sweet water and bitter

Roar Bjonnes

A UN report claims that water, not oil, will be the next cause over which nations will go to war.

FRESH WATER, once thought of as a seemingly inexhaustible resource, is now becoming scarce in many regions of the world. Between 1940 and 1980, worldwide water use doubled. Today, 70% of all the water we use is consumed by agriculture - to grow food and animal feed. By the year 2000, forecasters predict that an additional 25% to 30% more water will be needed to keep pace with the increase in agricultural land under irrigation.

Most of the world's continents are currently experiencing short or long- term droughts. In Texas, land, animals and people are suffering the worst drought since the infamous "dust bowl" devastated the United States' farming community in the 1930s. Water rationing has become common and farmers have been unable to sow many crops due to lack of water for irrigation. Well-water, pumped from deep underground aquifers, has become such a valuable commodity in many parts of the western United States, today, that it is often referred to as "sandstone champagne". In Burkina Faso, a land-locked country in western Africa, drought has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee rural areas to become low-wage workers in the cities. Cherrapunji, a town in northern India, receives the highest precipitation on the planet an astounding 1,000 inches of rain annually. But the people of this Himalayan town often walk long distances to get drinking water, limit their baths to once a week and have trouble irrigating their crops. No wonder then that a recent United Nations report claims that water, not oil, will be the next resource over which nations will go to war. The report also states that about I billion people currently lack access to clean drinking water.

Seventy-five years ago, Aldo Leopold experienced the Colorado delta as a "milk-and-honey wilderness" teeming with fish within its cool depths as well as wildlife in the surrounding areas. Today, the river is dammed, the water diverted into the western United States and Mexico, and the delta has become a place of mud-cracked earth, salt flats and murky pools. Sandra Postel writes in People & Planet magazine: "as consumption levels grow, more and more rivers supply increasing volumes of water to cities, industries, and farms but lose their vital ecological support functions in the process. The Nile of north-east Africa, the Ganges in India, the Amu Dar'ya and Syr Dar'ya in the Aral Sea basin, the Yellow River in China, and the Colorado are among major rivers that are each now so dammed, diverted or overtapped that for parts of the year little or none of their fresh water reaches the sea."
Hostility and conflict between countries over water resources is most likely in those areas in which a river is shared by at least two countries, water is insufficient to meet all projected demands, and there is no recognized treaty governing the allocation of water among all basin countries. Examples of such hot spots include the Ganges, the Nile, the Jordan, the Tigris-Euphrates, and the Amu Dar'ya and Syr Dar'ya.

ACCORDING to Peter Sage, international programme co-ordinator for AMURT - a relief organization - the northern part of Burkina Faso has lost
about 50% of its forests due to deforestation: "When the forest cover is lost, the land is no longer able to absorb the rainfall. The soil is also exposed to warm winds blowing down from the Sahara desert which gradually remove the topsoil."

The paradoxical situation in Cherrapunji - that the wettest place on Earth is becoming a desert - is also caused by deforestation. Growing road networks, increasing population and the spread of modern education have led tribals to abandon belief in the forest's sacredness. Trees are disappearing at an alarming rate. As a result, Cherrapunji now suffers drought-like conditions. Without forest protection, the rains scour away the soil, and the remaining limestone bedrock sheds water like an umbrella. In the dry season, villagers must walk far to collect drinking water from streams reduced to trickles.
Another major cause of drought has been the so-called "green revolution", the concept which, in the seventies, was introduced by the Western world to lift the Third World out of poverty and famine. The green revolution has required very high inputs of irrigation water, and in some areas the underground water has dried up completely.

Today, much of the fresh water available in the United States is used to grow feed for cattle. This has resulted in severe water shortages. But rarely, if ever, are consumers advised that prohibitions on watering lawns, washing automobiles, and other uses are, at least in part, linked to their consumption of meat. Environmental activist, Nancy Ferguson, co-author of Sacred Cows at the Public Trough, says, "If you took the cows off, we could have the inland water supply of the pre- 1900s.

According to Jeremy Rilkin, author of Beyond Beef "nearly half the water consumed in the United States now goes to grow feed for cattle and other livestock. To produce just a pound of grain-fed steak requires hundreds of gallons of water to irrigate feed crops consumed by steer." Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet, notes: "the water used to produce just ten pounds of steak equals the household water consumption of her family for an entire year."

Cattle production is not just a problem of the industrialized world. In Mali about 40 million pastoral animals forage on whatever greens they can find. The ensuing deforestation has caused severe droughts and desertification problems; groundwater levels have sunk as much as seventy-five feet and are continuing to sink.

John Robbins, founder of Earth-Save, claims that producing a pound of beef protein requires up to fifteen times more water than producing an equivalent amount of plant protein. A middle-class American consumes over a ton of grain (2,000 pounds) each year, 80% of it by way of eating cattle and other livestock that are grain-fed. With a growing world population, the issue of feed v. food is likely to play an important role in the struggle to obtain fresh water in the coming decades.

IRRIGATION WATER is no longer an inexhaustible resource. Scientists have recently documented that well-water use by cattle ranchers has caused severe lowering of the groundwater level in many semi-arid areas. They claim that this, combined with deforestation, overgrazing by cattle and the introduction of non-native grasses, are the main reasons for the growing desertification in the world today.

Some defects of well irrigation: Neighbouring shallow wells dry up, creating lack of drinking water. Trees, orchards and large plants do not get sufficient subterranean water. After some time, they wither and die, creating a barren and dry landscape.

In some deep tube wells, heavy minerals and mineral salts get mixed with the water. This causes salinity and creates infertile land which is unfit for cultivation. Australia is currently experiencing severe problems of salinity.

As an alternative to well irrigation scientists recommend conservation of surface water through a system of ponds, canals, lakes and small reservoirs. In semi-arid areas where rainfall is scarce, they suggest constructing many small-scale ponds and lakes, as well as undertaking large-scale afforestation on the banks of all water systems.

Global afforestation programmes, a return to a predominantly vegetarian diet, recycling of waste water, small ponds, desalination, as well as water conservation, are all important measures in securing a future with enough fresh water for all of the world's inhabitants. But ultimately, the only way to prevent calamities such as droughts is to live in harmony with the dictates of ecology.

Today's water crisis is, therefore, more than just a reflection of an imbalanced environment and improper resource utilization; it is also a reflection of the spiritual drought of humanity. As humans are thirsting for spiritual illumination, the Earth and all living beings are thirsting for water. It seems we can no longer afford to separate the two thirsts from each other: both must be quenched together, in bioresonant harmony.

End

Roar Bjonnes is an agronomer living in Ashland, Oregon, USA.

For further information on water supplies in the Third World, write to Water Aid, Prince Consort House, 27-29, Albert Embankment, London SE1 7UB.