FRESHWATERHRH Prince Talal Bin Abdul

Aziz Al SaudWater is life

Ryutaro Hashimoto The water century

Wang ShuchengTaking it at the floodPaula J. Dobriansky

Renewing the commitmentAnna Kajumulo Tibaijuka

Waterless citiesWayne Gilchrest

Keeping pollution at bayRichard Jolly

Changing agenda

Volume 14 No 1

Our PlanetThe magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 2003

SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THEUNITED NATIONS KOFI ANNAN

PRIME MINISTER OF LEBANONRAFIC HARIRI

EU COMMISSIONERMARGOT WALLSTRÖM

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3 EditorialKlaus Toepfer, Executive Director,UNEP

4 World Environment Day Margot Wallström, EU Commissionerfor the Environment

5 Water is life HRH Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz AlSaud, UNESCO’s Special Envoy forWater

7 The water centuryRyutaro Hashimoto, Chairman,National Japanese SteeringCommittee, World Water Forum

9 Taking it at the floodWang Shucheng, Minister of WaterResources, People’s Republic of China

11 Renewing the commitmentPaula J. Dobriansky, United StatesUnder Secretary of State for GlobalAffairs

13 Waterless citiesAnna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, Under-Secretary-General, United Nations;Executive Director, UN-HABITAT

15 Keeping pollution at bay Wayne Gilchrest,Chairman, Resources Subcommittee onFisheries Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans, US House of Representatives

17 People

18 At a glance: The world’s watercrisis

20 Changing agenda Richard Jolly, Chair, WSSCC

22 Nor any drop to drink Ashok Khosla, President,Development Alternatives

24 Bridging troubled watersPekka Haavisto, Chairman, UNEP’sDesk Study on the OccupiedPalestinian Territories

25 Books & products

26 Getting thereRavi Narayanan, Director, WaterAid

28 Sinking fastJonathan Loh, Editor, WWF’s LivingPlanet Report; Lisa Hadeed,Communications Manager, WWFInternational

29 Waste notPolly Ghazi, Senior Correspondent,Green Futures

31 Water – the poor’s priorityShabana Azmi, actor

32 Atomic powerMarina Mansilla Hermann, Student of Environmental Science, Argentina

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The contents of this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of UNEP or the editors, nor are they an officialrecord. The designations employed and the presentation do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part ofUNEP concerning the legal status of any country, territory or city or its authority, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiersor boundaries.

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Our Planet,the magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)PO Box 30552, Nairobi, KenyaTel. (2542) 621 234; fax 623 927; telex 22068 UNEP KEe-mail: cpiinfo@unep.orgwww.unep.org

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Front cover: Jon Layne/UNEP/Topham

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It may seem curious to celebrate atiny piece of rubber, smaller than a US quarter, found in bathroom

taps and kitchen faucets around theglobe. But the humble washer is oneof a range of low-tech devices with abig part to play in reducing losses ofwater, that most fundamental naturalresource on which all life depends.

A leaky tap, dripping every second,may seem like a drop in the ocean,but it wastes well over 4 litres a day.Over a month, a seriously leaking tapcan lose as much as 10,500 litres.

Taking actionFixing taps is just one action we can all take to conserve water for the sake of communities and wildlifehabitats alike. Simple, thoughtfulmeasures, across homes, com-munities, work-places, industries andcities could really make a difference.

UNEP’s International Environ-mental Technology Centre in Osaka,Japan, is compiling a database ofwater-saving tips, technologies andpolicies drawn from both the deve-loped and developing world, includingsmall island states.

From the desk of

KLAUS TOEPFERUnited Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director,UNEP

Dual flush lavatories, in whicheither 10 or 5 litres are used depend-ing on need, can save up to 15 litres a day. They may only be affordable inmore developed nations. But bricks,milk jugs filled with pebbles, orsimilar ‘toilet displacement devices’ –as they are euphemistically called –cost little and, when placed in aconventional lavatory’s water tank,can cut the flush by some 4 litres.

Showers account for some 20 percent of a household’s total in-doorwater use in a country like the UnitedStates. Installing low-flow shower-heads has been calculated to save afamily of four 80,000 litres of water a year.

As much as 600 litres can be savedwhen washing a car by turning off thehose between rinses, while washing iton the lawn, rather than the driveway,can save water needed to keep thegrass green.

Some Pacific and Caribbeanislands – such as Kiribati, Nauru,Saint Lucia and the Bahamas – havedual supply systems. Drinking watercomes through one pipe whileanother brings in saltwater for thelavatory.

Rainwater harvesting is under-utilized, but has huge potential in both the developing and developedworlds. The Ryogoku KokugikanSumo-wrestling arena in Sumida City, Japan, collects rainwater on its8,400 square metre roof for lavatoryflushing and air conditioning.

In China, 17 provinces haveinstalled between 5 million and 6million rainwater harvesting tankssupplying an estimated 15 millionpeople with drinking water as well asproviding back-up irrigation for over a million hectares of farmland. Insome Nigerian homes, broad-leavedtrees collect rainwater which thenruns down a bamboo gutter into a pot.

Real conservation efforts areneeded in agriculture, which uses upto 70 per cent of freshwater and

wastes much of it. Simple and cheapdrip technologies, using undergroundpipes, can dramatically reduce lossesby such factors as evaporation. Indianresearchers have claimed watersavings of 60 per cent.

The database also cites casestudies from countries, includingdeveloping ones, where watermetering has been tried and leakdetection adopted to reduce hugelosses from water supply networks.Water consumption was cut by 43 percent in Honiara, Solomon Islands,after the introduction of meters. InMalta, losses from pipes were cutfrom 55 per cent to 25 per cent follow-ing a leak detection programme.

In Chile, laws have encouraged awater market involving tradable andtransferable rights. As a result, itsfarmers shift during droughts fromgrowing water-intensive crops suchas corn and oilseeds, to higher valueones, which need less water, likefruits and vegetables.

The font of lifeMany of these practical steps are onlypossible if water is given value. Thisvalue may be economic, but it canalso be cultural. Since the dawn oftime – and often through theteachings of the world’s great reli-gions and beliefs – water has beenrevered and recognized as the font ofall life.

This year’s slogan for WorldEnvironment Day is ‘Water: TwoBillion People are Dying for It!’. It isincumbent on the 4 billion who arenot, to renew their respect for waterby valuing every drop ■

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YOUR VIEWSI would really like to receive your feedbackon the issues raised in this edition of Our Planet. Please either e-mailfeedback@ourplanet.com or write to:Feedback, Our Planet, 27 Devonshire RoadCambridge CB1 2BH, United Kingdom

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WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY MESSAGEMARGOT WALLSTRÖM

EU COMMISSIONER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

We have come a long way sincethe 1972 United NationsConference on the Human

Environment, which put environmentalconcerns squarely on the internationalagenda. But while we have made someprogress in improving and conserving our fragile environment, we have not yetsucceeded in stopping environmentaldegradation for good, nor in finding thepath to sustainable development. It is myconviction that these goals are attainable,but their accomplishment will requireefforts by all of us: rich and poor, youngand old, and in all corners of the globe.

World Environment Day embodies thisapproach, raising awareness, encouragingpeople to voice their thoughts and do theirutmost to improve the environment. Thisyear’s World Environment Day is devotedto that invaluable resource, water, and ithas my whole-hearted support.

Fresh water is a luxury – but most of us take it for granted. We do not realizethat more than 1 billion people, one in sixof the world’s population, are withoutaccess to a safe water supply, nor that halfthe world’s population lack adequatesanitation. This produces disease anddeath, particularly among children.

To make matters worse, global demandfor water keeps growing, and resourcesare being used up faster than they can bereplenished. It is imperative that we alllearn how to save and share water, thusensuring that less fortunate people aroundthe world and the generations to comealso have access to it. Turning off the tapwhile you brush your teeth, taking ashower instead of a bath, and other slightchanges of daily habit that may seeminsignificant can make a big difference.

I believe that World Environment Dayshould maintain the momentum of last

year’s Johannesburg World Summit onSustainable Development and ensure thatactions speak louder than words. One ofthe targets agreed at the Summit is, by2015, to halve the proportion of peoplewithout access to basic sanitation. Thiscomplements the Millennium Develop-ment Goal – again by 2015 – of halvingthe proportion of people without sus-tainable access to safe drinking water.

In Johannesburg, the European Unionlaunched the ‘EU Water for LifeInitiative’ to reach these goals. Theinitiative’s aim is to bring safe water andsanitation to the poorest regions of Africaand the Newly Independent States, inpartnership with their governments andwith an emphasis on capacity-building.Now the European Commission is takingthe lead in trying to inject furthermomentum into this initiative, includingthrough the mobilization of significantEuropean Development Fund resources.

Another important result ofJohannesburg is the agreement to estab-lish a ten-year framework for pro-grammes on sustainable consumption andproduction, with industrialized countriestaking the lead in this global effort.

Now that the delegates have leftJohannesburg, it is time for the real workto start – on converting all the words andbrainwork into action. We need to ensurethat the Johannesburg ImplementationPlan is backed up by a concrete workprogramme, and thorough monitoring andreporting mechanisms, so that individualgovernments can be held accountable fortheir pledges. But we also need to domore to integrate sustainable developmentinto our daily routines, not only within theborders of the European Union but alsothroughout the world. And as individuals,we can each make changes to our

lifestyles, acting with real motivation and determination to preserve ourenvironment.

This is the idea behind WorldEnvironment Day, which will play a vitalrole in mobilizing stakeholders at all levels.Civil society initiatives and partnershipsbetween governments, international insti-tutions and non-governmental organiza-tions are important ways of implementinginternationally agreed actions, and wererecognized for the first time at UnitedNations level in Johannesburg. They canhelp ensure effective implementation of theJohannesburg commitments.

The European Commission plays itspart in making sure World EnvironmentDay gets the attention it deserves, byorganizing each year a ‘Green Week’ and‘Green Days’. The theme of this year’sGreen Week (2-5 June in Brussels) is‘Changing Our Behaviour’. It will bringpeople together to debate, as a follow-upto Johannesburg, the key environmentalissues of water, sustainable consumptionand production, and renewable energy andclimate change. Green Days (30 May-9 June) are locally organized events acrossEurope designed to mobilize local actionin support of the Green Week goals.

I can only repeat: sustainable develop-ment will be achieved only if vigorousefforts are made at every level – startingwith the individual and progressing fromthe local, to the regional, to the national,to the supranational, to the international –and only if these efforts are made inpartnership with all the actors involved.

World Environment Day should moti-vate us to redouble our efforts ■

ACTIONS SPEAKlouder than words

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W AT E R is lifeHRH PRINCE TALAL BIN ABDUL AZIZ AL SAUD describes how the InternationalYear of Freshwater provides an opportunityfor governments and individuals to take stock of what they can do to resolve theglobal water crisis

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Having been named by the Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization as Special Envoy for Water during this very

special International Year of Freshwater, I feel a personalresponsibility to mobilize awareness about the importance of caring for our freshwater resources if we are to ensure the well-being of societies everywhere. The message is asimple one.

Echoing the Director General’s own words on the occasion ofthe Year’s launching ceremony: ‘For the sake of internationalpeace, human security and sustainable development, we mustbe caring, sparing and sharing in all we do regardingfreshwater. Let us now spread this message far and wide.’

Coming from Saudi Arabia, a desert kingdom with noperennial rivers, streams or permanent freshwater lakes, andwhere rainfall is both scarce and infrequent, I have a deepappreciation of the value of freshwater.

Not so long ago, when a traditional way of life prevailed in

my country, small towns and nomadic societies were able toflourish here because they were well adapted to this water-scarce environment. They did not waste water and they did notconsume more than they had. But today, this delicatedemographic balance has shifted. In the wake of changinglifestyles and expectations, Saudi Arabia, like many other partsof the world, is experiencing stress.

Scarce resourceThe increase in water demand due to population growth andexpansion of industrial, agricultural and urban areas hasoutstripped our limited resources. The arable land area in thecountry is very small. So now we are facing serious problemsof water supply and our future development may be at stake.Yes, we have made the desert bloom, using preciousgroundwater for irrigation to help produce wheat, barley,tomatoes, melons, dates, citrus fruits, mutton and poultry – butat a price. Some of our irrigation practices can be wasteful, ourdrainage systems are often inadequate – thus increasing thesalinity of the soil – and unplanned and unmonitored pumpinghave led to a significant lowering of the groundwater levels andin some cases have caused springs to dry up.

In its World Water Development Report – Water for People,Water for Life, released in March 2003, the United Nations WorldWater Assessment Programme (WWAP) has drawn attention tothese very issues, and especially to the trade-offs involved whenmany users are competing for the same, scarce resource. Itspeaks of ‘inertia at the leadership level’ and warns us that theglobal water crisis will reach unprecedented levels in the yearsahead, with ‘growing per capita scarcity of water in many partsof the developing world’, unless action is taken now.

This Report is itself a sign of commitment and political will: it represents the first time that the 23 United Nations agenciesand commissions dealing with water have worked together tomonitor progress against water-related targets in such fields as health, food, ecosystems, cities, industry, energy and riskmanagement. It is fitting that the World Water DevelopmentReport be addressed to national policy-makers and others in aposition to influence the water agenda.

Specialization and competenceWithin this collective effort, each agency has its own areas ofspecialization and competence. This diversity is the UnitedNations’ greatest strength. In the freshwater domain, UNEP, forexample, is particularly concerned with water quality throughthe GEMS/WATER Global Environmental Monitoring Systemwhich is a collaborative effort with the World Health Organi-zation (WHO), and inputs from the World MeteorologicalOrganization and UNESCO. In a broader environmental context,it looks at biodiversity issues, climate change, land degradation,water flows and the interactions between environment anddevelopment.

UNESCO has a mandate to promote peace, humandevelopment and security through its fields of competence. Its

Education, training and creative partnershipsare assuming a central place in the effort tobuild a better and more secure future

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interest in water is grounded in a long-standing engagementwith scientific investigation of the hydrological cycle, but hasnever been limited to science for its own sake. Thus, by creatingthe International Hydrological Programme (IHP) in 1975, itpioneered efforts to provide a scientific basis for evaluatingglobal water resources and formulating ethical and socio-economic principles to guide water management anddevelopment practices. Today, the roles of education, trainingand creative partnerships are assuming a central place in theeffort to build a better and more secure future.

Setting goalsIn September 2000, world leaders pledged to halve theproportion of people unable to reach or to afford safe drinkingwater. Then at the 2002 World Summit on SustainableDevelopment in Johannesburg, a matching target was agreed to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access toadequate sanitation.

Meeting these targets requires coordinated action, not justfrom governments, but from all of us who use water – andabuse it. Each of us in our daily lives can make a difference;each community and each region too. The International Year ofFreshwater therefore provides us with the rare opportunity totake stock of our actions and behaviour.

We have a saying in Arabic that ‘Water is Life’. Let us re-member this simple phrase each time we turn on the faucet ortake a drink of water. Let’s get the message out ■

HRH Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud is UNESCO’s SpecialEnvoy for Water during the International Year of Freshwater2003.

Each of us in our daily lives can make adifference; each community and each region too

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Iam deeply honoured that Japan had the opportunity to organize the 3rd World Water Forum in the venues

of Kyoto, Shiga and Osaka; rich in cultureand history and in their association with water.

The 21st century has been called thecentury of water – 2003 is the Inter-national Year of Freshwater. Some 2 billion people in the world are facingwater shortages. Our planet Earth hasbeen losing the balance between theamount of usable water and the demand,and even the balance of the ecosystemand our ability to co-exist with nature. The imbalance between the volume ofavailable usable water and the demandfor that water has led not only toshortages but to other serious problemsas well, such as the decrease of ground-water reserves, water pollution andgeneral deterioration of water resources.These have in turn led to a decrease inthe diversity of water-related species andan increase in the number of species onthe verge of extinction around the world.

Retreating glaciers‘The Earth is bleeding,’ says Japanesealpinist Ken Noguchi, referring to theabundant water flow from meltingglaciers in the Himalayas. It is a heart-breaking metaphor for the impact ofglobal warming and the retreat ofglaciers. Noguchi frequently climbs Mt.Everest to clean up the mountain. He hastold me many sad stories reflecting thechange in nature and the tragic accidentsbefalling mountaineering parties in areaswhere nothing of the sort had happenedbefore. It is indeed as if the Earth werescreaming. One such warning cry came in the form of last year’s series of floods in many locations around the world –including Europe, which seldom suffersfrom flooding.

It is no wonder that we are hearing the term ‘water crisis’. Moreover, con-sidering the continuing increase of theworld’s population, it is no exaggerationto say that resolving water issues is theparamount challenge of the 21st centuryif we are to protect our mother Earth.

However, it was also patently clear at

THE WATER centuryRYUTARO HASHIMOTO says that resolving water issues will be the paramount challenge of the 21st century, and describes the work of this year’s 3rd World WaterForum in addressing them

Resolving water issues is theparamount challenge of the21st century

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All of us must continue to doour utmost to step forwardand resolve water issues

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the Johannesburg Summit last Augustthat the world’s attention is keenlyfocused on water issues. The inter-national community agreed at theSummit that there is an urgent need for anew approach: by 2015 ‘we must reduceby half the proportion of people’ with no access to safe water and sanitationfacilities. Although the Summit washighly valued for its new objectives withconcrete numerical criteria, there is alsoa need to decide upon concrete means ofachieving those objectives and to sustainthem from now onwards.

Responsibility and leadershipThe 3rd World Water Forum was the firstinternational opportunity to follow up onthe Summit and work towards suchconcrete actions. Japan successfullyorganized the 3rd World Water Forum – the first to be held in Asia – with a senseof responsibility to provide leadership in this important movement, which willhelp to decide the future of the Earth, ourplanet of water.

Over the past three years severalorganizations have contributed to thepreparation of this serious mission,working to ensure that the Forum wouldbe a conference to realize action, asuitable follow-up to Johannesburg, andnot a ‘conference for conference’s sake’,dealing in abstractions. I am proud thatthis three-year process, which involvedmassive participation, offered up a Forumsuitable for converting the World WaterVision – the fruit of the 2nd World WaterForum held in The Hague – into concreteaction.

The process established three guidingprinciples, that this Forum be: 1. open to all; 2. created through partnership by all;

3. focused on translating visions intoconcrete actions and commitments.

In order to realize these principles, weestablished the Virtual Water Forum(VWF) on the Internet and the Water VoiceProject, which collected voices on waterat the grassroots level.

The VWF hosted more than 150sessions involving more than 5,000registered participants, and the dis-cussions are continuing now, even afterthe Forum’s conclusion. Similarly, ourWater Voice Project, intended to com-plement the VWF, collected some 30,000voices from around the world thanks to the cooperation of more than 2,000volunteers and some 160 partnerorganizations: these voices are broughttogether in the Water Voice database,which is accessible along with the VirtualWater Forum at the Forum’s website:www.worldwaterforum.org.

During this preparation period we alsocreated a water network linking theactivities of many conferences on waterheld around the world and encouragedorganizations to hold sessions at theWorld Water Forum itself. As a result, theForum hosted 349 sessions classified in33 major themes and 5 regional days (see box).

Dialogue for changeThe last three years’ preparation hasbeen a bottom-up approach that includeda great number of participants not seenin other international conferences. TheForum brought together participantsfrom both developed and developingcountries, with dialogue as the keyelement, to come up with water actionsappropriate to this century of water.

I hope that the 3rd World Water Forumhelped the process of overcoming today’sserious water problems and deepenedglobal understanding of world waterissues so that we can leave a betterplanet to our children in the 21st century.But, as the 3rd World Water Forum itselfconcluded, we cannot take its outcomefor granted. All of us must continue to doour utmost to step forward and resolvewater issues. I hope this approach willlong continue ■

Ryutaro Hashimoto is Chairman of theNational Japanese Steering Committeeof the World Water Forum.

IssuesAgriculture, Food and Water

CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Panel

Children’s World Water Forum

Dams and Sustainable Development

Financing Water Infrastructure

Floods

Gender and Water Panel

Groundwater

Integrated Water Resources

Management (IWRM) & Basin

Management

Public Private Partnership

Science, Technology and

Management Panel

Union Panel

Water and Cities

Water and Climate

Water and Cultural Diversity

Water and Energy

Water and Governance

Water and Information

Water and Parliamentarians

Water and Poverty

Water and Transport

Water Development Partners Panel

Water for Peace

Water Journalist Panel

Water Supply, Sanitation, Hygiene

and Water Pollution

Water, Education and Capacity

Building

Water, Food and Environment

Water, Life and Medical Care

Water, Nature and Environment

Youth World Water Forum

Special ProgrammesAgricultural Ministers’ Meeting on

Water, Food and Agriculture

World Water Actions

World Water Assessment Programme

Regional Days Day of Africa

Day of Asia and Pacific

Day of Europe

Day of the Americas

Day of the Middle East and

Mediterranean

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Flood and drought coexist in mainland China becauseprecipitation – affected by the monsoon climate – is distri-buted very unevenly, both in time and space. For several

thousand years, flood disasters have been the hidden troublethreatening the existence and development of the Chinese people.

River harnessing and flood control have been carried out on anunprecedented scale since the foundation of the People’s Republicof China in 1949. As a result, flood disasters were preliminarilybrought under control: 85,000 reservoirs of various kinds with atotal storage capacity of 520 billion cubic metres have beenconstructed; 270,000 kilometres of dykes have been built along themajor rivers and lakes; and hundreds of flood detention and storagezones have been developed. All these achievements have attractedworld attention.

Since the 1990s, China has again entered a period of frequentfloods. Although the total affected area is reduced, the losses are huge due to social and economic development in the floodzone. Urbanization is bound tospeed up in the 21st centuryand thus raise higher therequirements for flood controland disaster reduction.

Strategies for mitigationAgainst this background, floodcontrol and disaster mitigationhave become significant issuesfor sustainable development inChina. Readjusting the stra-tegies for achieving them isabsolutely crucial.

Over the past 2,000 yearsor so, the main strategy inChina has been to regulate andrestrict floods with all sorts ofstructural measures. Historicalexperiences have told us that it is difficult to eliminate flood disasters completely.Humankind must learn to livewith the floods and enjoyharmonious co-existence withnature.

As early as 6 B.C., aChinese scholar called JiaRang proposed, in the Historyof the Han Dynasty, that riverharnessing should adapt to thelaws of floods and that humanproduction and settlementsshould avoid them by resiting

to unaffected areas. This is similar to today’s philosophy of com-bining both structural and non-structural measures, reflected in the revised Water Law of the People’s Republic of China, passed in October 2002. Article 15 of the Law emphasizes that regionalsocial development should be in accordance with flood controlplanning. In other words, it is imperative to change from justpreventing water harming humankind to paying special attention topreventing humankind harming water, and thus being harmed by it.

Flood disasters have both natural and social attributes: if one is missing there is no disaster. This duality has led to coordinatedmanagement, using structural measures to harness floods while atthe same time readjusting social and economic development toadapt to them.

Adaptation does not mean passive avoidance. It involvesrespecting nature and human society with the aim of achievingsustainable social development. People have increasingly realizedthat ‘natural’ disasters are not all natural. Human activities have

been the main cause ofincreasing flood disasters andlosses during the past hundredyears or so.

These dual attributes haveled to a change in philosophy.Since the devastating YangtzeRiver floods in 1998, theChinese Government has givenin-depth thought to the issueand readjusted its work on floodcontrol strategies. The majorbreakthroughs in this readjust-ment include both an emphasison planning flood control pro-jects under the greater frame-work of basin-wide ecosystemrehabilitation, and applyingsystematic theories and riskmanagement. This demonstratesa transition from flood controlto flood management.

Significant progressOver the past five years,significant progress has beenmade in flood control anddisaster mitigation. Structuralmeasures provide the basicguarantee for social stabilityand development. During thisperiod the Chinese CentralGovernment has spent around$21.7 billion in the water sector,

Taking it at THE FLOODWANG SHUCHENG describes a change in philosophy that has brought new strategies

for flood control and disaster mitigation in China

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focusing on reinforcing dykes along the major rivers and lakes. Bythe end of 2002, 3,500 kilometres of dykes on the middle and lowerreaches of the Yangtze River and nearly 1,000 kilometres of dykeson the Yellow River had reached design standards. To minimizenegative impacts, an overall economic and environmental impactassessment is encouraged in planning and design, and the conceptof green GDP is introduced.

Behavioural changeThe social behaviour of overexploiting the land, and thus makingthe flood situation worse, has been regulated. For example, polderfields affecting flood release along the Yangtze River and othermajor rivers have been abandoned. At present, 3,000 squarekilometres of polder fields have been turned back into lakes torestore the ecosystem of the Dongting and Poyang Lakes andothers; this has increased the regulating capacity of the rivers andlakes by 13 billion cubic metres. As part of this process, theGovernment allocated funds to relocate 2.4 million people to safe,nearby areas.

Flood control has changed from emphasizing capitalconstruction, such as building dykes and reservoirs, to developingan integral flood control system. There have been large-scaleecosystem rehabilitation campaigns in the middle and upperreaches of the rivers, including turning farmland into forests,planting trees and grass, and conserving water and soil. A total of120 million cubic metres of sediment have been dredged from thebeds and estuaries of major rivers. Information systems for floodcontrol have provided advanced measures for scientific decision.

Social management of flood control areas, dyke protection areasand flood plains has been strengthened, various kinds of economicand social activities have been regulated, and compensationpolicies for the use of flood detention and storage areas have beenformulated.

As a departure from attempting to eliminate flood disasterscompletely and release the water into the sea, efforts have beenmade to bear a certain degree of risk, to formulate feasible floodcontrol standards and flood regulating schemes, and to makecomprehensive use of various measures to ensure safety within setstandards and minimize losses when the floods exceed them.

Floods are not completely harmful. They are also carriers ofmaterial transfer in the rivers and are important in maintainingecosystem balance in river basins. In countries like China, whichare short of water, floods are also a key component of utilizablewater resources. In recent years, therefore, flood control haschanged from disaster mitigation to using flood resources torecharge ground water.

New line of thinkingResolving the relationship between humankind and nature is aprecondition for the progress of human society. Sustainable socialdevelopment represents the people’s rational thoughts about thefuture. Regulating the relationship between humankind and natureis the core issue of achieving sustainable development. Reducinglosses caused by water disasters – as well as attaching importanceto population, resources and the environment – is most crucial inrealizing this objective. We are fully confident in pursuing this newline of thinking – though China still has a long way to go in floodcontrol and disaster mitigation ■

Wang Shucheng is Minister of Water Resources of the People’sRepublic of China.

Resolving the relationship betweenhumankind and nature is a precondition forthe progress of human society

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RENEWING the commitmentPAULA J. DOBRIANSKY outlines the international strategy for meeting the world’s water

needs and describes what the United States of America is doing to implement it

L et me describe an all too commonsituation in the developing world. In an alleyway on the outskirts of

a large city sits a gaping earthen pit. At the bottom of the pit, a small water line lies exposed, possessing so little waterpressure that it cannot supply the singleabove-ground tap nearby. Local residentsclimb to the bottom of the hole, where thesteady drip from the punctured line fillstheir buckets. Getting enough water for afamily requires patience, and there is noguarantee the water is safe. Clandestineconnections such as this provide the onlyaccess to water for many poor residents ofperi-urban areas. Combined with a lack ofsanitation facilities, unsafe water suppliespromote the spread of devastating water-borne diseases, and pose a daily health riskto the people that use them. This is simplyunacceptable.

Appropriate management of waterresources is essential for economic growthand human health. People depend on waterto drink, to grow food, to generate energy,to provide transportation, and to maintainhealthy ecosystems. Mismanagement ofwater resources can exacerbate the effectsof floods and droughts and increasedisease. In cases where water is sharedamong many users, increased tensionsmay lead to conflict.

Important stepsThe international community has takenimportant steps to address world waterneeds, with special attention to the morethan 1.1 billion people who lack access to safe drinking water and the 2.4 billionwho lack access to adequate sanitation.Work has been done to develop a strategy

to address these and other global waterchallenges. At the 2nd World Water Forumin The Hague and the InternationalConference on Freshwater in Bonn,consensus was reached on the importanceof several themes to water management. I want to highlight five key conclusions:

1 Governments must prioritize meetingthe basic water and sanitation needs of

their people in development and povertyreduction strategies.

2 Governments must work together tomanage shared water resources.

3 Water must be managed in anintegrated manner, optimizing its

use among competing demands whileprotecting land, freshwater and marineecosystems.

4 Potable water, sanitation and hygieneare inextricably linked, and action

must be taken in each area to reduce thethreat of water-related diseases.

5 The global community will need tomobilize all sources of financing,

including domestic capital, to addresswater-related infrastructure needs.

World leaders, meeting in Monterrey in2002, broke new ground by recognizingthe shared role developed and developingcountries have in addressing theseproblems. For donor countries, this meanta new commitment to providing the kindof development assistance required toopen markets. For developing countries,this meant a new commitment to goodgovernance, to investing in their ownpeople and to creating the domesticconditions required to enable effective use

of donor assistance and employment of all resources, particularly those in the private sector.

At the World Summit on SustainableDevelopment (WSSD) in Johannesburg,countries agreed to a framework forsustainable development that is built on the principles of Monterrey. It focused onimplementing a water strategy based uponwork completed in The Hague and Bonn.WSSD outcomes were anchored by theidea that sustainability requires nationalgovernments to take responsibility fortheir own development. Partnershipsamong stakeholders were identified as akey means to implement this new agenda.The water and sanitation goals thatemerged from WSSD provide importantfocus to global efforts. The JohannesburgPlan of Implementation (JPOI) reaffirmedthe Millennium Declaration goal of‘halving, by 2015, the proportion ofpeople unable to reach or afford safedrinking water’, and set a complementarygoal to increase access to sanitation. The outcomes of WSSD helped the world expand beyond defining the water problem to focusing on potentialsolutions.

New partnershipsIn Johannesburg, the United Statesannounced several partnerships andinitiatives relating to water. We launchedthe ‘Water for the Poor’ initiative, a three-year, $970 million dollar collection ofactivities in three key areas: drinking waterand sanitation, watershed management,and increasing the productivity of wateruse. Working in partnership with non-governmental organizations and the

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private sector, we aim to improvesustainable management of freshwaterresources in developing countries, and putinto action the JPOI. At WSSD, the UnitedStates also launched the ‘White Water toBlue Water’ partnership, which promotesthe practice of integrated watershed andmarine ecosystem management in supportof sustainable development. Our partner-ship includes the nations of the widerCaribbean. Together we are developingnew approaches in areas such as waste-water and sanitation, sustainable agri-cultural practices, tourism and maritimetransportation.

Joint projectsAt WSSD, US Secretary of State Powelland Japanese Foreign Minister Kawaguchiannounced the ‘Clean Water for People’initiative. Under this initiative the UnitedStates and Japan will embark on a numberof joint projects to promote access to safewater in the developing world. Since thisannouncement in September 2002, theUnited States and Japan have engaged in joint visits to review projects in keyareas, and shared ideas through technicalrepresentatives. During the 3rd WorldWater Forum in Kyoto, Osaka and Shiga,Japan, we joined other countries inreporting on the progress of our WSSDinitiatives, as experts exchanged ideas onnew areas for action.

Recently, we have given considerablethought to complementing our WSSDinitiatives with augmented efforts and newpartnerships. Increasing access to water inthe developing world – by drilling wells,establishing rainwater collection, andimproving water distribution networks,

among other activities – will be critical.Ensuring the quality of both existing andfuture water supplies will be equallyessential. Finally, as the demand forinfrastructure develops, financial resour-ces will be required. Ensuring the sus-tainability of solutions is vital. Developingnations and their partners need to identifymechanisms that, once launched, willoperate and grow on their own, providingneeded resources and services.

To address the critical need forfinancing, the United States hassuccessfully implemented the Develop-ment Credit Authority (DCA) programmein several countries. DCA is a US Agencyfor International Development financingtool that mobilizes local capital to fundsustainable development initiatives. Usinga risk-sharing approach with non-sovereign partners, DCA encouragesfinancial institutions to lend to viableprojects that otherwise might not befunded in underserved markets worldwide.

The United States has also developedand successfully implemented a financialmechanism that may have great appli-cability in the developing world – the StateRevolving Fund. These funds provide aneffective means of mobilizing domesticcapital for infrastructure development,using a variety of mechanisms includingpooled debt, direct loans, credit en-hancement and risk-sharing with locallenders. A revolving fund provides long-term, sustainable support for infrastructureinvestments. If handled correctly, the fundcan operate indefinitely – offering con-tinuous opportunities for investors andsupport for borrowers, while developinglocal capital markets.

It has also become apparent thathousehold-level interventions are aneffective and efficient way to meet basicwater needs. For example, several cost-effective products exist that disinfectwater after it is collected for householdconsumption. These include dilutechlorine-based solutions and other waterdisinfectants or filters, which can belocally produced.

When demand for available andeffective products is created, and coupledwith education and hygiene programmes,field experience shows that a 50 per centor greater reduction in water-relateddisease among target populations can beachieved in a short period of time. Oncethe demand for these products has beenestablished, the market grows andbecomes self-sustaining. For example, inZambia and Madagascar, $600,000 indonor funding helped create a market forwater disinfectant products that havereached more than 2 million people.While this is only a short-term solution, itlays the groundwork for fee-for-serviceinfrastructure. Communities experiencethe benefits of clean water, and lives aresaved.

On-the-ground actionThese are just some of the ideas and on-the-ground actions to address the world’swater challenges that the United States isexploring and implementing with ourpartners. The United States is workingactively to help bring relief to the millionswho suffer from water-related diseases,and the hundreds of millions for whomgetting enough water is a daily struggle.No person should have to climb to thebottom of a mud pit, or walk 6 kilometres,to get the water they need to live, and noone should die from the water they drink.On World Environment Day, the Americanpeople join the world community inrenewing our commitment to make this a reality ■

Dr. Paula J. Dobriansky is United StatesUnder Secretary of State for GlobalAffairs.

No person should have to climb to the bottom of a mud pit, or walk 6 kilometres, to get the water they need to live

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As we enter the urban millennium – with half of humanityalready living in towns and cities – one third of the urban population, an estimated 1 billion people, live without

adequate sanitation and basic services. Cities and towns arewithout question centres of opportunity. But when they lackclean water, decent sanitation and basic services in this way,they are among the most life-threatening environments on Earth.

National statistics often disguise the true extent of theproblem. Most existing surveys presume that, with ‘improved’provision of water and sanitation, all city dwellers are betterserved than the rural poor. Based on such criteria, officialstatistics confidently report that 94 per cent of all urbanpopulations have improved water provision and 84 per cent haveimproved sanitation.

City-level data from 43 African cities, however, show that 83per cent of the population lack lavatories connected to sewers; inlarge Asian cities the figure is 55 per cent. In Mahira, a section ofHaruma slum in Nairobi, there is just one lavatory with ten unitsand two bathrooms for a settlement of 332 households with

1,500 inhabitants. A 1998 survey of 7,512 slum households inAhmedabad found that 80 per cent had no water connection and93 per cent had to rely on dirty communal lavatories.

What these individual city studies indicate is that – if assess-ment is widened to measure the proportion with access to safewater and clean sanitation facilities – the number of inade-quately served urban dwellers is much higher than is officiallyacknowledged.

Using these criteria, UN-HABITAT’s new report, Water andSanitation in the World’s Cities, estimates that as many as 150 million urban residents in Africa – up to 50 per cent of theurban population – do not have adequate water supplies, while180 million – or roughly 60 per cent – lack adequate sanitation.

In urban Asia, 700 million people – again half the population– do not have adequate water, while 800 million people – again60 per cent – are without adequate sanitation. In Latin Americaand the Caribbean the figures are 120 million and 150 millionurban dwellers, representing 30 and 40 per cent respectively.

The impact on the poor is well documented. Every year 2.2 million deaths – 4 per cent of all fatalities worldwide – can bedirectly attributed to inadequate supplies of clean water andsanitation. Women spend hours collecting water. The poor payten to a hundred times as much as the rich for every litre.

At the macro-economic level, lack of clean water andsanitation directly impact labour productivity. Peru’s GDP wasestimated to have lost about $232 million in just one year in1991, when it suffered a cholera epidemic.

The international community will have to confront theproblems of the urban poor if it is to meet the MillenniumDevelopment Goal (MDG) target of halving the proportion of

WATERLESSCITIESANNA KAJUMULO TIBAIJUKA shows thatthe urban water and sanitation crisis is muchworse than official statistics suggest, andoutlines action to meet key global goals

We must wake up to the fact that theurbanization of poverty is one of the greatestchallenges we face

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people without access to clean water and adequate sanitation by2015. In a rapidly urbanizing world, successfully meeting thisgoal is also closely linked to the MDG commitment to improvethe living conditions of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

Despite the increasing urbanization of poverty, many inter-national donor agencies avoid supporting programmes targetedat urban populations on the assumption that the poor in citiesare privileged compared to those in rural areas. Only about 2 to12 per cent of the funding of the agencies that publish dis-aggregated figures tends to go to urban projects. This proportionmust increase if the MDGs are to be achieved.

There are indications that more money will indeed be madeavailable for investment in water and sanitation for the urbanpoor. The commitment of the Asian Development Bank (AsDB)and the Government of The Netherlands to fund UN-HABITAT’sWater for Asian Cities programme is a case in point. Even more importantly, AsDB has also agreed to make available a $500 million fast-track credit line for pro-poor investment in theurban water and sanitation sector.

Improving governanceIncreased investment is critical, but even more so is the urgentneed to find more successful mechanisms for providing the poorwith water and sanitation. It is interesting to note that corruptionand poor governance were the major reasons cited by most aidagencies and development banks for withdrawing from large-scale capital projects in urban areas in the developing world inthe 1980s.

At the same time, multinational companies and bankers tendto look for large-scale investments, with values of $100 millionor more, that will serve more than a million residents. Theyconsider as unbankable smaller projects aimed at servicingspecific neighbourhoods and communities of the urban poor.

Another reason why the provision of water and sanitation is soinadequate for much of the urban population of Africa, Asia andLatin America is that investments in water and sanitation weremade in cities with political systems that had no interest inimproving conditions for low-income groups. Where they turnedto privatization, it proved difficult to reconcile the interests andpriorities of large private companies with the slow, difficult andoften expensive investments needed to ensure adequateprovision for the poor.

Many local authorities still underestimate the importance ofinclusive practices of good governance in prioritizing the delivery

of services to the urban poor. However, UN-HABITAT’sexperience shows that successful water demand managementat this level can reap benefits for the whole community.

UN-HABITAT’s Water for African Cities programme, a directfollow-up to the 1997 Cape Town Declaration adopted by AfricanMinisters, is the first initiative of its kind to support munici-palities in managing growing water demand while protectingtheir sources from increasing wastage and pollution.

Up to 50 per cent of the urban water supply in many Africancities is being wasted through leakages or is otherwiseunaccounted for. The programme is therefore working with themunicipalities of Abidjan, Accra, Addis Ababa, Dakar, Dar esSalaam, Johannesburg, Lusaka and Nairobi to establish aneffective demand management strategy to encourage domesticusers, industry and public institutions to use water efficiently.Some cities have already reduced water consumption by 35 per cent.

Community involvementMany well-documented case studies show that it is quitepossible to improve the living conditions of the urban poor if localgovernments allow community-based organizations – especiallythose representing the poor – a greater role in determiningpolicies and projects. Pakistan’s world-famous Orangi Projectwas an important pioneer in this, showing how over 90,000households could provide themselves with low-cost flushlatrines. In the Sambizanga area of Luanda, Zambia, a partner-ship between the local authority, the private sector and thecommunity ensured that the poor could receive clean water at areasonable cost. The key to success, in every case, has beenpublic-private partnerships that include the poor themselves.

UN-HABITAT’s report, Water and Sanitation in the World’sCities, documents many of these case studies. It argues thatpublic-private partnerships that prioritize small-scale invest-ments at the community-level are a cost-effective way to solvethe immediate problems of the urban poor. Meanwhile, effectivedemand management strategies can provide considerable watersavings while increasing the income of the local authority. Thisenables municipalities to use pricing policies and regulatorymeasures to meet the urgent needs of the urban poor.

Reassessment and innovationWe must all prioritize the needs of the poor to ensure thesuccess of local action for global goals. We must wake up to the realities of the urban age, which condemn almost 1 billionpoor slum dwellers to suffer from the dangers and indignitiesassociated with the lack of clean water and adequate sanitation.The international community has set the targets: if we are tomeet them we must be prepared to look at everything anew. Wemust reassess our statistics. We must re-examine our policiesand ask why we have failed in the past. We must innovate newstrategies of good urban governance. We must invest morefunds in urban infrastructure.

Most of all – in this urban millennium – we must wake up tothe fact that the urbanization of poverty is one of the greatestchallenges we face ■

Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka is Under-Secretary-General of theUnited Nations and Executive Director of UN-HABITAT.

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Pulling my oar through the waters of Turner’s Creek, propelling mycanoe toward the Sassafrass River, I

felt a resistance I hadn’t known in decades.Glancing down I saw full, healthy, greenseagrass breaking the water’s surface 2metres above the creek bed. Against allodds, the grass had returned this pastsummer. It is these very seagrass meadows,so long missing, that are one of the keys to the health of the Chesapeake Bay – orconversely a sign of its sickness.

As nitrogen runoff overloads the Bay at roughly 300 million tonnes per year,algae feed off the fertilizer and bloom to overwhelming proportions, soaking upthe light and oxygen needed by seagrassand other vital elements of the Bay’secosystem. As the meadows die off theMaryland blue crab, the pride of theChesapeake, loses its natural hiding place.Rockfish – whose population has recentlyrebounded due in large part to a mora-torium in the Chesapeake begun in 1985and gradually phased out over the lastseveral years – then feast on their exposedprey. As crab populations decline, theirability to act as natural waste managersgoes with them, and the downwardenvironmental spiral continues. The returnof seagrass, in my mind, demonstrated theBay’s resilience in the face of tremendouspressures and was a signal of hope foreveryone in its watershed. It turned outthat the grass had returned due to a severedrought over the spring and summer of lastyear which drastically reduced the amountof runoff from land in the region. Less rainmeans less runoff. The grass responded byflourishing as it had done only in thememories of watermen in bygone days.So, while we clearly cannot – and shouldnot – hope for constant summers ofdroughts, the short-term rebound hasreaffirmed my faith in the measures wehave taken, and will continue to take, topromote the long-term health of the Bay.

Policy modelThe Chesapeake Bay presents an inte-resting model for environmental policy-makers. Situated in a densely populatedregion, it takes a regular environmentalbeating from airborne and land-based

KeepingPOLLUTION AT BAYWAYNE GILCHREST describes how cutting freshwater pollution can preserve wetlands and restore valuable marine ecosystems

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sources of pollution from hundreds ofkilometres away, including urban andsuburban runoff made all the worse bysprawl and outdated sewage treatmentplants. Methods to curb the threats to the Bay’s health are well known butunderfunded. I have long supportedprogrammes that offer farmers andlandowners incentives to reduce nutrientrunoff while keeping working landproductive. During last year’s Farm Billdebate in the US Congress, my colleaguesand I advocated increased funding for theUS Department of Agriculture’s conserv-ation programmes: these offer farmers theopportunity to create stream buffers thatabsorb and reduce runoff, protect andrestore important habitats, and support soilconservation measures that benefit theeconomy and the environment.

My amendment to the Farm Bill wouldhave protected hundreds of thousands ofacres of wetlands and other importanthabitats each year: wetlands offer a value

to our economy in the form of naturalwaste management that far exceeds whatwe could ever accomplish without them.Our proposal would also have preventedthousands of acres of productive farmlandfrom being converted to development.What better way to reduce runoff than toattack pollutants at the source?

Although our comprehensive agri-culture conservation amendment fell a few votes short, the final Farm Billincluded unprecedented levels of fundingfor conservation. It is imperative thatCongress continues to provide strongsupport for agriculture conservationprogrammes, demonstrating that we areserious about protecting agriculture andour water resources.

Individual responsibilitiesWe also have other tools to address these threats. We must reauthorize andstrengthen the Clean Air and Clean WaterActs, paying careful attention to existingsources of pollution as well as new ones.But equally as important, we must reflecton what we can do as individuals. Beforespraying fertilizer, herbicides or pesticideson the grass in our backyards, we need to

ask ourselves if it is worth risking theimpact on increasingly scarce watertreasures.

The public must be mindful of theimpacts they can have on public resources.Ultimately, it will take a concerted effortby policy-makers to create incentives forindividuals to adopt more sustainablepractices.

Hope for the futureAs my old, rusty canoe slid over theseagrass meadow opening out into theSassafrass River, I imagined myselfpeering through crystal-clear watersspotting oyster reefs and lush seagrassbeds. My hope is that, in the not toodistant future, everyone who canoes down a tributary of the Bay will find itteeming with fish and crabs dodging their every stroke. It is nature’s resiliencethat makes this vision a possibility, but itis only our resolve that can make it areality ■

The Honorable Wayne Gilchrest isChairman, Resources Subcommittee onFisheries Conservation, Wildlife andOceans, US House of Representatives.

The public must be mindfulof the impacts they can haveon public resources

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President Mwai Kibaki ofKenya has appointed Prof.

Wangari Maathai, (left) oneof Africa’s most prominentenvironmental campaigners,as his country’s AssistantMinister of the Environment,Natural Resources andWildlife. Prof. Maathai, whois a member of the UNEPSasakawa Environment Prize

Selection Committee, will be working with the new MinisterDr. Newton Kulundu.

A professor of zoology, Wangari Maathai founded Kenya’sGreenbelt Movement 26 years ago to fight deforestation anddesertification in the country. The movement has planted over 15 million trees, produced income for at least 80,000 Kenyans,and spread to more than 30 countries in Africa and around the world.

She campaigned vigorously against the clearing of forests,amongst other environmental issues, and was both jailed andbeaten under the previous government. She was active in thepolitical opposition and won a parliamentary seat in thenational election at the end of last year by an overwhelmingmargin, winning 27,992 votes against 554 for her closest rival.

Klaus Toepfer, UNEP’s Executive Director, wrote to Prof.Maathai to express his pleasure. He said: ‘We have alwaysadmired your courageous stand on environmental issues …Your voice has always been heard in defence of the lessfortunate.’

Prof. Maathai said: ‘I am sure that President Kibaki will bevery good for the environment. He is very committed to theenvironment.’

At much the same time Senator Marina Silva (below),one of Brazil’s foremost environmentalists, took office as her country’s Minister of theEnvironment. A former rubbertapper, who worked alongsidethe late Chico Mendes, shebecame the youngest senator inBrazil’s Republican history in1994. When she took office on New Year’s day she said that the objective of the newGovernment of President LuizInácio ‘Lula’ da Silva was ‘todevelop the country with socialand environmental justice’.

Both new Ministers areprevious winners of theGoldman Environmental Prizefor grassroots activists. Theseven new laureates announcedin April include Julia Bonds(centre right), a former PizzaHut waitress who is leading thecampaign to stop opencast coalmining in the AppalachianMountains in the United States,and aboriginal elders EileenKampakuta Brown and EileenWani Wingfield (right) who areat the forefront of a campaign toblock construction of a nuclearwaste disposal facility in SouthAustralia ■

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PEOPLE

The Rolling Stones – inpartnership with the Natural

Resources Defense Council(NRDC), one of the UnitedStates’ leading environmentalnon-governmental organizations– held their first free concert forthree decades in Los Angeles inFebruary to raise awareness ofglobal warming.

Some 12,000 fans won ticketsthrough an Internet draw, while

others were given passes by radio stations. Actors LeonardoDiCaprio, Pierce Brosnan, Cameron Diaz and Lisa Kudrow, anddirector Rob Reiner, were among the celebrities in theaudience. Former President Bill Clinton introduced the rockand roll band.

Lead singer Mick Jagger (above) said that the decision to dothe concert was an easy one. ‘We decided that we thought it

Mohammed Valli Moosa, SouthAfrica’s Minister for Environ-

mental Affairs and Tourism, wasappointed Chairman of the 11th ses-sion of the United Nations Commissionon Sustainable Development, followingup the World Summit on SustainableDevelopment in Johannesburg inSeptember 2002 ■

Emilio Gabbrielli, the Managing Director of Thames Water DoBrazil, has been appointed as Executive Secretary of the

Global Water Partnership ■

was a good cause and we would do it,’ he said. NRDC PresidentJohn H. Adams said: ‘The Rolling Stones deserve a standingovation for putting the environment on centre stage’ ■

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The Earth, with its diverse andabundant life forms, includingmore than 6 billion humans, is

facing a serious water crisis. All thesigns suggest that it is getting worse andwill continue to do so unless correctiveaction is taken.

This crisis is essentially one of poor water governance. But the real tra-gedy is the effect it has on the everydaylives of poor people, who are blighted by the burden of water-related disease,living in degraded and often dangerous

environments, struggling to get an edu-cation for their children and to earn aliving, and to get enough to eat.

The crisis is also experienced by the natural environment, which isgroaning under the mountain of wastesdumped on it daily, and from overuseand misuse, with seemingly little carefor future consequences and futuregenerations.

In truth it is attitude and behaviourproblems that lie at the heart of thecrisis. We know most (but not all) of

The world’s water crisis

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The amount of freshwater in the world remains constant, but its uneven distribution and increasing demand create growingscarcities. At present some 40 per cent of the world’spopulation live in areas with moderate to high water stress. By 2025 this is expected to increase to two thirds – or 5.5 billion people.

Global trends in water withdrawals,1900-2000

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of which:

Freshwater:2.5%

Accessible surface freshwater: 1%

of which:

ALL WATERof which:

Oceans: 97.5%

Ice caps and glaciers: 79%

Groundwater:20%

Lakes:52%

Soil moisture38%

Atmospheric water vapour: 8%

Water in living organisms: 1%

Rivers: 1%

Where the water is Renewable freshwater supplies

World water withdrawals rose sixfold over thelast century. It has been estimated thathumanity now appropriates 54 per cent ofaccessible runoff, and could be using 70 percent by the year 2025.

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what the problems are and a good deal about where they are. We have theknowledge and expertise to begin to tackle them. We have developedexcellent concepts, such as equity andsustainability. Yet inertia at leadershiplevel, and a world population not fullyaware of the scale of the problem (andin many cases not sufficiently em-powered to do much about it) mean we fail to take the needed timelycorrective actions and put the conceptsto work.

For humanity, the poverty of a largepercentage of the world’s population is both a symptom and a cause of the water crisis. Giving the poor betteraccess to better managed water canmake a big contribution to povertyeradication. Such better managementwill enable us to deal with the growingper capita scarcity of water in manyparts of the developing world.

Solving the water crisis in its manyaspects is but one of the severalchallenges facing humankind as we

confront life in this third millennium,and it has to be seen in that context. Wehave to fit it into an overall scenario ofproblem-solving and conflict resolution.Yet of all the social and natural resourcecrises we humans face, it is the one thatlies at the heart of our survival and thatof our planet Earth ■

Excerpted from the first United NationsWorld Water Development Report, ajoint undertaking of 23 United Nationsagencies, including UNEP.

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Water Sanitation

Regional freshwater speciespopulation trends

Number of people living in areas with severe water stress (millions)

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Africa 172

Europe 239

Latin America andCaribbean 112North America 124

West Asia 74

Asia and Pacific 1 693

Africa 593

Europe 420

Latin America and Caribbean 264

North America 144

West Asia 204

Asia and Pacific 2 994 Africa 397

Europe 137

Latin America and Caribbean 195North America 87

West Asia 187

Asia and Pacific 2 376

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Drinking water* 5Sanitation 20Bathing 15Food preparation** 10Total 50 (0.05 m3)

* Minimum for sustaining life in a moderateclimate and with average activity** The daily per capita water requirementfor growing food prior to preparationaverages 2 700 litres

Source: Gleick/The World’s Water

Species have been declining faster infreshwater than in any other habitat onEarth. About half the world’s wetlands havebeen lost, and more than a fifth of knownfreshwater species have already beendriven to extinction. Over the last 30 years,the Freshwater Species Index fell by 50 percent. WWF points out that the relativelysmaller decline in North America andEurope shown by the index is deceptive:much of the loss in industrialized countriesoccurred before 1970.

More than 1 billion people lack access to asteady supply of clean, safe water, while 2.4 billion lack adequate sanitation. Morethan 2 million people die each year fromassociated diseases; including 6,000children every day. The situation has beenimproving but, at the present rate ofinvestment, universal access to safedrinking water cannot reasonably beanticipated before 2025 in Asia, 2040 inLatin America and the Caribbean, and 2050in Africa.

UNEP’s GEO 3 report provides different scenarios of water shortages. ‘Markets First’ adopts theexpectations prevailing in today’s developed countries and severe water stress increases inalmost all parts of the world. ‘Sustainability First’ – a new environment and developmentparadigm – shows the area under severe water stress remaining more or less constant and,though the absolute number of people increases, the proportion of the world’s population livingin conditions of water stress remains much the same.

Source: WWF/Living Planet Report

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C H A N G I N G agendaRICHARD JOLLY describes old fallacies and new

directions for water, sanitation and hygiene

Over the last few years developments have been moving fastin the field of water and sanitation. They were gatheringmomentum at the end of the 1990s. Then in September

2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, the target ofhalving the proportion of those without adequate water suppliesby 2015 was made one of the eight Millennium DevelopmentGoals. Two years later, water was one of the five key issues –Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity – at theJohannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development. Water wasone of the successes of the Summit, which otherwise receivedmixed ratings, as it agreed the goal of halving the proportion ofpeople without access to adequate sanitation by 2015.

Meanwhile new commitments have been forged andelaborated in a succession of lively interactions – at three WorldWater Forums; by a World Water Commission; and by the launchof WASH, a global campaign for Water And Sanitation andHygiene for all.

Putting the record straightBut in spite of this new-found energy and drive, the task isenormous. And it is not made any easier by a series of fallacies:

1‘Sanitation and hygiene are less important than water’. From the viewpoint of health and security, the facts are otherwise.

The knowledge and practice of basic hygiene reduces mortalityfurther than either safe water or sanitation alone. All three areneeded – but with a better balance. Too often sanitation andhygiene are treated as dirty words, not to be mentioned in politesociety.

2‘Goals never work’. In spite of gossip to the contrary, most of the 50 or so economic and social goals set by the United

Nations over the last 40 years have had a measurable impact,being achieved by a large number of countries. The InternationalWater Supply and Sanitation Decade of the 1980s, for example,stimulated enormous action, nationally and internationally.Though the 1980s were an economic disaster for manycountries, the number of people with access to safe water andimproved sanitation in developing nations more than doubled.Major improvements were also made in developing low-costtechnologies and learning the secrets of maintenance andsustainability.

3 ‘It’s all a matter of hardware and little can be done to promote sanitation and hygiene’. Again, many examples

show otherwise. Stimulating demand, promoting awareness andencouraging action can all draw on tried and proven techniques.Encouraging hand-washing alone could save a million lives.

4 ‘Finance is not available and those without water and sanitation are too poor to be able to contribute’. Hundreds of

examples show the enormous energy, effort and resources thatpoor people are willing to contribute to gain access to water andbetter sanitation, when they have the opportunity.

5 ‘Poor people and poor communities are not interested and have other priorities for survival’. In fact, poor people are

highly motivated, both because they want to save the time spentin collecting water and for reasons of dignity and safety. This isespecially true for women and girls – which explains why issuesof water and sanitation often get neglected or played down insituations or discussions where men dominate.

Mobilizing stakeholdersSo what can be done to accelerate action towards the goals? The priority is not just to provide more of the same but to set new directions and a new agenda, as is being promoted by theWASH campaign.

First, governments need to stimulate and support communityaction, rather than try to do it all themselves. All stakeholdersneed to be mobilized – people and communities, the privatesector, small-scale entrepreneurs, public and private donors,international agencies – and government at all levels, especiallythe local one. Action at the local level matters most. Communitygroups need to become active in defining priorities, taking actionand pressing for support from local government.

Second, plans and programmes are needed for achieving thegoals. These should not be desk exercises but participatoryplanning, bringing in all the stakeholders to draw up guidelinesfor action and define what is required from each of the parties.This can be a win-win exercise for development and politics.Increasing access to water can be one of the most populargovernment activities, especially with women.

Third, there is a need for new priorities, to learn from the pastand to embark on new directions. Some examples:

■ Participation: women in India and elsewhere have shown theycan bring new energy and vision to the task after achievingserious representation in local government. In Sudan, womentrained as technicians have long demonstrated their capacity tomaintain and repair deep tube wells; indeed, they do it betterthan their male counterparts who, once trained, often leave fortowns and cities to seek technical jobs. ■ New approaches: in Bangladesh, the ‘100% sanitationapproach’ has demonstrated new ways to mobilize ruralcommunities. Instead of individual advocacy, a non-governmental organization facilitator works with a wholevillage to identify its sanitation needs. Village leaders, and asmany others as can be mustered, walk across the village,stopping and discussing every time they discover faeces or

Community groups need to become active in defining priorities, taking action and pressing for support from localgovernment

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other waste. This may involve some naming and shaming: it isnot designed to identify the individual person responsible but to understand the consequences when the village as a wholefails to ensure ways of avoiding behaviour which no one findsacceptable. Action to improve the situation is identified andtalked through, but individuals are left to develop their ownsolutions. This has led to new designs for low-cost latrines andwaste disposal.■ Mobilizing children as agents of change: if schools, churchesor mosques get the lessons of basic hygiene across to children,they will spread the messages when they get home. But, for thisto be effective, the school must enable children to practice whatit preaches. Separate latrines for girls and boys are essential –and a goal of the WASH campaign.

■ Building momentum and synergy: this can be achieved bylinking action for hygiene, sanitation and water to support for theother Millennium Development Goals as part of a broad thrust tocut poverty reduction nationally and globally.

The potential can be simply summarized. Better hygiene is thegoal. Creating demand is the starting point. Building accountableinstitutions to support communities is the means. And a betterquality of life for over 2 billion people is the prize ■

Sir Richard Jolly is Chair of WSSCC – the Water Supply andSanitation Collaborative Council – and Research Associate andHonorary Professor of the Institute of Development Studies,Sussex, United Kingdom.

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To some, humankind might wellappear to be winning its battle with nature. But, if the conflict

continues for much longer, it is certain to lose the war. Long before we havemanaged to extinguish all the otherspecies that share this planet with us, the destruction of its fragile life supportsystems will surely have wiped outwhatever we value as civilization.

More and more people inhabiting theplanet, each wanting more and morethings: this is hardly a sustainable pro-position in the face of a finite resourcebase. Human ingenuity and technologycan only buy us a little time – they cannotsolve the underlying, fundamentalproblem. That can only be done byslowing the growth of demand for theservices that our environment provides.

Over the past 30 years, the limits setby nature have become increasinglyevident to some of us. But to many morethey have not. The main reason is, ofcourse, that for most people – as for most ostriches – it is easier to ignoreimpending danger than to make theinconvenient changes needed to deal with

it. For them, such limits will becomeapparent only after they have alreadybeen transgressed. The trouble is that –given the exponential mathematics ofnatural processes and the long lag timesbetween cause and effect – when theproof becomes available, it is already too late.

But how much proof do we need?Fossil fuels may well appear to beplentiful today, but even dyed-in-the-wool petroleum geologists admit that itwill not be many decades before theybecome quite scarce, particularly ifeveryone starts using them as cavalierlyas the industrialized countries do now.Why else would well-informed nations go to war to protect supplies of suchresources?

Support systemsThe threats to life support systems – the stratospheric ozone shield, globalclimate, biodiversity – have alreadyreached stages where, within a decade ortwo of being recognized, they have racedto the top of the international agenda.

Of all resources and natural pro-

cesses, water is the one over which majorconflict is most likely to occur within thenext few decades – not just amongnations, but also between provinces andwithin communities. The signs of suchconflict are already with us, sometimesmanifest in outright violence, sometimescamouflaged by uneasy truces andagreements: in the American Southwest,in the Danube Basin, in the IndianSubcontinent.

Water is the lifeline of most humanactivity: agricultural, industrial, domestic.Nearly 70 per cent of all living tissue and more than 50 per cent of all rawmaterials in industrial production consistof water. Not only civilization, but lifeitself, depends on water.

Water has been taken for granted –and never explicitly treated as a resource– because it has been freely andplentifully available for most of history,and in most parts of the world. But,suddenly, it no longer is. Populationgrowth and economic activity have, withinthe space of a few decades, taken it fromworldwide abundance to local scarcity.

The primary reason for this is that, bytradition, water has been an ‘open access’resource. It has been available, on a first-come first-served basis, freely and forfree. This meant that it was used, andmisused, without concern for its intrinsiccost or for its contribution to valueaddition. Or for the impact on its long-term availability. And, of course, as itbecomes increasingly scarce, it goes

Nor any drop TO DRINKASHOK KHOSLA says that water scarcity is damaging health, constraining agriculture and industry and becoming a potent source of conflict

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mainly to those who have the politicalpower or economic capital to appropriateit by controlling the sources and dis-tribution channels.

Recent studies have shown that water,more perhaps than any other resource, is grossly underpriced. Many users inagriculture, industry and homes get it ata price that is one hundredth that of thecost of delivering it. And one thousandththat of the value it adds to the products orservices it makes possible.

No wonder our agriculture andindustry depend on technologies thatwaste this precious resource with somuch profligacy. And result in suchrapidly accelerating scarcity.

Achieving equityWater, like any other scarce resource,needs to be priced. Neither too high, nortoo low – but judiciously graded to makeit accessible to all segments of society. Italso needs to be placed within the localcontrol of communities, which can decideon its distribution among the differentuses and users who need it.

Only thus will it be conserved andsustained – and also be equitably andfairly available to everyone, rich and poor.

We are now at a point where waterscarcity is not only constraining agri-

culture and industry, but severely jeopar-dizing the health of our people. As thepopulation grows and each persondemands more and more goods andservices that depend on water, thisscarcity can only get worse.

Dual cycleWater shortage is at the root of two of theprime examples of the vicious cycles inwhich socioeconomic processes can getcaught up. In the first case – the viciouscycle of poverty and water – lack of cleanwater leads to disease, loss of productivetime and financial costs, which in turnlead to loss of disposable income andtherefore to inability to pay for cleanwater, which in turn leads to furtherdeterioration in health and productivity,which in turn leads to loss of income, and so on.

The second, perhaps not so obvious,outcome is the vicious cycle of affluenceand influence. Those who can afford to do so buy high-quality water for all their needs, and ensure that they areadequately insulated from the impacts ofthe general scarcity of the resource. Thisis not a minor phenomenon: the moneyspent today in many countries on bottleddrinking water is comparable to the totalfunds spent by public agencies ondrinking water supply. The rich no longerhave a major stake in the quality andperformance of the public service andlittle incentive to use their influence tochange policies or investment priorities.

The result is a move towards privatizationof services for the rich and margin-alization of the services accessed by the poor.

Neither type of vicious cycle canultimately be good – for anyone, rich or poor.

Viable balanceAchieving a viable balance betweensupply and demand for water is no easytask. The issues are complex and causesoften get mixed up with effects. Supplyand demand are often not independent ofeach other: interventions that increasesupply can also increase demand,frequently resulting in little netimprovement at best, and at worst in acounterproductive boomerang effect.Most present policies and actionsunfortunately have a tendency to dealwith symptoms and cures rather thanprevention, getting short-term gains atthe expense of long-term societal goals.

No complex problem can be solvedwith simple, one-dimensional measures.So, particularly, it is with water. Even so,it is useful to work on such issuesthrough conceptual frameworks that areeasily and widely understandable. Forwater, as for other resources, these boildown to the three primary pillars ofsustainable development:

■ The people-nature issues –management of water resources.

■ The people-machine issues –technologies for water.

■ The people-people interactions –institutions for water.

The solutions lie in bringing back thetrees and regenerating the aquifers;installing local, small water-harvestingstructures; full-cost pricing; very careful,judicious use of subsidies; water-conserving technologies; and responsivemanagement systems. These in turnneed the same three pillars of humanendeavour: good management practicesto encourage the natural resource con-servation, good science to design suchpractices, and good institutions ofgovernance to help internalize them ascommunity decision-making processes ■

Ashok Khosla, the 2002 UNEP SasakawaEnvironment Prize laureate, is Presidentof Development Alternatives.

Water scarcity is severelyjeopardizing the health of ourpeople

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BRIDGINGtroubled watersPEKKA HAAVISTO describes howenvironmental cooperation, particularly over shared water resources, could aid theIsraeli-Palestinian peace process

The long-lasting Israeli-Palestinian conflict, combined withthe Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, hasaffected the territories’ freshwater supplies and environ-

ment in many ways. There have been direct impacts, caused bymilitary activities; indirect impacts, caused by the war-likesituation; and an overall environmental degradation due to alack of administrative management and public awareness.

Many of the most direct impacts have resulted from militaryactions. Sewage systems, water supply lines and otherinfrastructure have been destroyed as part of collateraldamage. Destruction of buildings has also led to the release ofhazardous materials such as asbestos.

The indirect impacts have exacerbated these. Curfews androadblocks, for example, have prevented people from usingdesignated landfills. The waste collection system hascollapsed. As a result, wastes are often burned in the middle oftowns during curfew periods.

Declining environmental qualityThese immediate and acute consequences of conflict occuralongside the long-term degradation of environmentalgovernance. In times of conflict, few resources are available for developing environmental management systems or foreducating people about how to take better care of theenvironment. This leads to an easily visible general decline inenvironmental quality in many parts of the West Bank and Gaza,where landfills are not being properly managed, groundwater isnot being protected from the many sources of contaminationand sewage is flowing directly to the sea.

The fight over land use is yet another critical aspect of theconflict. Israeli settlements have their own roads and otherinfrastructure and manage their wastes and water suppliesseparately from those of their Palestinian neighbours. Eachside has made many claims that the other is permittingpollution to cross their borders. The settlements are accused ofnot handling their wastes properly, while some Palestiniandumpsites (where open burning of wastes is a normal practice)are located very near Israeli settlements.

UNEP has conducted a Desk Study on the Environment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to try to produce anobjective assessment of the situation and to facilitate co-operative action; UNEP’s 22nd Governing Council in February2003 unanimously requested UNEP to implement the report's136 recommendations. Both parties in the region made criticalcomments about some of the recommendations – but they alsorecognized that environmental cooperation is essential.

Common interestBuilding bridges between the two partners where they have a clear common interest can make a constructive contributionto the peace process. Israel and the Occupied PalestinianTerritories share the same aquifers, for example: protectingthem is essential for people living on both sides of the border.There is already an agreement between Israel and thePalestinian Authority that keeps water issues out of the conflict.We can hope that this kind of thinking may soon apply to allenvironmental topics.

UNEP is now preparing for the implementation of the 136 recommendations according to the mandate given by its Governing Council. This will involve close cooperation withboth the Palestinian Authority and the Government of Israel.The UNEP Governing Council has asked to see a progressreport when it holds its next regular meeting in February 2005.

There must be a common understanding of the scientificdata when environmental issues are discussed. The UNEP DeskStudy, therefore, is addressing the need for high-quality watermodelling of the shared aquifers. Currently there are twoserious environmental threats to these groundwater resources.The first is over-pumping – the water levels are clearly falling.The second is the quality of the groundwater which, especiallyin the Gaza aquifer, is worsening rapidly. Agriculturalchemicals, pesticides and open burning in landfills are allhaving serious consequences for freshwater resources.

A first stepModelling how the aquifers function would be the first step ingaining better understanding of all the environmental risksfacing the water supply. Such a study should be followed bystricter protection measures of the region's invaluablegroundwater resources.

Environmental degradation and problems with groundwaterin the region do not just concern the people living there today.They will also affect future generations. Environmental co-operation could be a valuable tool in the Middle East peaceprocess and is vital for safeguarding the environment for the future ■

Pekka Haavisto is Chairman of UNEP’s Desk Study on theOccupied Palestinian Territories.

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McDONALD’S has opened apioneering climate-friendly

restaurant after consultationswith UNEP. Its new restaurant at Vejle in Denmark is the world’s first HFC-free fast-foodestablishment.

The project began two yearsago following an international ‘refrigeration summit’ hosted byMcDonald’s, UNEP and the United States Environmental Pro-tection Agency. As a result of what it learned there, the hamburgerchain decided to accelerate ways of finding sustainable refrigeranttechnologies.

Denmark was chosen because it had already started initiativesto phase out HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) and the restaurant wasopened by its Environment Minister, Hans Christian Schmidt. It isequipped with state-of-the-art refrigeration and ventilationsystems using environmentally innovative refrigerants that do notcontain freon or HFCs.

János Maté of Greenpeace International said: ‘Greenpeacewelcomes the bold step McDonald’s has taken in opening this firstever HFC/HCFC-free restaurant. We hope it is the first of manyfor the company and that it sparks more sustainable innovationfrom the refrigeration industry and others in the food servicesector.’ ■

The Energy Future Coal-ition, a foundation sup-

ported initiative, is finalizingplans for a campaign tochange United States en-ergy policy to bring aboutmajor long-term impacts onthree great challenges, andseeks to connect these witha vision of the vibrant eco-nomic opportunities thatwill be created by a tran-sition to a new energyeconomy.

The challenges are: thepolitical and economic sec-urity threat posed by the world’s dependence on oil; the riskto the global environment from climate change; and the lackof access of the world’s poor to the modern energy servicesthey need for economic advancement.

The Coalition, mostly supported by Ted Turner philan-thropies, has attracted an impressive array of leading figures,including senior members of the former Clinton and Bushadministrations, top energy industry executives, heads ofnon-governmental organizations and senior trade unionists.It will attempt to use the national debate during the 2004United States election campaign process to create theconditions for change ■

Some 150 river basins – wherecooperation between the count-

ries that share them is patchy or absent – could be flashpoints for future disputes unless urgentaction is taken, says a new bookpublished for World Water Day. TheAtlas of International FreshwaterAgreements – compiled by UNEP, theFood and Agriculture Organizationof the United Nations and OregonState University – shows, however, that the sharing ofresources has been more common than conflict. Availablefrom orders@earthprint.com ■

This year marks the tenth anni-versary of the European Union’s

Flower eco-label, which has now beenawarded to 125 products. France, Italyand Denmark account for 80 of theawards between them, and 74 havebeen given to textile products andindoor paints and varnishes. MargotWallström, the EU EnvironmentCommissioner, says that the number ofeco-labelled items sold has tripledsince the year 2000 ■

Water and Sanitation in theWorld’s Cities, a report by

UN-HABITAT, sets out in detail thescale of inadequate provision ofthese essential services. It is acomprehensive and authoritativeassessment of the problems, and of how they can be addressed. Available from Earthscan,orders@lbsltd.co.uk ISBN 1-84407-004-2 ■

UNEP’s Division of Technology,Industry and Economics haspublished a comprehensive packageof training modules and checklistsunder the title Profiting fromCleaner Production. The package– which follows demand-drivendesign, testing, adaptation andimplementation in five demon-stration countries on three con-

tinents – is for use by decision-makers and practitioners inbusiness, financial institutions and government. Available fromorders@earthprint.com ■

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As the new millennium opened, 1.1 billion people had no access to safe water, and 2.4 billion lacked

access to improved sanitation – makingup one sixth and two fifths of the world’spopulation respectively. The internationalcommunity has pledged to halve boththese proportions by 2015*.

If these targets are to be met in Africa,Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean –taking population increase into account –the number of people served by watersupply must increase by 1.6 billion (32 percent) and those served by sanitation by2.2 billion (59 per cent). The Global WaterPartnership estimates that an additional$30 billion needs to be spent each year – $17 billion of it on sanitation.

Policy-makers need to overcome aseries of hurdles if they are to bridge theresource gap and make sure that theinternational targets become reality.

The first is the lack of financial re-sources allocated to the sector – whetherfrom external aid and investment or fromnational budgets. Realistically, significantforeign direct investment (FDI) will not beavailable to this group of countries forreasons of risk and the lack of businessopportunities likely to bring acceptablereturns on investment. Even in countrieswhich can attract FDI, many of thepoorest people do not benefit frominvestment in the water and sanitationsector.

Maximizing impactsThe remaining financial avenues aregovernments’ own budgetary allocations,official development assistance (ODA),and finance raised by local communitiesand/or supplemented by local financialinstitutions. These resources are limitedand their impact needs to be maximized.

Our own research and field experiencelead us to suggest the following:

■ If official development assistance fromOECD nations – and from other groupingsof rich countries such as the EuropeanUnion – is focused on countries on thebasis of poverty rather than of politicalexpediency, considerably more resourceswill be available to the really poor nationswith the largest numbers of peoplelacking safe water and sanitation. Inpractice, the least developed countriesreceived less aid for water and sanitationthan the low/middle-income countriesduring the 1990s.■ The amount of aid allocated to low-costwater and sanitation programmes isabysmally low. The OECD’s DevelopmentAssistance Committee reported in 2000that only 1.7 per cent of all sector-allocable aid is earmarked for thispurpose. There needs to be both a gen-eral increase in ODA and a rise in thepriority given to aid for water and sani-tation for poor people. Equally, alloca-tions for these services from developingcountries’ national budgets need to beincreased very significantly.■ Funds made available through debtrelief can, and should, be used to developnational water strategies which prioritize

GETTING THERERAVI NARAYANAN describes the hurdles in the way of

achieving the Millennium Development Goals on water andsanitation and outlines strategies to overcome them

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water and sanitation within overallpoverty reduction strategies.■ There must be coordination betweenmajor donors, especially over support fornational water strategies. Unconnectedone-off projects, negotiated betweenindividual donor countries and selectedlocal government departments, areunlikely to be sustainable or effective inthe long term. Therefore the develop-ment of national water strategies bydeveloping countries, and the importancethey give to them in their national deve-lopment plans, are crucially important. ■ Local consumer financing schemesthrough micro-credit unions and groupscan be an important source of financeboth in rural and urban areas. They areideally suited for rapidly developing low-cost, decentralized services. In bothBangladesh and India micro-credit iswidely used, particularly to providehouseholds with their own sanitationfacilities.

Appropriate technologiesThe second hurdle is the lack of attentionpaid to using technologies that poorcommunities can afford and, even morecrucially, maintain.

Choosing appropriate and affordabletechnology and standards of service is

crucial both for getting the best value (thewidest coverage for the least cost), andfor operation and maintenance capa-bilities, which are directly related toachieving sustainability and protectinginvestment in these services. Indeed, thesustainability of services ought to be aprime consideration in any investment in water and sanitation programmes. We have found, for example, that poorcommunities in Niassa province inMozambique would prefer to step downthe technology ladder and use protectedwells rather than boreholes and handpumps, because they cannot afford thecost of the spares required to maintainthe pumps.

Choice and accountabilityThe third hurdle arises when poor peopleand communities are not consulted aboutthe solutions most appropriate to theirneeds and are left with no choice, andwhen no accountability is demanded ofgovernments and donors.

It is important to ensure wide andinformed participation of people –including customers – in understandingthe application of funds and the con-sequent benefits. Transparency in thedecision-making process, and the avail-ability of information, are crucial in

maintaining public overview, minimizingcorruption, avoiding wastage and buildingcredibility in the system of governance(an essential prerequisite for optimumfinancial functioning, including the read-iness to pay for services). Civil societyorganizations have a well-proven capa-bility in championing the interests of poor people and developing their ability to ensure that public funds are used fortheir benefit. Using aid to widen thiscapacity will reduce ‘leakages’ in thesystem and improve standards ofgovernance.

If scarce resources are to be usedoptimally, grants or concessional financemust be provided to build the technicalskills, organizational abilities, planningcoordination and monitoring capabilitiesof local governments – especially atdistrict level and below, where projectsare actually implemented.

Combined strategiesSafe water and sanitation servicesinvariably improve wherever thesehurdles are overcome. Ways of over-coming them vary from country tocountry, depending on the economiccircumstances, hydro-geological con-ditions and systems of administration and government. But there are enoughexamples around the world which can beused as a basis for scaling up solutions soas to move decisively towards achievingthe Millennium Goals on water andsanitation. In combination, these stra-tegies would enable the internationalcommunity to deliver on these ambitiousobjectives ■

Ravi Narayanan is the Director ofWaterAid.

* The United Nations Millennium Summitin 2000 added the target for safe water tothe Millennium Development Goals, andtwo years later, the World Summit onSustainable Development agreed thetarget for sanitation.

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Biodiversity has declined more catastrophically in fresh-water ecosystems in recent years than in any other of theEarth’s major habitat types. The WWF Living Planet Index

suggests that populations of freshwater species have fallen by a half on average worldwide since 1970 – compared with a dropof 30 per cent for marine species and 10 per cent for those of the forests.

Ten thousand of the 25,000 known species of fish – 40 per centof the world total – live in freshwater, yet it makes up only about2.5 per cent of the world’s water – and less than 0.01 per cent ifice caps and underground waters are excluded. Freshwaterecosystems – wetlands, rivers and lakes – also account for adisproportionately large fraction of global biodiversity in terms oftheir size relative to the Earth’s surface.

Much the largest river system in the world – covering nearly 6 million square kilometres – is the Amazon and its tributaries.Its size, and its position along the equator, make it the Earth’smost biodiverse freshwater ecosystem. The world’s largest,deepest and oldest freshwater lake, Lake Baikal, is also very richin freshwater species. Over half its animal species – 982 out of atotal of 1,825 – are endemic, found nowhere else in the world.This reflects the age of the lake as much as its size, since timeitself has allowed so many unique species to evolve. By contrast,most of the world’s lakes are young, formed in the last ice age,and so are comparatively poor in species.

Worldwide threatAll around the world, freshwater fish species are threatened withextinction: about 20 per cent of them in the 20 countries whichhave been comprehensively assessed for the IUCN–The WorldConservation Union Red List. Around 35 per cent of freshwaterturtle species are similarly threatened. Freshwater birds andmammals are less at risk – probably because it is easier forthem to move from one wetland, lake or river basin to another –

but wholly aquatic mammals are less fortunate. Four of the fivespecies of river dolphin (the Amazon, Ganges, Indus and Yangtze)are threatened, for example, as are all three species of manatee(Amazonian, Caribbean and West African).

The Yangtze river dolphin Lipotes vexillifer – known in Chinaas the baiji – is the most critically endangered. ChineseGovernment scientists are attempting to relocate the last 100remaining baiji to try to save the species: pollution, fishing andriver traffic have brought its population down from an estimated6,000 in the 1950s. If caught, the dolphins will be released in thespecially created Tian’erzhou nature reserve in Hubei province,centred around an isolated 21 kilometre stretch of the river,which became cut off when the Yangtze changed course.

The rate of extinction of freshwater fish species far exceedednatural background rates in the last century. Ninety-one speciesare listed as having become extinct in the 100 years up to 1996,including 50 Lake Victoria cichlid fishes. A further 11 species arerecorded as extinct in the wild, but still survive in captivity.

Multiple causesEcological degradation of freshwater ecosystems over the last100 years has largely resulted from four kinds of humanactivities. The first is the withdrawal of water for human use –whether in farms, by industry or in the home – and the pollutioncaused by returning the water afterwards. People are estimatedto use over half of the accessible freshwater runoff worldwide.Withdrawing most of the available surface water from itstributary rivers has led to the destruction of the Aral Sea inCentral Asia.

The second major cause of biodiversity loss is the directalteration of freshwater habitats, such as by building dams, ordraining wetlands and periodically inundated floodplains forfarming. Dam building has had the biggest influence on theaquatic environment in many river catchment areas. Fish whichmigrate up rivers to spawn before returning to the sea find thattheir passage is barred. The Colorado River in the United Stateshas been so severely disrupted by dams that its waters barelyreach the sea: as a result, all the fish species in its lower reacheshave died out or survive only in isolated pockets. The lack offreshwater flowing out from the river has also caused ecologicaldecline in the Gulf of Mexico.

Building 33 major hydroelectric dams and associatedinfrastructure in the catchment area of the Mobile Bay drainagebasin in the United States has caused the extinction of 38 out of118 species of what was the richest freshwater snail fauna in the world. Most of the snails’ habitat has been destroyed by siltaccumulation behind dams and the submergence of shallows.

Direct exploitationThe third pressure on freshwater ecosystems comes from directexploitation, usually overfishing. Not just fish, but otherfreshwater species – such as crustaceans and molluscs – arecaught commercially, while some – like crocodiles and caimans– are hunted for their meat or skins.

The fourth is the deliberate or inadvertent introduction ofalien species which are either predators, parasites or com-petitors of native ones. Many biologists now believe that this isthe greatest of all causes of decline in freshwater biodiversity.

Like Lake Baikal, the lakes of the African Rift Valley are

Sinking FASTJONATHAN LOH and LISA HADEED detail the rapid loss of species in freshwaters, theworst affected habitat on Earth

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ancient and support a great variety ofspecies. Lake Malawi has the highestspecies richness of any lake, due to itsphenomenal variety of cichlid fishes; over600 of its 640 fish species are endemic.Many of the endemic freshwater fishspecies of the Rift Valley have becomevery rare or extinct in recent decades,following the introduction of the Nileperch Lates niloticus. Introduced to Lake Victoria around 1970 for har-vesting for food, it turned out to be avoracious predator of the endemiccichlids. Before its introduction the lakesupported around 300 species of haplo-chromine cichlid fishes, many neverscientifically described and known toexperts only by their common names.Now over half are extinct or too rare to be caught and studied.

Alien plantsExotic plant species can also presenthuge problems. The free-floating SouthAmerican water hyacinth Eichhorniacrassipes has become a major pestwherever it has been introduced aroundthe world, especially in Africa and Asia. Itgrows fast and spreads rapidly, blockingwater channels, clogging hydroelectricinstallations, impeding boat traffic andpreventing fishing.

Regional and global changes such as acid rain and global warming are also thought to be adversely affectingfreshwaters. Although there are clearlinks between acid rain and a loss ofdiversity in rivers and streams, thesewidespread phenomena have not yetbeen implicated in the extinction or majordecline of a species ■

Jonathan Loh is Editor of WWF’s Living Planet Report; Lisa Hadeed is WWF International’s CommunicationsManager.

Much of the water we use is wasted, creating the potential forvast savings in precious supplies

through conservation. Agriculture, forexample, accounts for 70 per cent of allwater use, yet 20 to 30 per cent of suppliesused to irrigate fields trickle away orevaporate. Industry soaks up 54 per cent ofsupplies in Europe, where water efficiencyis generally low on the list of corporatepriorities. And in many countries at least30 per cent of domestic water suppliesleak away.

Conservation technologies and strate-gies for reducing water demand were highon the agenda at the 3rd World WaterForum in March 2003. Governments havebegun to shift away from building large-scale, expensive and often unpopular damsand reservoirs, recognizing that protectingand re-using water can be cheaper andmore sustainable than endlessly seekingout new supplies. As Peter Gleick, Directorof the Pacific Institute for Studies inDevelopment, Environment and Securityin Oakland, California puts it: ‘Whichevercountry you look at, improving waterefficiency is quite simply the cheapest andmost efficient means of improving supply.’He and other conservation-minded waterspecialists argue for a combination ofefficiency technologies, reduced water

Waste NOTPOLLY GHAZI describes the potential for using water

more efficiently to meet looming shortages

subsidies, public information campaignsand better targeted aid programmes.

Effective technologies already exist, forexample, to minimize the wastage of waterused for crops, industrial production,drinking, bathing and lavatory flushing.For farmers, the biggest water users, theseinclude levelling land to minimize runoff,drip irrigation which virtually eliminateswaste by delivering water directly toplants’ roots, and low-pressure sprinklerswhich avoid overwatering. In India, Israel,Jordan, Spain and California, drip irri-gation has slashed water use by 30 to 70 per cent while increasing crop yields by20 to 90 per cent. Early versions of thesetechnologies were expensive, but poorfarmers in developing countries are nowreaping the benefits of newly designedlow-cost drip and sprinkler systems.Villagers in the northern Himalayas, forexample, use a $5 bucket sprinkler kit towater vegetable plots more efficiently. Andin Bangladesh, rice paddies that previouslylay fallow during dry months have beentransformed into year-round productiveland by the use of groundwater-drawingfoot-operated treadle pumps. So far 1.2 million of the $35 pumps have beensold, increasing farmers’ average incomesby up to 30 per cent a year. Many countriesare also using simple technologies, such as

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harvesting rain to conserve drinking water.In Andhra Pradesh, the developmentcharity WaterAid is helping local com-munities collect rain and channelwastewater back into the ground torecharge supplies. ‘For a few dollars perperson you can make a huge difference to the lives of communities and wholeregions,’ says Simon Trace, head of itsinternational operations. But he warns thatif projects are to be sustainable in the longterm, communities must be able to operatethe equipment and afford the running costswhen aid agencies leave.

Tiered pricingOther nations are introducing tiered pricingsystems, backed by public informationcampaigns, to discourage overuse bybusinesses and households. In SouthAfrica, 23 million citizens now receive6,000 litres of free water a month and payan increasing fee for whatever extra theyuse: household water use has droppedsubstantially in several cities as familiesstrive to stay within the 6,000 litre limit.The city government of Mexico City saved enough water to supply a quarter ofa million new residents by replacing 350,000 old lavatories with low-flush ones.

In industrialized countries – wherehouseholds consume vast quantities ofwater in washing, lavatory flushing andgardening – a combination of publicawareness campaigns and tighter regu-

lations governing water-using appliances is slowly reducing wastage. A low-flowlavatory installation programme intro-duced in the 1990s in New York Cityreduced water use per building by 29 percent a year. Free low-flow showerheadsfollowed and water use per person fell from 738 to 640 litres a day between 1991and 1999. Similar programmes in Bostonproduced a 25 per cent fall in demand.Under federal law, all new lavatories soldin the United States are now low-flow.Water use by industry is also dropping, due partly to new, more efficient manu-facturing technologies and partly toreplacing water-intensive metals such assteel with alternatives such as aluminium.Industrial water use has dropped by a fifth in the United States since 1980,while in Japan industrial water efficiencyquadrupled between 1965 and 1989.Recycling wastewater is also increasing in industrialized countries. Treated waste-water already provides 30 per cent of farmwater supply in Israel – and may reachfour fifths by 2025 – and is increasinglyused to grow fruit and vegetables inCalifornia. Exponents of integrated water

management such as Peter Gleick arguethat central and local government musteducate consumers in the awareness ofwater conservation, price water topenalize excessive users and rewardconservers, shift taxes from labour toresource conservation and even en-courage people away from a meat-rich,water-intensive diet.

In the developing world, much of thefocus will remain on agriculture. Atpresent, sprinklers service only 10 to 15per cent of the world’s irrigated fields;drip systems just 1 per cent. Spreadingsuch technologies could cut farm waterdemand by up to 50 per cent and reducepoverty and hunger. ‘The need to increaseaid effectiveness to increase access towater cannot be understated,’ Dr.Mahmoud Abu-Zeid, President of theWorld Water Council and Egypt’sMinister of Water Resources andIrrigation, told an international meeting of water experts in Canada last summer. He urged donors to provide simple, low-cost irrigation and water storagetechnologies across Africa. All in all,conserving water must play an importantpart in the world’s efforts to reach its goalof halving by 2015 the proportion ofpeople without ready access to drinkingwater and sanitation ■

Polly Ghazi is a Senior Correspondent ofGreen Futures magazine.

Governments have begun toshift away from buildinglarge-scale, expensive andoften unpopular dams andreservoirs

Our Planet

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Shabana Azmi – the winner of an unprecedented fiveNational Awards for Best Actress in India, and anindefatigable campaigner for the poor – tells the story of

how a Government programme trying to promote literacy in avillage in a remote area of Uttar Pradesh ran into fierceopposition from its people. Finally a non-governmentalorganization (NGO) was called in to try to break the impasse.

‘They gathered all of the women of the village and asked whattheir biggest problem was. In one voice all the women said“water”,’ says the actress who is also a nominated member of theupper house of India’s parliament. It turned out that they had towalk miles for water because their handpumps had broken down,and the men of the village would not repair them. With the NGO’shelp they not only learnt to repair the pumps themselves but weresoon installing them in other villages.

‘The next year,’adds Shabana Azmi, ‘the villagers came forwardto embrace the literacy programme because their needs had firstbeen addressed.’

The importance of waterThe actress says that this incident was the first time that she hadgrasped the importance of water. But, she adds, this was broughthome even more forcefully to her when attending a rally in avillage in Madhya Pradesh in 1989, part of the campaign againstbuilding a dam on the Narmada river.

‘I saw at first hand what displacement is all about,’ she says.‘Instead of managing water resources for the people, theseresources were given away. And the rich alluvial land whichbelonged to the people was being fenced off for the project.

‘The people in whose name these projects are being plannedfor the “greater common good” are being ridden over roughshod.In the last 20 years, however, the debate on alternatives to damshas begun.’

Land tenureMuch of her work has been with the Committee to Protect theRights of the Homeless in Mumbai, where she lives, through whichshe champions both land tenure and sanitation in the city’s slums.

‘A slum is a slum not because of tin sheds, not because of thematerials with which people have built their houses, but becausethe environment there has been degraded,’ she explains. ‘There isno infrastructure or civic amenities. The Government’s policy hasbeen to supply houses in slums and expect people to move intothem. Instead, it is better to give them tenure over their land, nota free house.’

Sanitation, she says, is the Government’s ‘last priority’. Shehas herself given money from the $425,000 each MP is allowed to

WATERthe poor’s priority

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spend each year on public projects in his or her own constituencyto build lavatories. But, she adds, this is not enough, any morethan was merely providing handpumps in the Uttar Pradeshvillage. ‘The problem is to maintain them. You have to create theatmosphere within a slum community where systems are in placeto maintain toilets’.

Ironically Shabana Azmi was forced three years ago to give upshooting a film called Water, directed by Deepa Mehta – whichdealt with the plight of widows who had been abandoned alongthe Ganges river – after it was disrupted by Hindu funda-mentalists. But she says that she has not been able to persuademany of her fellow actors to take up water issues.

Mobilizing concern‘I don’t think anyone in the film industry has really applied theirminds to these,’ she says. ‘They are more concerned with socialissues, like health and AIDS, which fall more easily within thepurview of actors. I am on a parliamentary standing committee onrural development and I am working to mobilize MPs to showtheir concern’ ■

Darryl D’Monte is President of the International Federation ofEnvironmental Journalists.

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From top to bottom:Shabana Azmi campaigning;with Aruna Irani in Saaz,1997; with Ranjit Chowdhryin Fire, 1996; with PrakashDhotre and Mallika Prascadin The Godmother, 1999.

Our Planet

The simple union between two atoms, hydrogen and oxygen, has had anenormous effect on the Earth from the most remote beginnings of life. Even nowit exerts its power over the destiny of every living being aboard our planet.

It abounds in such excess in some parts of the world that it is hated and feared. Yet,in others, it has always been so scarce that it is at the heart of daily prayers andconsidered a blessing of God.

Water is the thread that knits together the web of life. It purifies and keeps ourbodies healthy, provides us with food, is home to millions of living creatures, regulatesthe global climate, dilutes pollutants, and sustains every country’s economic wealth asthe essential resource for our industries, agriculture and transportation.

RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIESWe all have the same right to access the resources ‘lent’ to us by nature. But we arealso all responsible for them, on behalf both of our present peers, and of futuregenerations.

Despite being one of humanity’s most precious resources, water is appallinglyadministered and badly taken care of by most of us. We waste it and pollute it. We takeno care of its delicate ecosystems or of the other creatures whose lives depend uponit. It is also scandalous that, here in Latin America, the poorest people have to pay morefor clean water than the rich who have publicly piped supplies.

OBLIGATION TO ALLFacilitating access to this resource where it is not sufficient must be an obligation oneach government, enterprise and citizen. We need more efficient irrigation techniquesand wells, and better sanitary conditions. Though costly, the investment required is not huge compared to the benefits that flow with water. Political will, training andeducation are essential. The commercialization of water is all very well but, even so,municipal distribution, and investing in better technologies and processing plants,should be part of the business of government, particularly in cities and large urbanconcentrations. Governments must regulate the water companies to ensurecompliance with the highest standards of safety and cleanliness for all their citizens.The companies must be required to treat all the water distributed prior to returning itto its source.

A DUTY TO OTHERSAs for ourselves, we the citizens have the greatestresponsibility of all. We must not only compel ourgovernments and corporations to make the provisionof clean safe water for all their highest obligation: wemust also put ourselves in the shoes of our poorestneighbours every time we turn on a tap – and considerwhat we, as a global family, are doing to help thosewho die every day for want of a drop of water ■

Marina Mansilla Hermann of Peace Child Argentina is aStudent of Environmental Science at the UniversidadCatólica de Salta (Buenos Aires), Argentina.

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