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NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Summer in the City: Water Supplies Fall and Tempers Flare in South Asia

    July 22, 2009 By Elizabeth Hipple
    Three people died in the city of Bhopal, in north-central India, in a battle between neighbors for scarce water, The Guardian reported this past week. Fights regularly broke out when the water tankers that serve 100,000 of the city’s residents make their deliveries.

    The monsoon this year produced less rain than usual, exacerbating a drought. In addition, the number of people in Bhopal’s slums is growing. “The population has increased, but the water supply is the same,” a local committee chairman told The Guardian.

    The northern parts of India were hardest hit, but much of India experienced similar conditions, including the city of Mumbai. Officials there cut water supplies for the city by 30 percent when the levels of the five lakes that serve as Mumbai’s primary sources of water dropped dangerously low.

    But while heavy rains in the last few days mostly restored supplies, they also shut down the waterlogged city, reviving fears of 2005’s deadly floods. According to a new book and exhibit by University of Pennsylvania architects, the sprawling city has paved over the mangrove wetlands that protect it from flooding.

    Pollution, climate change, population growth, urbanization, and industrialization in the world’s developing countries continue to increase demand for its finite water supplies. Today, 700 million people live in countries experiencing water scarcity or stress; by 2035, that figure is expected to have reached 3 billion people, or almost half of the world’s population. Asia, with 60% of the world’s population but only 36% of the world’s freshwater, will be particularly hard hit.

    The problems vary across South Asia. The rivers around Dhaka, Bangladesh, are so polluted from industrial dumping that specialists are saying the situation is beyond repair. Lack of access to clean water and knowledge about hygienic sanitation practices leads to thousands of preventable deaths from diarrhea every year in Nepal. In Karachi, Pakistan, stealing public water out of pipes and tankers is a $500 million industry, “a mark of the state’s decreasing capacity to provide for its own,” reports Bill Wheeler in a special report in GOOD magazine.

    The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 between India and Pakistan has long been hailed as an example of the cooperation that can result from the necessity of sharing such an essential resource across borders. But with climate change causing the Himalayan glaciers that feed the Indus River to melt at a faster pace, some experts warn that balancing the water needs of both countries across their contested border could be a trigger point for conflict—particularly for two nations that cannot provide many of their citizens with access to safe drinking water under normal circumstances.

    South Asian governments will be called upon more and more to balance the water of needs between different users at the local level and work with other governments to share and conserve water at the international level. But as Ashok Jaitly of New Delhi’s Energy and Resources Institute told Wheeler, both India and Pakistan share a “mentality that obscures the need to manage demand with conservation, water tariffs, and an end to destructive but politically popular practices in both countries.”

    Despite the recognition of water as a growing security issue by the international community, it is difficult to improve what is a symptom of deeper-set problems. But they must try, if only for their own security. As Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari warned in a Washington Post op-ed, “The water crisis in Pakistan is directly linked to relations with India. Resolution could prevent an environmental catastrophe in South Asia, but failure to do so could fuel the fires of discontent that lead to extremism and terrorism.”

    By Comparative Urban Studies Project intern Elizabeth Hipple and edited by Meaghan Parker

    Photo: The Ganges River in Varanasi, India. Courtesy flickr user Denver Pam
    Topics: climate change, conflict, environmental security, South Asia, urbanization, water
    • http://openid.aol.com/canadia1206 canadia1206

      This is a great topic, as water is the basis for all life and at the core of just about every climate change issue. The compounding factors associated with water stress make the situation that much more important and volatile. Young population structures, international water ways fed by melting glaciers, and loosely governed states are all important to the issue.
      The young population structure of the region, the classic pyramid shape, can be seen in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Population Action International’s publication The Shape of Things to Come is a great study on the point. Countries with young populations have high birth rates that may represent a growing population depending on death and migration rates. Increasing populations mean more people per resource. In a world of lessening resources, this creates stress and can lead to conflict. Very young population structures are also dependent, with a lower portion of the country’s people in the working age strata. As the large number of young people reaches working age, lack of job opportunities, education and food due to water scarcity, these individuals may be more likely to resort to violent or extremist life styles.
      President Zardari’s comment echoes comments made by individuals such as Amanda Dory and Gen. Anthony Zinni. Climate change is a security threat. Although the United States is better able to mitigate the effects directly, the developing effects of warming and droughts in regions like South Asia will have international impacts, through state or non-state actors.
      The map developed by International-Alert shows that South Asia is an area that faces high risk of armed conflict due to consequences of climate change. These conflicts may bridge international boundaries. The monsoons that follow droughts often lead to flooding and extreme weather. Bangladesh and other coastal countries with low elevations and limited protection are at increased risk. Migrants from these countries may cross borders into lands which are experiencing their own stress.
      Luckily the seasonal monsoons pulled many of the eleven states in India out of drought. However, the damage had already been done and crop yields are expected to fall below the average 230 million tons. These drought cycles are becoming more and more common for the area.
      The topic does bring up potential threats to human security. Lack of available water and diminishing crop yields are core deprivations of basic human needs. Additional effects of polluted water supplies, water thievery and local violence over water worsen the situation. And at a larger scale, dwindling resources can stress international water issues like the 1960 treaty and possibly lead to large scale conflict. Discontent with government inability to provide security can bread extremism and terrorism. While the latter of these issues are less direct and more complex, with many more essential elements, they do stand as potential threats to human security- locally and internationally.

    • wendy

      This is why the Optimum Population Trust has tried to get population growth put on the agenda at the Copenhagen Summit,albeit with little success.
      Politicians and environmentalists are still reluctant,for a variety of doctrinal and political reasons,to acknowledge the need for urgent action.

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