MARGARET CATLEY-CARLSON: BIO Chair, Global Water Partnership, Stockholm, Sweden   Chair of the Global Water Partnership, the Board of the Crop Diversity Trust, and the International Advisory Committee for Group Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux. Ms. Catley-Carlson is a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board, the Rosenberg Forum, and of the Council of Advisors  of the World Food Prize.  She serves on the Boards of the Biblioteca Alexandrina, IMWI (the International Center for Water Resource Management);the IFDC (Fertilizer Management) and IIED - the International Institute for Environment and Development.  She has been chair of the ICARDA and CABI Boards and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, Vice Chair of the IDRC Board  and a commissioner of Water for the 21st Century.  She was President of the Canadian International Development Agency 1983-89; Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF in New York 1981-1983; President of the Population Council in New York 1993-98; and Deputy Minister of the Department of Health and Welfare of Canada 1989-92. Ms. Catley-Carlson is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Board Chair, International Center on Agriculture in Dry Areas (ICARDA) Aleppo, Syria  

UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com@ U.N./ - 01 September 2007: Mrs. Catley-Carlson delivered this speech as she prepares to step down as Chair of the Global Water Partnership:

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PAGE TWO

Promises  

Desalinization

Desalinization becomes a more and more interesting option for some, given that sea water comprises 97% of the earth’s water.  Some 12,500 desalinization plants now dot the planet, with 2/3 of these in the Middle East, and fully one quarter in Saudi Arabia.   New plants are being built in Florida, California, and the Caribbean. Only 1% of water use is accounted for by desalinated water, but the number is growing (GWI, 2004).  

Membranes

Membranes offer promises for water remediation.  Why not re-circulate all of the gray water in an apartment building – indeed if the membrane is good enough – why not re-circulate all of the water?  Why not build whole neighborhoods on this principle – why have huge water mains and sewer mains if the processing can be done locally by membrane?    

Demand Management

Anywhere there is metering, demand drops.   In California – Pacific Institute “Waste Not, Want Not" estimates that up to one-third of California's current urban water use -- more than 2.3 million acre-feet -- can be saved using existing technology. And at least 85% of this savings (over 2 million acre-feet) can be saved at costs below what it will cost to tap into new sources of supply and without the social, environmental, and economic impacts that any major water project will bring (Gleik et al., 2003). Composting toilets reduce the demand for water, as do innovative pit latrines for communities of modest means as has been shown by Sulabh Institute (www.sulabhenvis.nic.in/About%20Sulabh.html) in India . Separating feces and urine allows these to be treated as resources.  

More water

The time honored solution to water problems has been to increase supply, i.e. build dams, extend the pipelines, and pump more out of the aquifer.  China is busy moving part of the Yangtze River to the North, and India is talking very seriously about joining its rivers in a national grid.  The Red-Dead Sea Connector talks go on throughout the Middle East atrocities.  

So the supply side process continues, with its serious consequences for rivers, aquifers, and displaced populations.  Many unnecessary dams have been built, with benefits to be sure but a great deal of ancillary damage for the simple reason that it is a lot more politically rewarding (and in many countries a major source of corruption income)  for Governments to supply more water than to attempt to reduce the demand of their populations.     

As of two years ago, there were 47,655 large dams in the world and about 800,000 small dams (WCD 2002). Interesting, they are almost all in the medium to rich countries.  Anti dam protesters in the industrialized world, through their pressure on industrialized state governments and international financial intuitions, have ensured that international financing institution (IFIs) no longer fund dams.  As a result even needed water storage capacity has not increased in the poorest countries as shown in the reports presented during the World Bank Water Week 2004 (waterweek_2004@worldbank.org).  Middle class countries such as Turkey, Iran, China and many others have gone on building dams using other resources. The poorest cannot finance with their own resources, and therefore do not have the storage they need.  No countries with variable rainfall have become prosperous without being able to store water. There is almost no storage capacity in the poorest countries, almost all of which have highly variable rainfall patterns.  Unless this changes, they will stay poor.  

Nanotechnology

If engineered microbes can eat oil in oil spills, and might be designed to transform arsenic to less harmful compounds, why not engineer them through nanotechnology to take on the heavy metals in our waste water (and then use bulrushes to purify the organic wastes, a delightful mixture of high tech and low tech!)  

Better Science for Water for Food

For the first time in world history, water demand for nonagricultural uses is growing more rapidly in absolute terms than water demand for agriculture (Rosegrant et al., 2002).

The task is to ‘reinvent irrigation for the 21^st century’.  There is, for example, a wide technology gap between required irrigation practices for wheat, barley, corn, cotton, sugar beet, potatoes and tomatoes and actual water application in most areas.  Improved water use efficiency means high potential water savings.  The ‘free ride’ we have had while we have depleted groundwater resources is coming to its inevitable end.  

The objective must be that each cubic meter of water should be applied at right time – efficiency comes by applying even small amount of water to alleviate severe moisture stress during most sensitive stages of crop growth and seed filling – applying before stress reduces plants yield potential.  

New technology can and will help in this process.  There are many new and exciting techniques we can use to help us make water go further

·        Watershed modeling,

·        Integrating simulation techniques with GIS projections

·        Maps graphs for natural resource impact

·        Daily temperature data, soil and land management data collected from meteorological data,

·        Satellite imagery,

·        Surface flow processes, erosion, nutrient transport, grazing effects, yields.  

The evidence that these techniques can work is provided in compelling figures.  ICARDA’s special expertise in the area most likely to be most affected by climate change suggests that:  

·        A 50% decrease in irrigation water use in wheat irrigation in the ICARDA area gives only 10 – 20% loss in cereal production

·        Winter sowing of cereals reduces water needs  - lentil and chickpea yields are doubled if they are planted earlier to catch the Mediterranean rain

·        Water harvesting yields small and big miracles around the world

·        New drought-tolerant cultivars offer huge potential for improved yield in dry conditions

·        Improved forage crops – it is estimated that if  70% of the 30 m hectares of land left fallow in West Asia and North Africa  every year could be sown to forage legumes, this would produce enough feed for 80 million sheep, and could result in 1.4  m tones of nitrogen fixed in the soil (ICARDA, 2005).  

Saltwater and wastewater agriculture

We can also find “new” water for food if we redirect research priorities and put in place effective regulatory frameworks.

·        Water harvesting

·        Brackish water

·        Treated effluent – the issue here is how much treatment?   This has to be one of the most exciting potential areas for “finding” water; the hazard is that industrial and biological wastes are often mixed, resulting in toxins and heavy metals in the admixture.  

Rainwater harvesting

The old techniques are being rediscovered and reapplied to yield more water for topical use.   Eaves-troughs are collecting water from schools and public buildings to provide water for community use.  Families are collecting rainwater – all over India, but also in Germany.  Tanks are being rebuilt and watersheds refurbished in the process; rivulets are flowing in formerly denuded landscapes (GRWHC, 2005). Communities are putting water back into the subsoil and aquifer by conscious channeling of rainwater.  Global satellites may help us to do this on a global basis.  

Reallocation

Some of the real answers will have to come through allocation decisions.  Pragmatic but sometimes difficult steps can lead to dramatic consequences

·        Jordan – a 5% transfer from agricultural use would increase domestic supplies by 15%

·        Morocco – where 92% of water is used for agriculture, a 5% diversion would effectively double the supplies in domestic sector

·        The San Diego and Imperial Valley accord sees the municipality pay for water that allows investment in improved irrigation facilities.  The water used in Imperial Valley agricultural use would provide for domestic use for 12 million people.

·        Costa de Hermosilla in Mexico – proposals to improve agricultural use pattern could avoid need for desalination plant (100 km from coastline).  

Can the world manage better?  

Water cannot be created; it can only be managed.  And water is local, quintessentially so, unlike energy or food commodities which travel through trade.  If by common consent, there is enough water – just enough in many areas, but probably enough, can’t we just improve management?   A brief glimpse at traditional water management precepts will signal some of the issues.   How do we manage water now, or, how did we get into these difficulties?

·        There is usually no Ministry of Water, and there is no single UN water organization to set global standards for water management.  There are sectoral standards, of course.

·        Governments see their principal role as delivering water to their citizens

·        Far too many people insist that “Water should be no cost/low cost”. Many who advocate that water is a Human Right insist that it must be free.   The relevant UN resolution says it should be ‘affordable’ (ECOSOC, 2002).   While subsidy is essential to protect the poor, paying enough to keep the pipes and reservoirs of the system going is essential in countries with no tax base, few government revenues and other priorities for aid Euros.

·        Water governance/expertise is organized sectorally.

·        Jurisdiction:  rivers, lakes, groundwater do not respect national boundaries.  

Things are changing and there are new ways of looking at water governance.   More rather than less governance is needed for this ultimate public good.  The following water management functions must therefore stay in public hands:

·        Allocating water

·        Deciding on protecting the environmental share

·        Establishing water law

·        Setting regulatory framework

·        Managing inspection functions

·        Ensuring data collection, retention and distribution

·        Managing public debate on issues

·        Managing communication on water issues

·        Getting some of the corruption out of the water sector (Transparency International, 2004)

·        Ensuring subsidy for poorest population  

Agriculture is the biggest water using activity and is responsible for 70 to 80 % of a country’s water consumption. It warrants careful attention. Billions are spent in subsidies to farmers throughout the world but they are allocated without any consideration to water problems, thus creating artificially a water crisis, which will manifest itself as a food security crisis  

The water problem is as much a financial problem as a water problem. There is no solution to the water problem without some overhaul of the way agriculture is subsidized, water as an industrial or agricultural input is priced, local authorities are vested with the responsibility to provide water to their inhabitants and good managers and sustainable financial resources are allocated to them.   

It is not simple.  Moving to a conscious, transparent, publicly announced allocation of available water is a fraught process almost guaranteed to generate more enemies than friends for the party doing the allocating.   The move toward charging for water services offers opposition parties an instant election issue.  Managing across boundaries and agreeing to share the benefits of water, often between neighbors with centuries old traditions of mistrust is not easy.   Current arrangements favor the powerful; who will speak for the weak?  Who speaks for the environment?  Irrigated-land agriculturalists in many countries have much more power than either the rural or urban poor.   There are taboos against waste water re-use.     

All of this changes every day.  Every day, the population grows and the amount of water available per person decreases.   Every week, somewhere in the world there are manifestations of climate variability which will have marked impact on water resources.  Every month, pollution increases.  Meetings are held to assess how best to intervene.  We must rethink our use of water – there is no other option.  The path ahead is full of challenge, nowhere more than in the dryland areas.    

References  

ECOSOC. 2002. Economic and Social Council of United Nations. Document E/C12/2002/11, 26 November 2002.  

Gleik, P.H., D. Haasz, C.Henges-Jack, V. Srinivasan, G. Wolff, K. Kao Cushing, and A. Mann. 2003. Waste Not, Want Not: The Potential for Urban Water Conservation in California. Pacific Institute, 654 13^th Street, Oakland, CA 94612.  

Global Rainwater Harvesting Collective (GRWHC). 2005. Newsletter No.5. The Barefoot College, SWRC, Tilonia, Madanganj, District Ajmer, Rajasthan, India.

(www.globalrainwaterharvesting.org/).  

Global Water Intelligence (GWI). 2004. Desalination Markets 2005-2015: A Global Assessment and Forecast. (http://www.globalwaterintel.com/).  

Global Water Partnership. 2000. Integrated Water Resource Management. TAC Background Paper No. 4, 67 p. (www.gwpforum.org/gwp/library/Tacno4.pdf).  

International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). 2005. Annual Report 2004. ICARDA, Aleppo, Syria.  

Johannesburg Earth Summit. 2002. UN Johannesburg Conference on Sustainable development. (www.johannesburgsummit.org/index.html).  

Rosegrant, M.W., Ximing Cai, and Sarah A. Cline. 2002. Clobal Water Outlook to 2025. Averting an Impending Crisis. IWMI – International Water Management Institute Colombo, Sri Lanka

IFPRI - International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C., USA. 26p.  

Schuyt, Kirsten and Luke Brander. 2004.  Living Waters, Conserving the Source of Life: The Economic Values of the World’s Wetlands, World Wide Fund for Nature, Gland/ Amsterdam. 32p.  

Seckler, D., U. Amarsinghe, D. Molden, R. de Silva, and R. Barker.1997. World Water Demand and Supply 1990 to 2025: Scenarios and Issues. Research Report 19. International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka.  

Shiklomanov, I. 1997. Assessment of water resources and water availability in the World. Stockholm Environment Institute.  

Transparency International. 2004. Global Corruption Report 2004. Transparency International, Alt Moabit 96, 10559, Berlin, Germany.  (http://www.transparency.org/).  

United Nations Millennium Project. 2005. Health, Dignity and Development: What would it take? UN Millennium Task Force on Water and Sanitation. (http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/ ).  

Wolf, Aaron. (ed.) 2002. Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Water Systems. Cheltenham, UK: Elgar.

Wolf, Aaron T., Kersti Stahl, and Marcia F. Macomber. 2003. Conflict and cooperation within international river basins: The importance of institutional capacity. Water Resources Update. Volume 125. Universities Council on Water Resources.  

World Commission on Dams (WCD). 2002. Dams and Development: A new framework for decision making. Earthscan, London. 448p.  

US National Intelligence Council. 2000. Global Trends 2015: A dialogue about the future with nongovernmental experts.              ( www.odci.gov/cia/publications/global-trends 2015/index.html ).

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