Transcript Water Matters

Global Perspectives on Quantity,
Quality, Availability, and Equity
Darrin Magee
Hobart & William Smith Colleges
Environmental Studies Program
Priming the Pump
 What do we know about water?
 What do our students know?
 How do we know what we know?
 How do our students know what they know?
 What do we teach? Why?
 How do we make water matter?
IMAGE CREDIT: ADAM NIEMAN / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
www: world wide water
 70% of Earth’s surface
 +ground
 +atmosphere
 97% is saline
 Usage differential
 Kenya: 3 gal/day
 UK: 30 gal/day
 Canada/US: 150 gal/day
Source: US Geological Survey, http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/waterdistribution.html
Myth of the Water Cycle
 What’s missing?
 Time
 Space
 Extraction and recharge
 Rates differ widely
 Competing uses
 “Fossil” water
 Centuries to recharge
 Hours to extract
Source: US Geological Survey, http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html
Worldwide Water Use
8
Farming
22
Industry
70
Individuals
 6 countries=1/2 the water
 Brazil
 Canada
 China
 Columbia
 Indonesia
 Russia
Source: Canadian International Development Agency,
http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/CIDAWEB/acdicida.nsf/En/REN-218125537-Q2B
Regional Perspective: China
 South-North Water Transfer
 48 km3/year from Yellow to Yangtze


Three diversion channels
Equivalent to a new Yellow River
 North (Yellow River basin)

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Dropping water tables
Heavy use by farms, industry, and cities
 South (Yangtze River basin)

Annual flooding from monsoons
 China on average not water-poor

Time and place matter!
Source: Pacific Environment,
http://www.pacificenvironment.org/article.php?id=2418
How and why of water quality
 Why water quality matters
 Environmental health
 Human health
 Industrial & agricultural needs

Crop sensitivity, tourism, toxicity
 Measuring water quality
 pH, oxygen demand, color, dissolved chemicals, etc.
 Turbidity (cloudiness)
 Suspended solids
 Point-source vs non-point-source pollution
Natural factors
 Weathering
 Increases water hardness (dissolved minerals)
 Salinization
 Saline intrusion into surface and groundwater
 Erosion of salts from river channel
 Algal blooms and associated toxins
 Bioaccumulation
 Entry of a toxin into the food web
 Biomagnification (bioamplification)
 Increase in concentration of a toxin within the food web
Human factors
 Sewage effluent
 Most enters waterways without treatment
 Combined systems can overflow during storm events
 Industrial pollution
 Wastewater discharge, atmospheric deposition
 Thermal pollution (e.g. cooling, power plants), leachate
 Agriculture
 Pesticide and fertilizer runoff
 Feedlots, manure spreading, CAFOs
 Effectiveness (and use!) of treatment varies widely
Disease and Illness
 Water as a home (at least part-time) for disease agents
 Diarrheal illnesses (cholera, dysentery, giardia)
 Water as a home for disease vectors
 Malaria, Japanese encephalitis (Mosquitoes)
 Schistosomiasis (Snails)
 Hepatitis A
 Dracunculiasis (Guinea worm)
 Water as a solvent for toxins
 Arsenic, selenium
World Health Organization WSH Program,
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/en/
Image: Stanford University
Mapping water-related illnesses
Fluorosis,
Cholera,
Hepatitis,
Onchocerciasis
Arsenicosis,
Dysentery,
Hep A,
Typhoid
Arsenicosis,
Cholera,
Dengue,
Hepatitis,
Onchocerciasis
Giardiasis,
Salmonella
Dysentery,
Malaria,
Cholera
Cholera,
Dengue,
Hepatitis,
Onchocerciasis
Guinea worm,
Schisto,
Malaria,
Cholera
“Whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting over”
Mark Twain
PHOTO CREDIT: DARRIN MAGEE
Dams
 Making water, stopping
waste, controlling rivers
 Benefits
 Flood control
 Power generation
 Irrigation
 Recreation
 Problems?
 Ecosystem disruption
 Human displacement
Aswan High Dam (Egypt)
Image: NASA
Different types of scarcity
 Physical abundance
may not equate to
high levels of
consumption
 Economic scarcity
may result from
limited human,
financial, or
technical means to
obtain water
Is water a commodity or human right?
Privatization of water
 Attractive option for cash-strapped governments
 Cities, states, countries worldwide face huge need for
investment in water infrastructure
 Examples in Global South and North, MDCs and LDCs;
many have failed and/or resulted in increased debt and
increased prices to consumers (standpipes vs meters)
 Both ends: drinking water and waste water
 Advantages of privatization? Disadvantages?
 Capital, expertise, profit motivation, market efficiency
 Public oversight, greater attention to equity
Private vs public control
 Commodification
 Of services



Capture (dams and reservoirs)
Treatment (drinking water and waste water)
Provision (pipes and meters)
 Of water itself



French springs
Atlanta taps
Canadian lakes
Water Footprints of Nations
Source: Hoekstra and Chapagain 2005
Making Water Matter
 Embodied Water
 Cotton T-shirt
 Cup of coffee
 Fast food meal
 Microchip
 Sheet of paper
 Pair of shoes
 Water Footprint
 www.waterfootprint.org
 How much?
 700 gallons
 74 gallons
 750 gallons
 10 gallons
 3 gallons
 2000 gallons
Making Water Matter
 Primary Uses
 Secondary Uses
 Drinking
 Food
 Laundry
 Manufactured goods
 Flushing
 Showering, hygiene
 Lawns
 Every Bottle a Teaching Moment
 Evian: $8/gal = cool and vaguely European (or Atlantan)
 Gasoline: $8/gal = riots in the street
A taste of what’s coming today and tomorrow (and what’s not)
Middle East
 Disparities in access
 Fluoride deposits, high
salinity
 High groundwater
extraction rates
 Transboundary rivers,
development pressures
 How safe are our
conflict/cooperation
assumptions?
India/South Asia
 Greatest population and highest rates of urbanization
 Naturally-occurring groundwater contamination
 Human-induced pollution widespread and severe
 Potential for transboundary tensions (esp. China)
 Water as divinity: Yamuna the goddess river
 She is a goddess, therefore we must protect/heal her
 She is a goddess, therefore impervious to harm by
humans
Western Europe
 Longstanding treaties, but




development often
haphazard, unilateral
“Improvements”, dumping
decimated salmon by 1930s
Industrial Revolution
damage great, recovery slow
Setback in late 1980s
Principal pollution loads
now from farm runoff
Map credit: UNESCO
China/Mainland Southeast Asia
 High population densities and rates of urbanization
 Widespread declines in quality
 Regional disparities in availability and access
 Climate change impacts on the Water Tower of Asia
 Short term: increased volumes, flooding
 Long term: decreased glacial melt and runoff
 Transboundary river tensions: development, flooding
Central Asia
 Aral Sea
 Wrong crops
 Wrong place
 Wrong methods
 Lessons?
 Transboundary rivers,
aridity, management
void in post-USSR
 Amu Darya
 Syr Darya
Image: NASA
North America
 Columbia River Treaty
 United States calling the
shots from…downstream?
 How long is that treaty going
to last, anyway?
 Colorado River Compact
 1922: What boundary?!?
 1944: Oh yeah, Mexico!
 2009: Nevada wants what?
 14 minus 17 equals bad news
 Prolonged drought/GCC?
http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/changes/natural/codrought/
Latin America
 Amazon (Brazil, Peru,
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador,
Suriname, Guyana)
 World’s largest watershed
 Development could increase
transboundary tensions
 Significant indigenous
populations, endemic species
 Guarani aquifer (Argentina,
Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay)
 Few precedents for joint
management of groundwater
 Protection is much cheaper
than remediation
Big Questions
 How much is there?
 Where is it and how do we get it?
 How much do humans need? Natural systems?
 Is water a right or a privilege?
 What about clean, fresh water?
 What about water-related services and goods?
 How do boundaries matter?
 Where is there potential for transboundary conflict?
 What about global climate change?
 What are possible impacts on water resources?
Photo: Darrin Magee
Themes
 Quantity, Quality, Availability, Equity
 Sustainability
 Of what, for what, for whom, by whom?
 Security
 Pros and cons of thinking of water in security terms
 Nature of our relationship with water
 Drowning man vs marathon swimmer
 Risk management vs precautionary approach
Millennium Development Goals
 Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
 Target 7.c: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people
without sustainable access to safe drinking water and
basic sanitation


Proportion of population using an improved drinking water
source
Proportion of population using an improved sanitation
facility
 Recognize the glimmers of hope and good news
 Playpumps, A Child’s Right, MDG Progress, community
engagement and success stories
Critical thinking: living with gray
 Politicians and fifth-graders live in a black-and-white
world of simple binaries (e.g., good and bad);
oversimplified binaries replicated through media
 Students need to know that gray areas and uncertainty
are acceptable and natural, recognizing that often we
have to act and make important decisions with
incomplete information
 How can we use water to teach students broader
critical thinking skills that will make their learning
more productive and our teaching more satisfying?