearly has forced the water community into thinking about the future of the world's water, a feat the profession has never achieved during its entire history. It is still too early to judge what would be the overall impact of this Commission, since a preliminary draft of its report is not yet available. Depending on the quality of its final report, the Commission undoubtedly has the potential to set the global water agenda for the next 5-10 years, in a way that has never been possible before.

The second event is the formation of the Club of Tokyo. This informal group of around 15 most influential water personalities of the world, selected on the basis of a peer-survey, is loosely based on a model of the Club of Rome during its heydays of the early 1970s. This very select group of influential people will make a determined attempt not only to put water in the international political agenda but also to guide discussions at the various international fora in an appropriate direction.

What kind of water crisis?

While predicting the future is an extremely hazardous business, it is clear that the world in the year 2025 will be vastly different from what it is today. Among the main driving forces which are likely to contribute to these changes are rapidly evolving demographic conditions, technological advances in all fields, speed and extent of globalisation, improvements in human capital, and national and inter-governmental policies.

The water sector is an integral component of the global system, and thus it would undergo major changes as well during the next 25 years. In fact, water development and management will change more during the next twenty years than during the past 2000 years. And yet, the water profession has not yet started to consider seriously the implications of accelerating developments in areas like globalisation, biotechnology, desalination, information and communication, which are likely to revolutionise water use and management practices in the coming decades.

It is now widely accepted that the world will face a major water crisis in the coming decades because of increasing scarcities in numerous countries. Many international organisations have published maps in recent years, all somewhat similar, which show that more and more countries of the world are becoming rapidly waterstressed because of increasing scarcities.

Unreliable data base

It is high time to review critically the reliability of such forecasts for many different reasons. First, the information base on which such forecasts and maps are based is highly unreliable. An extensive review by the Third World Centre for Water Management indicates that the national estimates on which the current global figures are based, are often erroneous (in many cases by several hundred per cent), and in other instances, the facts are totally wrong. For many major countries, like India and China, estimates of water availability and uses have been made, but no one has a clear idea about the accuracy of such national statistics. Thus, it is impossible to get any reasonably reliable picture of the global and regional water situations, which are based on the aggregation of such incomplete and unreliable national data sets.

Second, water abstraction is at present widely used as a proxy for water use. Methodologically, this of course is fundamentally wrong. Unlike oil, water is a reusable resource, which can be used many times. For example, some scientists have pointed out that each drop of the Colorado River water is currently used 6-7 times before it reaches the sea. All the indications are that the extent of reuse in all countries will accelerate further in the coming decades. Thus, the current practice of using water abstraction as a proxy for water use is already significantly erroneous. In about a decade, when reuse becomes even more extensive, this practice of using water abstraction data would be completely meaningless because of very serious underestimation of water actually used.

Currently, no reasonable estimates exist for reuse of water, even at the national levels, let alone for the world as a whole. Some data exist for a very few developed countries like Japan. In addition, the water profession, regrettably, has not considered reuse as an important factor in global water availability and use considerations, as a result of which all the existing forecasts are highly suspect.

Demand management
through water pricing

Third, private sector water management and water pricing are likely to play increasingly important roles in the next century. The net result of these two developments are likely to be significant advances in demand management, which currently plays a minor role in most countries of the world. This would mean that within a short period of about a decade or so, all projections of future water use would have to be significantly revised downwards because of increasing emphasis on demand management.

Fourth, as water pricing becomes increasingly acceptable, and technology advances further, it is highly likely that the estimates of groundwater availability would have to be significantly revised upwards. At present, water for agriculture, which is the major user of water, is virtually free in most countries; there has not been much economic incentive to explore groundwater on a comprehensive basis. Accordingly the national and global reserves may be much higher than estimated.

In this connection, it is worth noting a possible analogy with oil. In 1973, when the energy crisis hit the world, proven oil reserves amounted to 640 billion barrels. By 1996, the proven reserves had increased to 1,030 billion barrels. This is inspite of the fact that the global annual oil consumption increased by 32 per cent during this period. Because of the energy crisis, as oil prices increased and many oil companies moved from the public to the private sector, oil exploration economically became an attractive alternative. This, plus continuous advances in technology, has steadily increased the proven world oil reserves, even though a tremendous amount of oil is used each year.

New technology

It is highly likely that in the coming years water pricing will become more widespread than what it is at present; also, technological advances will probably be made which would make many sources of groundwater that are not economically exploitable at present, usable in the future. Furthermore, as water prices increase, there will be more demand for groundwater exploration to increase supply, which would stimulate accelerated research to develop new technology to abstract this resource; and the private sector will play an increasingly important role in water development and management;

Under the above conditions, the global estimates of economically usable groundwater are likely to increase significantly. Because of the upward adjustments in water availability and downward revisions in requirements, one can now be cautiously optimistic of the global water future.

This, of course, does not mean that it would be an easy process for countries to adjust to the new realities of a rapidly changing global water scene. Equally many countries are likely to find it difficult to manage the transformation without discontinuities because of socio-political constraints, institutional inertia, increasing management complexities and current and past inefficient water management practices. However, since the "business as usual" will not be a feasible option for the future in nearly all countries, policy-makers, water professionals, and water institutions, whether they like it or not, would be forced to embrace the new conditions, most probably within the next 10-15 years. All these and other associated developments are likely to make the present, "gloom and doom" forecasts of a global crisis due to water scarcities somewhat unlikely in the coming decades. If there is likely to be a crisis in the water sector, it would probably be due to two reasons, none of which is receiving adequate attention at present.

Worsening water quality

The first cause which could contribute to a crisis could be due to continuous water quality deterioration. Globally, water quality is receiving inadequate attention, even though it is rapidly becoming a critical issue. While global data on water quantity is poor, it is virtually non-existent for water quality. Even for major developed countries like the United States or Japan, a clear picture of the national water quality situation currently does not exist. For developing countries and for countries in transition, ranging from Indonesia to Nigeria and Russia to Mexico, existing frameworks and networks for water quality monitoring are highly deficient, adequate expertise on water quality management simply does not exist, and laboratories for water quality assessments suffer very seriously from poor quality control and quality assurance practices. Furthermore, senior water policy-makers in most developing countries become interested in quality aspects primarily when there are major local crises due to political and /or media interventions. Sadly, for all practical purposes, water quality is still receiving only lip service from most senior bureaucrats and politicians of developing countries and countries in transition.

Not surprisingly, because of the above deficiencies, water quality problems are becoming increasingly serious in all developing countries. For example, nearly all surface water bodies within and near urban-industrial centres are now highly polluted. While data on the existing groundwater quality are extremely poor, it is highly likely that groundwater is also getting increasingly contaminated near centres of population.

Because of their poor water management system, whatever national data are available in developing countries and countries in transition, they mostly give an erroneous picture of the existing water quality conditions. As a general rule, in these countries, the official pictures of water quality situations are mostly rosier than the current conditions warrant.

Prohibitive cost of
wastewater treatment

Recent estimates made by the Third World Centre for Water Management indicate that inspite of the official rhetorics and figures published by several international organisations, only about 6 per cent of wastewater generated in Latin America is properly treated and disposed of. Furthermore, most universities in the developing world cannot provide appropriate education and training on water quality management. Accordingly, rapid capacity building in this area would be a Herculean task under the best of circumstances. In addition, currently no reasonable estimates exist as to what would be the investment needed in Latin America to improve wastewater treatment from a paltry 6 per cent to a reasonably tolerable level of 60-70 per cent. All that can be stated at present with complete confidence is that the total investment costs for wastewater treatment and management are astronomical, and most countries would find it extremely difficult to meet these very high resource requirements in a timely manner.

The second possible crisis is likely to come from lack of investments for water supply. Analyses of current cost estimates for the next generation of water supply projects in developing countries indicate that these are likely to be 1.75 to 3 times the cost of the present generation of projects, in real terms and per m3 of water supplied. These high costs are still not adequately reflected in the current budget estimates of nearly all water agencies.

Construction of new large dams in the United States, Canada and the Western Europe during the past two decades have been few and far between. The costs in Japan, one of the few advanced countries that is continuing to build new large dams, have increased significantly in recent years. For example, for the 155-metre high Miyagase Dam in Japan, construction of which is now nearly complete, the cost per cubic metre of water storage is approximately 200 yen ($1.62 at July 1999 exchange rate). This is significantly higher than the current costs of desalinating sea water.

Globally, the total investment costs for modernising and efficiently managing existing water development projects and wastewater treatment plants and to construct new ones are likely to be enormous Currently, not even rough estimates of such costs are available. The main issue thus is from where would such high financial investments be available? The governments all over the world now have high national debts, resource generating capacities of all developing countries and countries in transition where most of the water projects have to be rehabilitated and the new ones are to be constructed, are limited, and the World Bank and the regional development banks have steadily reduced their assistance to water development projects as a percentage of their total loan portfolio. Furthermore, because of strong pressures from social and environmental activists, international financial institutions are becoming increasingly reluctant to finance new water projects, irrespective of their overall societal benefits. In fact, a historian in the 21st century may very well argue in a retrospective analysis that the Sardar Sarovar Project (Narmada Dam) in India became the World Bank's "Viet Nam" in terms of support to water projects during the 1990s. The regional development banks, which for all practical purposes follow the World Bank leadership in most areas, have taken, at least unofficially, a very similar stance.

Thus, it is likely that unless the current situation improves, the lack of investments may precipitate a water crisis in the 21st century.

Conclusion

It is now fashionable to talk about water crisis, in a very similar way discussions during the early 1970s were based on the future resource and environmental crisis because of the book The Limits to Growth. This of course is not surprising since human anxieties are an integral part of our evolutionary make-up: we could not be without them.

The world is changing rapidly, and with it the existing water management practices must change as well. However, we must objectively analyse the potential prospects and problems of the future water issues in the light of changes that are expected. We must view it neither with a rose-coloured glass nor with a dark glass. In the final analysis, it is our deeds, not words that would be most important to solve the future water problems. We must objectively determine what are the potentials and also what are the problems so that we would know how to handle them efficiently in a timely manner.