Recap from the last lessonsWhat factors cause water scarcity globally?

Learning Objectives

• To consider how the global water crisis is linked to economic, social (especially health) and political issues

• To understand why the Aral sea is water scarce and the role of different key players.

• To understand the impacts this has had on human welfare and economic growth

Read p 62-67 Oxford

• Produce an A3 spider diagram to show how the global water crisis is linked to economic, social (especially health) and political issues

• Make sure you put named examples

Water scarcity hotspotsAccording to the International Water Management

Institute environmental research organisation global water stress is increasing, and 1/3 rd of all people face

some sort of water scarcity. Agricultural uses dominate in the growing need for food.

Little/no water scarcity

Physical water scarcity- not necessarily dry areas but those where over 75% river flows are used by agriculture, industry or domestic consumers

Economic water scarcity- less than 25% rivers used, and abundant supply potential but not reaching the poorest people .

Approaching physical water scarcity – More than 60% river flows allocated, and in the near future these river basins will have physical scarcity

Egypt imports > 50% of its food because of physical scarcity

Australia; diversion ¼ of all water away from

Murray Darling Basin for agriculture

Aral Sea faces environmental catastrophe, although recent attempts to reduce impacts

of river diversions for especially cotton production

R Ganges: physical stress from pollution and over abstraction

Severe water scarcity N China, leading to South North transfer

scheme-see later slide

Ogallala aquifer provides 1/3 all US irrigation water, but is seriously depleted:

the water table is dropping by about 1m/yr.

As a ‘fossil’ reserve, formed probably from past glacial meltwater flows, it is effectively a

finite resource Much of sub Saharan Africa suffers from economic scarcity from especially

poverty but also lack of infrastructural development . Some 1 bn people

involved1

DIFFERENT USERS?Conflicting demands

Water conflicts

SUPPLY?Diminishing

DEMANDS?Rising

•International conflicts i.e. basin crosses national boundaries•Internal conflicts ie within a country•Conservation versus exploitation

PRESSURE POINT- ie need for management.

This is shown spatially as a ‘hotspot’ of conflict, see

map on next slide.Pressure and hence tension

and conflict may be over surface flow and/or

groundwater suppliesDams and diversions and

loss of wetlands are particularly contested.

Population growthConsumer demandIndustrial growth

Agricultural demand

Reductions because of:•Users abstracting/polluting upstream•Deteriorating quality•Impact of climate change

Present and potential water conflict hotspots• As water supply decreases, tensions will increase as different players try to access common water supplies• Many conflicts are transboundary in nature, either between states or countries

Insert Figure 2.11 page 47

River basins currently in dispute

River basins at risk in the future

Large International drainage basins

Zambezi

Orange

Okavango

La Plata

Mekong

Ganges

Ob

Lake Chad

Nile hotly disputed between Ethiopia and Sudan ,who control its headwaters, and Egypt .

Tigris-Euphrates Iraq + Syria concerns that Turkey’s GAP project will divert their water

The Aral Sea, an inland drainage basin, once the world’s 4th largest inland lake has shrunk sine the 1950s after the 2 rivers feeding it: the Amu Dayra and Syr Darya were diverted for irrigation. By 2007 the sea was 10% of original volume and split into 2 lakes. The ex soviet states are in conflict: Uzbekistan , Turkmenistan and Kazakstan.

Colorado: disputes between the 7 US states and Mexico it flows through. The river is so overused, that it no longer reaches the sea!.90% abstracted before reaches Mexico

Note: although there have been rising tensions globally, many areas demonstrate effective management to diffuse the situation and create more equitable and sustainable demand-supply balance, such as the Mekong River Committee,& the Nile River Initiative

Aral Sea

Why?

‘With reference to differing examples, explain how differing stakeholders views could lead to water conflict’ (15)

Aral Sea Over time

Background from Internet• Once the world's fourth-largest saline body of water with an area of 68,000 km2, the

Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s, after the rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya that fed it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects (in what are now Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan) to irrigate farmland.

• As its water levels dropped, the lake began splitting into smaller pieces: the Northern (Small) Aral Sea and the Southern (Large) Aral Sea. The Southern Aral Sea further split into eastern and western lobes.

• By 2007 it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into three separate lakes, two of which are too salty to support fish. The once prosperous fishing industry has been virtually destroyed, and former fishing towns along the original shores have become ship graveyards. With this collapse has come unemployment and economic hardship.

• By August 2009 virtually nothing remained of the Southern Aral Sea’s eastern lobe. • Much of what finally doomed the Southern Aral Sea was an attempt to save its

neighbour to the north. In 2005, Kazakhstan built the Kok-Aral Dam between the lake’s northern and southern portions to preserve water levels in the north. The Northern Aral Sea actually exceeded expectations with the speed of its recovery, but the dam ended prospects for a recovery of the Southern Aral Sea, which some authorities already regarded as beyond help.

• The Aral Sea is also heavily polluted, largely as the result of weapons testing, industrial projects, pesticides and fertilizer runoff. Wind-blown salt from the dried seabed damages crops and polluted drinking water and salt- and dust-laden air cause serious public health problems in the Aral Sea region. The retreat of the sea has reportedly also caused local climate change, with summers becoming hotter and drier, and winters colder and longer.

June 2013

TasksMake notes or answer the following questions on

the Aral Sea :

1. Why was it exploited?2. Which stakeholders thought it was a good idea to

exploit – for each say briefly why?3. Which stakeholders are against the exploitation

why?4. What are the human welfare impacts of the

exploitation of the Aral Sea?5. What are the economic impacts of the Aral sea

exploitation?

Information

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

worldnews/asia/kazakhstan/9012718/Will-the-Aral-Sea-ever-return.html

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp_mlKJiwxg

• http://en.tengrinews.kz/environment/Kazakhstan-enters-second-phase-of-Aral-Sea-restoration-14538/

Solutions to the Aral sea water problem?

Many different solutions to the different problems have been suggested over the years, varying in feasibility and cost, including:

• Improving the quality of irrigation canals• Installing desalination plants• Charging farmers to use the water from the rivers• Using alternative cotton species that require less water• Using fewer chemicals on the cotton• Moving farming away from cotton• Installing dams to fill the Aral Sea• Redirecting water from the Volga, Ob and Irtysh Rivers to restore the Aral Sea to its former size in

20–30 years at a cost of US$30–50 billion[

• Pumping sea water into the Aral Sea from the Caspian Sea via a pipeline, and diluting with freshwater from local catchment areas

• In January 1994, the countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan signed a deal to pledge 1% of their budgets to helping the sea recover.

• In March 2000, UNESCO presented their "Water-related vision for the Aral Sea basin for the year 2025"[ at the second World Water Forum in The Hague.

• By 2006, the World Bank's restoration projects, especially in the North Aral, were giving rise to some unexpected, tentative relief in what had been an extremely pessimistic picture.