Bradford Model United Nations

10th November 2011

*WATER SECURITY.

*Introduction

*According to UNESCO- water security involves protection of vulnerable water systems, protection against water related hazards such as floods and droughts, sustainable development of water resources and safeguarding access to water functions and services.

*Drought study shows that water shortage has more ties to population than global warming does. As the temperature increases, rainfall in the Southeast will increase the area may get drier because of evaporation. However this is not the key factor of drought.

*While the world's population tripled in the 20th century, the use of renewable water resources has grown six-fold. Within the next fifty years, the world population will increase by another 40 to 50 %. This population growth - coupled with industrialization and urbanization - will result in an increasing demand for water and will have serious consequences on the environment.

*According to WHO, more than one out of six people lack access to safe drinking water, namely 1.1 billion people, and more than two out of six lack adequate sanitation, namely 2.6 billion people (Estimation for 2002, by the WHO/UNICEF JMP, 2004). 3,900 children die every day from water borne diseases (WHO 2004). One must know that these figures represent only people with very poor conditions. In reality, these figures should be much higher. 

*Water Stress Indicator

*Facts and Figures

• 1.1 billion People live without clean drinking water 

• 2.6 billion People lack adequate sanitation

• 1.8 million People die every year from diarrhoeal diseases.

• 3 900 children die every day from water borne diseases

Daily per capita use of water in residential areas:- 350 litres in North America and Japan- 200 litres in Europe- 10-20 litres in sub-Saharan AfricaOver 260 river basins are shared by two or more countries mostly without adequate legal or institutional arrangements.

Quantity of water needed to produce 1 kg of:

- Wheat: 1 000 L- Rice: 1 400 L- Beef: 13 000 L

Only 63% of the world’s population have access to improved sanitation.Waterborne diseases cause 1.4million children’s death every year.Women spend thousands of hours each year collecting and carrying water.Half of the world’s hospitalizations are due to water-related diseases.70% of the world’s fresh water supply is devoted to agriculture.Over 50% of all water projects fail in the first few year.

*WATER RESOURCE AND WATER SUPPLY.

*By water resources, we mean all the water available for human use, namely domestic use, agriculture, industry.

*By water supply, we mean water that has been treated and has become drinking water.

*The poorer the country, the smaller the difference, as people often drink water without treatment. As long as the country develops, the management of water resources in general differs from the one of drinking water.  

*PURE WATER

*According to the UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, ‘More people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war’.

*Day after day, we pour millions of tons of untreated sewage, industrial, and agricultural wastes into the world's water systems. This causes clean water to become scarce.

 

*Hillary Clinton US Secretary of state believes that "access to reliable supplies of clean water is a matter of human security. It's also a matter of national security." She also suggests that global peace and security will depend on access to water. This shows that water security is important in world politics.

* The United Nations Development Programme, in its annual Human Development report, argues that 1.1 billion people do not have safe water and 2.6 billion suffer from inadequate sewerage. This is not because of water scarcity but poverty, inequality and government failure.

*Iraq and Turkey Dispute

*Turkey has been accused by Syria and Iraq of depriving them of much-needed water, as it continues to build a series of dams along the Euphrates and Tigris. It is also embarking on an ambitious project to sell water from its Manavgat river across the Middle East.

*India and Bangladesh

Dispute

*The most sacred Hindu river, the Ganges, is so depleted that the Sundarban wetlands and mangrove forests of Bangladesh are seriously threatened. It is also said to contain unacceptable levels of arsenic. As more trees are chopped down, and more buildings erected along its banks, the glaciers supplying the river have been melting, raising fears of shortages and drought downstream. The river has been the subject of a long-running dispute between India and Bangladesh, although recently progress has been made in resolving the conflict.

*Drought

*We already know that drought occurs when not enough rain falls to the ground. Drought could occur as a result of ocean currents, how moist the soil is and by the shape of the land.

*EFFECTS- lack of water means less irrigation for farming, less drinking water, less water for hygiene, and less hydro-electricity. In developing countries droughts cause famine, bad diseases, and death.

*Parched soil resulting from a drought

*This used to be a river

*Drought in India

*People in Ranchi (India) are facing severe water crisis due to the bad climatic condition and drought like situation in the region. Continuous drought from the past two years and shortage of water in the dams the water crisis has surfaced in the region. Extensive deforestation, urbanisation and industrialisation have led to scanty rainfall because of this the water level of the region has gone down over the years.-this brings us back to the relationship between water and population.

*Ramprit Yadav, a resident of the village described the situation-"We are facing lot of trouble because of water crisis. There is a small tap for water supply and the population of this area is around ten thousand. We get water by filling our vessels from here. Now, we are getting water once in four to three days," said Yadav.

*Water Purety

*According to the UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, ‘More people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war’.

 

*Day after day, we pour millions of tons of untreated sewage, industrial, and agricultural wastes into the world's water systems. This causes clean water to become scarce.

*Hillary Clinton US Secretary of state believes that "access to reliable supplies of clean water is a matter of human security. It's also a matter of national security." She also suggests that global peace and security will depend on access to water. This shows that water security is important in world politics.

 

* The United Nations Development Programme, in its annual Human Development report, argues that 1.1 billion people do not have safe water and 2.6 billion suffer from inadequate sewerage. This is not because of water scarcity but poverty, inequality and government failure.

*Case Study #1Turkey and Iraq

* Iraq

* Water Crisis, worst drought in decades

* Most downstream country

* Damaged economy, agriculture, population displacements and threat to the ecosystem and biodiversity

* Main sources: Tigris and Euphrates Rivers

* Turkey

* Shortage of water (186bn m)

* Quantity per capita = 1833m3 [only 1/5 of the water-rich countries]

* Utlises only 25.9bn m3 of its available capacity (110bn m3), the remaining portion is not a surplus, it cannot yet allocated to its needs

* In the past 40 years, there are 650 dams in Turkey and 20 in Euphrates and Tigris

* ABSENCE OF WATER SHARING AGREEMENTS OR COORDINATION PROCEDURES

*Before and After 2005Water Discharges in

Euphrates

*Failures of cooperation

*Iraq

*Demand for increasing flow in the Euphrates and in the Tigris

*Strategic cooperation for Turkey to release more water from the Tigris and the Euphrates has failed

*Turkey

*No multilateral water sharing agreement but rather a bilateral solution possible

*Refuses to sign the United Nations Convention on the “Law of the Non Navigational Uses of International Watercourses”

*Turkey and IraqDam Disputes

*Ilisu dam by Turkey will reduce the water of the Tigris by 47% and deprive 50% of its annual average discharge at the border of Iraq

*A quarter of the country’s electricity is derived from hydro-electric schemes which have required damming

*The collateral damage has been enormous in terms of population displacement, habitat destruction and ultimate water loss and degradation in the wider area around the dams

*Case Study #IIIndia and Pakistan

*Partition of British India in 1947

*As a result of violence- estimated 1 million dead

*3 official wars between India and Pakistan: 1947, 1965, 1971

*At partition in 1947, the line between India and Pakistan was drawn on religious grounds, paying no attention to hydrology. As a result, more than 85 percent of the irrigated area of the Punjab -- the breadbasket of the subcontinent -- was included in Pakistan, while the headwaters of the Punjab rivers were in what subsequently became Indian-held Kashmir. “Punjab" means "land of five rivers"

*Pakistan’ Situation

*About 25% of Pakistan's total land area is under cultivation and is watered by one of the largest irrigation systems in the world. Pakistan irrigates three times more acres than Russia.

*The most important crops are wheat, sugarcane, cotton, and rice

*Farming is Pakistan's largest economic activity. , agriculture, and small-scale forestry and fishing, contributed 20 percent of GDP and employed 48 percent of the labor force

*India’s Situation

* The economy of India is the fourth-largest by purchasing power parity . According to a 2011 PwC report, India's GDP at purchasing power parity will overtake that of the United States by 2045

* India contains the largest concentration of people living below the World Bank's international poverty line of US$1.25 per day

* For example, in 1980 rural sanitation coverage was estimated at 1% and reached 21% in 2008

* India faces a turbulent water future. Unless water management practices are changed – and changed soon – India will face a severe water crisis within the next two decades and will have neither the cash to build new infrastructure nor the water needed by its growing economy and rising population.

*Kashmir

Three out of six rivers, which run through Pakistan, originates from Kashmir namely Rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chenab where as remaining three namely Rivers Ravi, Sutlaj and Bias originate from India. There will be no ground defence of Pakistan if the rivers and canals of Pakistan are dried up. It was this reason that the Prime Minister of Pakistan described the strategic value of Kashmir to Pakistan as soon as 1951

*The Indus Treaty

*Signed with international cooperation in 1960

*The treaty assigned water use of the three eastern rivers (the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej) -- which comprise 19 percent of all water in the basin -- to India. Use of the three western rivers (Indus, Chenab and Jhelum) was assigned to Pakistan, with two provisos: a small allocation for consumptive use in Kashmir, and permission for India to tap the hydropower of the Pakistani rivers before they reach Pakistan (with specific conditions to ensure that India could not manipulate the quantity or timing of flows into Pakistan).

*Conclusion

* According to ‘World Water Vision Report’, “There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water so badly that billions of people - and the environment - suffer badly."   *ME* In other words, we are managing our water resource badly and we are suffering for it. Corrective measures can still be taken to avoid the situation from worsening and that is what we should try and delegate in our meeting, to come up with solutions*.

* As far as trans-boundary conflicts are concerned, regional economic development and cultural preservation can all be strengthened by states cooperating of water. Instead of a trend towards war, water management can be viewed as a trend towards cooperation and peace. Many initiatives are launched to avoid crises. Institutional commitments like in the Senegal River are created. In 2001, Unesco and Grenn Cross International have joined forces in response to the growing threat of conflicts linked to water. They launched the joint ‘From Potential Conflicts to Co-Operation Potential’ programme to promote peace in the use of trans-boundary watercourses by addressing conflicts and fostering co-operation among states and stakeholders.

* The United Nations declared has 2005-2015 as the ‘Water for Life’ decade. The goal is to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015 and to stop unsustainable exploitation of water resources. Governments pledged to do this when they adopted the Millennium Development Goals in 2000.