Tech | August 08, 2010 | 24 comments

Bring Water Into Climate Change Negotiations

source: http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=52421

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JanforGore
Longer periods of drought, decreased river flow, higher rainfall variability and lower soil moisture content: water is at the heart of the impacts of climate change. Yet the precious commodity scarcely features in climate negotiations.

Three hundred million Africans lack access to clean water; 500 million lack access to proper sanitation, according to Bai-Mass Taal, Executive Secretary from the African Ministers’ Council on Water.

"Lack of water security will be exacerbated by climate change, which directly threatens food security," says Dr Ania Grobicki, head of the Global Water Partnership (GWP).

Yet there is no focus on water in climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"There is no United Nations agency for water, and there's no international convention regulating water resource management and there is no water focus under the UNFCCC," says Grobicki. "Water also evaporated from the text of the Copenhagen Accord."

Grobicki and her colleagues argue for a focus on adaptation measures on the ground. Rehabilitation and maintenance of existing infrastructure is one place to start.

"With our local partners, we cleaned up a water course that was polluted by waste water from a sugar cane plantation in Swaziland," says Alex Simalabwi from GWP's Partnership for Africa's Water Development project. "As a result 10,000 smallholder farmers have access to clean water."

Burkina Faso, where 80 percent of the population depends on agriculture for a living, has invested in the construction of more than 1,500 small dams since 1998. These reservoirs - built at relatively low-cost, often with local communities contributing labour to their construction - are a vital protection against drought.

Most African agriculture is rain-fed, says Grobicki. "As climate variability increases and temperatures rise, water security drops radically. Dams ensure water is available throughout the year."

The scale and operation of water infrastructure needs to be carefully planned. "Using water from the river for irrigation might benefit a farming community, but it could have damaging effects downstream. That’s why it is important to have shared decision-making. In this process there will be trade-offs, but also shared benefits," she says.

Other adaptation measures include shifting to more drought-resistant crops and the use of satellite imaging to reveal moisture content of soil and guide farmers' irrigation efforts: pilot projects in several countries already send out such information via text messages to farmers' phones.

Water-saving technologies can further maximise the benefits of these strategies. "Drip irrigation offers huge potential for saving water in rural areas, while remote sensing can be used to inform farmers about the moisture content of the soil so they know how much water they need to use to grow their crops," says Grobicki.

Drip irrigation is a highly efficient means of watering crops and applying fertiliser via tubing spread throughout the field.

In Zimbabwe and Malawi, smallholder farmers are coping with drought with simple drip systems consisting of a couple of large plastic containers on a raised platform, and 100-odd metres of plastic tubes delivering the water to vegetable gardens.

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The call is for water to be recognised in climate change negotiations as both the transmitter of climate change impacts and an important vehicle for strengthening social, environmental and economic resilience to them.

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24 comments // Bring Water Into Climate Change Negotiations

  • Amman_Imman_Water_is_Life
    • +1
      Amman_Imman_Water_is_Life  

    • Place like the Azawak of West Africa illustrates the connection between climate change and water scarcity. In this large region in Niger and Mali, 500,000 people suffer from the lack of water. Years ago, the rainy season used to be 5 months, and the Azawak had some of the best pastures in the Sahel. Now a little rain falls during or one or two months a year, at the most three. People are dying of thirst. There is barely any sustainable infrastructure; people retrieve water from marshes during the short rainy time, or travel at least 17 miles one way to a deep well that is dirty and contaminated. For at least 9 months a year, there is not any water. Please watch this 8 minute video to get a sense of the depth of this problem.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
  • Amman_Imman_Water_is_Life
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • http://unfccc.int/2860.php

      More news on the outcome of Bonn talks just ended, and what is to be expected both in China this October, and Cancun this November-December. And if they schedule a 2011 conference, I'm done following it. There shouldn't be a need for anymore. Bali, Poznan, Copenhagen... Come on already.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  
    • Image

    • http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/08/04/global-population-growth-and-water-scarc...

      Global Population Growth and Water Scarcity

      Excerpt:

      Russell Sticklor with the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program in Washington, DC. recently contacted me requesting my thoughts on a number of issues for an article he is writing on global population growth and water scarcity for the magazine, Outdoor America. I thought some of the comments might be interesting to our blog readers. Watch for the published article as well.

      snip

      Is population growth in the American Southwest sustainable, given the increasing pressure it is placing on the region’s ground- and surface water supplies? Is it possible that the region has reached its peak carrying capacity in terms of population?

      Yes, it is sustainable, provided that suitable choices for the urban landscape are made — low water using gardens, limited lawns, and golf course lawns irrigated with grey water. A corresponding transition from low cash value agriculture to urban areas would be needed to support this story as a growth story. The population density in the region is actually not that high.

      Phoenix and Las Vegas stand out as the canaries in the mine that the area has hit peak water. However, they had egregious or luxury use of water for swimming pools, golf courses and the like. Much of this is going or has to go. The area could actually still engage in high cash value, organic agriculture (it is especially well suited for this) and add population.

      In the coming decades, which countries will be hit particularly hard by climate change’s effects on water resources?

      The consensus is that small island nations are under the greatest threat from sea level rise. Add Bangladesh and similar countries to the list for the same reason. In addition to the flooding threat, the rising sea level will essentially dramatically shrink the fresh water lens that provides the groundwater supply to these places. So, if you have energy to desalinate this is not a big deal, but otherwise this is a big concern. There is an anticipation that the 10 to 30 deg N or S belt will get drier, and this extends to the Middle East, an area that is already quite water constrained. So, those countries will be in trouble. However, in many countries, essentially the densely populated sub-tropical countries, like India and China and Pakistan, population pressures will dominate and create a water crisis or a food crisis as the water and land for growing food will be limited. Of these, I am most optimistic re China.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  

    • I can say one bright spot in all of this are the NGOs like Amman Imman. I have spoken with the leader of their group on my blog, and learned of them through reading of their experiences. They are dedicated people devoted to caring for others and traveling to these countries to help them secure water sources. We will need their voices even more as climate change makes itself known in developing areas of the world as poor people of the world are and will feel the brunt of it.

    • 1 year ago
  • CalgarC
  • CalgarC
    • +1
      CalgarC  

    • on a side note... the chinese use about 9150 cubic meters of water a year and the intel factory in china uses 16.9 million...

    • 1 year ago
  • im1mjrpain
  • ayipis
    • -6
      ayipis  
    • Image

    • well goes to show that Bush and the Republicans ARE NOT the only ones that uses fear anf confusion to further their agendas.

      well since most are atheist..HAVE FAITH IN SCIENCE..

      http://www.usa.siemens.com/entry/en/water.htm?stc=usccc021762

      We have the technology to provide water..........and now on the issue of those who is going to use this as a weapon..well all the rules in the world is not going to help not until we are willing to PUNISH the offender..case in point North Korea, Iran, Myramar..Cuba..the UN thinks that you can pen a "rule" and expect some demented power crazy group of people to abide..

      THINK

    • 1 year ago
  • ayipis
    • -3
      ayipis  

    • i guess now even the most avid 'global waming' advocate is changing their chant to "climate change'..how can we even be sure they know what they are talking about??

      not trying to be a bit weary but these are the same people who said poverty ends in africa with a concert..terrorism and injustice ends if we vote for this man..

    • 1 year ago
  • H2O_4U
  • ArchDruid
  • JanforGore
    • +4
      JanforGore  
    • ArchDruid:

      It isn't future anymore. Israel and Palestine have been at it for years. Also Pakistan and India as well as China. The Indus Treaty is in trouble, as well as Middle Eastern countries now disagreeing over resources because of population shifts and increases. Egypt is being especially hard hit by drought now, which I just posted about. Africa as well is seeing Lakes like Chad and Victoria dropping precipitously. The Great Lakes Compact was supposedly set up to avoid such a scenario, but with declining water table levels in the lakes (Lake Superior particularly as noted here) and an out clause that allows privitization of Great Lakes water, it may well be a source of friction in the future should the decline of water tables and evaporation continue.

      This is why we need to include water in climate negotiations in order to provide conservation measures and ways to provide funding for irrigation practices like drip irrigation in countries where water is scarce. Agriculture is the greatest waster of water, with 70% of it being wasted through irrigation and polluted through nitrogen runoff. Looking to return to sustainale agriculture practices that conserve water along with crop rotation or movement of more water intensive crops to places where water is not as scarce ( as in crops being move from South to North Australia) and less fossil fuel and pesticide intensive farming will go a long way into conserving water for the future.

      Water scarcity isn't just caused by lack of physical water, it is also caused by pollution, privitization, and wasteful practices. Now that water evaporation is also becoming more profuse due to a warmer atmosphere resulting in erratic weather patterns that cause flood and droughts erratically in scattered areas, the unpredictability of the hydrologic cycle makes this even harder to plan for.

      As we are also seeing, floods in China, India, and Pakistan have destroyed huge swaths of farmland. Glacial melt resulting in glacial floods may well be lending a hand in these floods as well. It is absolutely crucial that we take the state of our global water seriously and finally work to conserve it not only physically, but by limiting privitization to keep it a public trust, and also instituting mechanisms to hold polluters accountable.

      I personally have always seen water as an equalizer and a resource that can bring peace. I surely hope this is the case now, though as I stated in many areas of the world feeling the effects of climate change and population this will become more difficult. Dams are also the cause of water scarcity for agricultural lands as well as changing the hydrologic cycle through diversion and environmental damage as hydropower is now increasing. That too needs to be addressed especially in water stressed areas where other forms of alternate energy may be viable in order to free up water for growing food and addressing other needs.

    • 1 year ago
  • ibrake4rappers13
  • MrMxyzptlk
  • CalgarC
    • 0
      CalgarC  
    • MrMxyzptlk:

      lol this is 3rd grade science if the water evaporates we will have have more rain... and with the imbalance of fresh/salt water we will have more storms and snow in the winter... its not always the heat

    • 1 year ago
  • CalgarC
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  

    • I also wanted to make one more comment from my heart, because water issues are very dear to it: we must free the women of our world who are water slaves. Those who spend hours daily walking to polluted water sources, at times in threat for their very lives and at the expense of their own education and economy. By declaring water a human right for all, that includes ALL. The elitists of this world seeking to take this most precious lifeblood from us ( and now thinking of using climate change as a way to get it) need to understand this: we aren't about to let you take it all. We WILL fight back.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  

    • http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/07/19/19climatewire-lake-superior-a-huge-natur...

      Lake Superior is the canary in the coal mine for gauging the effects of climate change on freshwater sources in the U.S. To think this can't happen here is to be naive about the capabilities of this phenomenon.
      ___
      "The Great Lakes are feeling the heat from climate change.

      As the world's largest freshwater system warms, it is poised to systematically alter life for local wildlife and the tribes that depend on it, according to regional experts. And the warming could also provide a glimpse of what is happening on a more global level, they say.

      "The Great Lakes in a lot of ways have always been a canary in the coal mine," Cameron Davis, the senior adviser to the U.S. EPA on the Great Lakes, said last week. "Not just for the region or this country, but for the rest of the world."

      And it seems the canary's song is growing ever more halting.

      Lake Superior, which is the largest, deepest and coldest of the five lakes, is serving as the "canary for the canary," Davis said at a public meeting of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force last week, pointing to recent data trends.

      Total ice cover on the lake has shrunk by about 20 percent over the past 37 years, he said. Though the change has made for longer, warmer summers, it's a problem because ice is crucial for keeping water from evaporating and it regulates the natural cycles of the Great Lakes.

      But the warming shows no sign of abatement. This year, the waters in Lake Superior are on track to reach -- and potentially exceed -- the lake's record-high temperatures of 68 degrees Fahrenheit, which occurred in 1998.

      Analysis of several buoys that measure temperatures in the lake reveal that the waters are some 15 degrees warmer than they would normally be at this time of year, Jay Austin, a professor of physics at the University of Minnesota, Duluth's Large Lakes Observatory, said in a recent interview.

      His analysis of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data indicates that summer for the lake, which happens at about a 40-degree threshold, came about a month early this year."

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • Commoditizing water, especially in the period we are now living in is a recipe for disaster. Even desalination in many areas would be untenable with events such as the Gulf Oil ecocide, and the amount of pollution, nitrogen runoff and other poisons we are dumping into our waterways and the oceans.The global water crisis we now face is the ultimate moral challenge of this century hand in hand with climate change. Our entire existence rests on what we now do with the freshwater we have left.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • We will surely regret our overall apathy regarding water issues and the governments, corporations, and players moving in to take it all. Climate change will exacerbate this greed and bring about a competition to control it unlike anything we saw regarding oil.

      To disregard this in any future climate negotiations, is to disregard our future.

    • 1 year ago
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