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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Plans to quench our thirst
By Mustafa Tolba *
In theory, there is enough fresh water on Earth to meet increasing human needs. In practice, this may not be the case.
Water problems pervade many of our environmental concerns. A number of estimates suggest that of all the globe's water, 94 per cent is salt water from the oceans and six per cent is fresh. Of the latter, about 27 per cent is in glaciers and 72 per cent is underground. Less than one per cent of the world's fresh water, therefore, is to be found in the atmosphere, rivers and streams, and lakes.
As both the world's population and usable water are unevenly distributed, the local availability of water varies widely. Much of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as parts of Central America and the western United States, are already short of water.
Demand for water varies greatly in different countries, depending on population and the prevailing level and pattern of socio-economic development. Marked differences exist between developed and developing countries. For example, average per capita domestic use of water in the United States is more than 70 times that in Ghana. Worldwide water use increased dramatically from about 1,360km3 in 1950 to 4,130km3 in 1990, and is expected to reach about 5,190km3 by 2000. That is more than 50 per cent of all available fresh water. Agriculture is the main drain on the water supply. Averaged globally, 69 per cent of water withdrawn is used in agriculture, 23 per cent in industry and eight per cent for domestic purposes.
About one third of the world's population lives in countries that are experiencing moderate-to-high water stress, partly resulting from increasing demands from a growing population and human activities. By 2025, as much as two thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions that will limit development, especially in poor societies.
When the world's total river flow is divided by the world population (as it stood in 1996), the quotient amounts to an average of 7,300m3 of water per person per year. This represents a drop of 37 per cent per person since 1970 as a result of population growth.
Water scarcity occurs when the amount of water withdrawn from lakes, rivers or ground water is so great that water supplies are no longer adequate to satisfy all human or ecosystem requirements, bringing about increased competition among potential demands. Scarcities are likely to occur sooner in regions where the per capita availability of water is low to start with, and with high population growth. They become more serious if per capita demand is growing due to changes in consumption patterns. All these elements are relevant to us here in Egypt.
The ratio of water withdrawal to water availability on an annual basis is used as a measure of stress. There are four categories of water stress based on the amount of available freshwater used.
1) Low water stress (countries that use less than 10 per cent of their available freshwater);
2) Moderate water stress (countries that use in the range of 10-20 per cent of available water);
3) Medium-high water stress (when water withdrawals are in the range of 20-40 per cent of the water available);
4) High water stress (countries that use more than 40 per cent of available water). Egypt falls in this category if we consider proven economically feasible water resources.
Some of the world's 300-odd major river basins and a number of major aquifers that cross national boundaries are in regions where serious water quality or quantity problems are or soon will be evident. A wide range of transboundary water agreements exist, dealing with rivers, lakes and other water bodies. While a number of these agreements refer to river basins, most of them deal with specific waterworks, water uses and measures to control and regulate water flows. A few deal with pollution or the environment at large.
The need for a comprehensive legal instrument for international water bodies has been voiced by several countries. A treaty on the non-navigational uses of international watercourses was adopted by the UN General Assembly and is now open for signature and ratification. This is going slowly, however. There is a real need for cooperation in the management of international and transboundary watercourses to maximise mutual benefits for all riparian countries and to minimise potential conflict. The next wars in some of the world's water stress regions, like the Middle East, will be over water: all the signs are there. In the Arab region, some of our major rivers are not only shared with others but originate outside the Arab world: Turkey for the Euphrates; Ethiopia and the Great Lakes District for the Nile.
Water has economic value, and should be considered an economic as well as a social good. Like any valuable commodity, water use has a cost in terms either of its development or of its forgone opportunities. The cost of using or misusing water does not disappear, but is paid by the user or the community at large, or through a depletion of existing natural capital. As water demands increase, it becomes more important to see that water is put to highly valued economic uses.
Many countries must begin or continue a shift from a situation in which the government is the provider of water services to one where it is the creator and regulator of an environment that allows communities, the private sector and non-governmental organisations to be involved in the provision of water supply and sanitation services as well as in the development and use of water in other sectors of the economy. Uganda is undergoing water reforms and is moving away from a centralised system to a system where communities will actively take part in decision-making and where choices of solutions to water service problems will relate to local affordability and needs.
As far as Egypt is concerned, I am using available data. As we all know, the main source of water in Egypt is the Nile. It supplies Egypt with about 97 per cent of its water needs. According to the 1959 Nile Agreement, Egypt's stable share has been 55.5 billion cubic metres per year. In addition to this amount, the annual extraction of water from ground water reservoirs in the Nile Valley and Delta, the Eastern and Western Deserts, and Sinai is of the order of 4.7 billion cubic metres, while water from desalination plants amounts to 19 million cubic metres. In other words, the total amount of water extracted for use in the different sectors was 60.2 billion cubic metres in 1996. Of this amount, 83.2 per cent was used for irrigation, 9.8 per cent was used by industry, 5.5 per cent was used in the domestic and commercial sector and the remaining 1.5 per cent for other purposes. In addition to these amounts of water extracted from natural resources, about 3.7 billion cubic metres of drainage water and 600 million cubic metres of treated domestic waste water were recycled, mainly for irrigation. The total demand for water use in Egypt is projected to reach 69 billion cubic metres this year, and 85 billion in 2025. In spite of the limited water supply in Egypt, 98 per cent of irrigation is carried out by archaic and inefficient methods; modern techniques are only applied on two per cent of cultivated land, mostly in newly reclaimed areas. From the water withdrawn for irrigation, up to 50 per cent is lost through seepage from canals during conveyance and distribution of water, and on farms as a result of poor irrigation practices. Most of this water finds its way down to the groundwater, raising the water table and creating water-logging and soil salinisation in many areas.
The over-exploitation of groundwater for irrigation has caused marked depletion of such water resources in parts of the Western Desert of Egypt, for example, in Kharga and Dakhla oases, and other reclaimed areas. Plans to use water of marginal quality in some areas of Egypt constitute a controversial issue. About 1.5 billion cubic metres of drainage water are used without dilution, unofficially, by farmers every year. The use of municipal waste water in irrigation has been practiced in Gabal Asfar near Cairo for more than 60 years. About 600 million cubic metres of treated municipal waste water has been used for irrigation every year since 1993. Other projects are underway in Abu Ruwash and Al-Saff. However, there are fears that this might create environmental and health problems, and such projects therefore require careful consideration by the authorities.
It is no exaggeration to say that projects involving water resources to meet the needs of our society and our economies in 2025 must be started or be at an advanced planning stage within the next few years. Many of the negative trends will take years to reverse, so it is imperative that actions to reverse them begin immediately.
* The writer is president of the International Centre for Environment and Development and former undersecretary-general of the United Nations Environment Programme.
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