L4: Water Insecurity

Definition

Key ideas

• The risks of real water shortages are growing, and as they do, so does the potential for conflict

• Countries need secure water supplies to further their economic development

• In many countries the supply of water is being/has been taken over by TNCs

• The Middle East faces a number of issues including scarcity, poor access, rising youthful populations, and increasing demands for food and water

• Turkey and Israel, in particular, have become major stress points in international water management and water geopolitics

Outcomes for this section

By the end of this section you should be able to:• Give examples of how one country can threaten

another's water supply and create the potential for conflict

• Explain how improved water supplies can further economic development

• Explain the link between the WTO, water, TNCs and debt relief

• Outline the issues leading to potential tension over water supplies in the Middle East

• Produce a mini case file on an area of water conflict from your research

Mideast Facing Choice Between Crops and Water

From the New York TimesJuly 20 2008

Photos by Shawn Baldwin

With exploding populations and diminishing water resources, the nations of the Middle East and North Africa are struggling to secure

a reliable food supply. Cairo's population has grown so big - an estimated 17 million people - that hastily constructed brick-and-

concrete apartment buildings have sprouted amid the farm fields.

While family-planning programs have helped slow population growth in the Middle East and North Africa to 2 percent a year,

the region remains the fastest growing area outside of sub-Saharan Africa. By 2050, the Arab world's population is projected to reach 700 million, surpassing Europe. Here, a man walks past a farm surrounded by apartment buildings outside Tanta, Egypt.

In Egypt, 80 million people are squeezed onto just 5 percent of the land, an area smaller than Connecticut. The remainder is uninhabited desert. Here, a canal diverts water for irrigation outside of Abu Simbel, near Egypt's border with Sudan.

In Toshka, outside Abu Simbel, an Egyptian man tends a grape field. Government officials say they are exploring the possibility of growing

2 million acres of wheat on land that straddles Egypt's border with Sudan

Egyptian women inspect grapes at a packing facility in Toshka. When a project to expand farming around Toshka was

launched in 1997, President Hosni Mubarak said it would be a feat on par with the pyramids, encompassing 500,000 acres of

new farmland and thousands of new residents

Men work at a melon farm near Toshka. Critics say Toshka has come to symbolize grandiose schemes to farm the desert; only farm workers

have moved there and only 30,000 acres have been planted

Children work in a corn field outside Kafr Al-Sheikh, about 90 miles north of Cairo. A third of Egypt's population is aged 15 or

younger, and 20 percent live below the poverty line.

Workers prepare a pile of onions for the market at a farm outside of Kafr Al-Sheikh. People have farmed the banks of the

Nile for more than 5,000 years

Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, says his country's growing population is an urgent problem that has made the food crisis worse.

His government recently unveiled an $80 million family-planning strategy that encourages couples to have two children or less.

Customers line up to buy bread at a small bakery in a poor neighbourhood in Cairo. The subsidised loaves sell for less

than a penny apiece.

Customers look through a window as they wait to buy loaves. In April, rioting broke out in a Cairo slum when there were

shortages of the subsidised bread.

Potential for conflict

Pick from this list, some are in the text books, but check the BBC website and the other water websites and produce a mini case study fact file highlighting the issues, players, actions and futures.

Remember this could be Q6

• Turkey v Syria and Iraq • China v India• India v Pakistan• Israel and its problems• Egypt v Ethiopia and Sudan and Uganda• Angola v Namibia and Botswana

UN Water Co-operation Facility, check it out

So who are the key players?

World Trade Organisation: encouraging countries to open up their economies to private investment in exchange for debt relief. As countries have to play by the WTO rules control of water supplies passes to………………

…………..TNCs:such as Veolia/Vivendi, [see next slide] Ondeo, Bechtel and others.These companies regard water as a commodity for which the consumer has to pay the “going rate”. This could, indeed has lead, to local disputes and conflict

United Nations: and its World Water Assessment Programme has a role in ensuring that conflicts do not occur as nations try to access water. Since 1948 of the 1863 disputes over water only 43 involved military acts and of those 18 involved Israel and its neighbours.

Veolia• Veolia Water division remains the largest private water

company in the world…. • …..employing 93,433 workers and serving completely or

partly about 64 metropolitan areas with more than 139 million inhabitants, including:

• Asia : Thailand, South Korea, Philippines, China, Japan, Malaysia, India.

• Europe : Armenia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom.

• Americas : United States, Canada, Mexico, Colombia.• Oceania : Australia, New Zealand.• Africa : Gabon, Morocco, Niger, Reunion Island• Middle East : Oman, Saudi Arabia.Plot these countries on a

map

Under these rules there is a general agreement that all international treaties must include concepts such as “equitable use or share” and be applied to whole drainage basins, NOT, single countries, based on the following criteria:

• Natural factors• Socecon needs• Downstream impacts• Dependency• Prior use• Efficiency

HOWEVER the country with the greatest power usually gets the better deal.

“Helsinki Rules”

River Basins under threat

• River basins judged by UNESCO to have 'potential for dispute in the coming five to 10 years'

• Ganges-Brahmaputra; Han; Incomati; Kunene; Kura-Araks;[Kyran] Lake Chad; La Plata; Lempa; Limpopo; Mekong; [Samuel] Ob; Okavango; [Charlotte] Orange; Salween; [Chris] Senegal; Tumen; Zambezi [Callum]

Managing water insecurity, either/or

Research and produce a mini-case study TWO of the following;

• Water transfers: Snowy Mountains or China’s South-North Project

• The Turkish GAP or• Israel and its water supply problems

Check out:Water pathwaysVirtual water

Examination question:Using your research, explain why future water supplies for many regions are increasingly insecure

…and let’s not forget other conflicts that can exist……………..

Environmental conflict

Director JAMES CAMERON is celebrating after winning his fight to delay the construction of a hydro-electric dam in Brazil's Amazon rainforest.Cameron and his Avatar star Sigourney Weaver have both lent their support to a campaign against the megastructure, known as the Belo Monte project.

Turkish – Cyprus Pipeline

Feb 2014

A Solution…………………..

Feb. 14, 2014, Turkish Cypriot farmer Hasan Eligon stands next to a goat pen on his farm in the breakaway northern, Turkish Cypriot part of ethnically split Cyprus. Eligon says a pipeline project now under

construction to convey water from the Turkish mainland to the north of Cyprus will help end the drought-prone island’s water shortage problems. But Greek Cypriots cast a suspicious eye on the project,

calling it an attempt to create a dependency of Cyprus on Turkey and to possibly entrench division. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) (The

Associated Press)

Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2014, workers lay a pipeline along the side of a road in the northern Turkish Cypriot part of Cyprus’ between Panagra village and

divided capital Nicosia. The pipeline is part of a project now under construction to convey water from the Turkish mainland to the breakaway

north of Cyprus.. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) (The Associated Press)

Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2014, segments of pipeline lie next to the shoreline of the northern, Turkish Cypriot part of Cyprus with the coastline of Turkey

visible in the distance. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) (The Associated Press)

Friday, Feb. 14, 2014, Cows are seen through a window of Turkish Cypriot Eligon brothers farm in the village of Kirni in the breakaway northern, Turkish

part of Cyprus. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) (The Associated Press

Feb. 14, 2014, A shepherd tends to a flock of sheep grazing on a farm in the breakaway, northern Turkish Cypriot part of ethnically split Cyprus

. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) (The Associated Press)