Groundwater Resource Management Integrating Social and Technical Aspects

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Groundwater Resource ManagementIntegrating
Social and Technical Aspects

• B.R. Neupane
• Regional Prog. Specialist (SC Asia)
• UNESCO

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Session Description

• Divided in lecture (60 minutes) and discussions
• Theoretical module
• thus it provides less opportunity to convince
• However, provides room to indulge in
  discussions
• Cross-referencing
• Based on Modules introduction and general
  contexts on Planning, concept of demand
  management, valuing groundwater, gender and
  groundwater, etc.

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Session Objectives

• To distinguish and explain generic problems
  that underpins the issue of groundwater
  management or governance
• To highlight major social and technical
  components of groundwater management
• To propose a few outlines for integration
• To provide a set of take-home messages questions

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Mode

• Experience based discussions

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Discussion 1

• Management and Governance
• Are these words same?

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Distinction (?)

• Governance
• Structure of processes for decision making
• the source of authority
• Management
• Structure of processes for ensuring proper
  implementation of a decided action
• Execution of the duties

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Discussion 2 For Groundwater

• Is it
• Groundwater governance
• Or, is it
• Groundwater management
• What should we focus?

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Let us pick up a newspaper

• Any paper
• Scan the first three pages
• We will find something about water

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CRITICAL PROBLEMS

• Flood
• Droughts
• Famine
• Health hazard
• Competition
• Conflicts
• Groundwater depletion
• Etc.

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Problem noted are

• Less cooperative societies
• Not Enough Data
• Lack of use of New Technology
• Uncertain science
• Poor Coordination
• No Information Sharing
• Expert inputs poor
• Government irresponsible

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CENTRAL TENET

• Humans are changing the global systems in a
  globally-significant way
• without..
• adequate knowledge of the system and thus its
  response to change

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What is Global Change?
 Global Change is more than Global Climate
Change  It has natural PLUS human/social
dimensions A constellation of changes, many
global in domain For example, we see large
changes in
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• LOOMING CRISES
• And this crises is most felt in depleting and
  deteriorating water resources

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Some facts

• WWDR 2006 noted that water use has been growing
  at more than twice the rate of population
  increase during the 20th century.
• By 2025, 60 percent of the world population would
  be living in urban areas, which is going to pose
  an increasing pressure both on groundwater
  quantity and water quality

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Reality .

• Water insecurity to many is based on inadequate
  water of sufficient quantity and quality to meet
  domestic needs a precondition for effective
  primary health.
• Most countries still are lagging behind to
  achieve 2015 goal.
• 45 of the total population still lacks access to
  safe drinking water
• Agriculture is the mainstay of economy
• Growth in secondary and service sector also is
  suffering due to poor availability of water
• Most cities in suffer from water shortages.

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Reality

• Numerous waterrelated diseases plague
  communities in the developing world
• Some parts of the world now faces out migration
  from communities with scarce low quality drinking
  water (e.g. Nepal, Bangladesh).
• Agriculture based economies have suffered badly
• About 39 of entire world population live in
  poverty and depravity

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We are at risk!
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HEALTH

Every day, diarrhea diseases cause some 6,000
deaths, mostly among children under five
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FOOD Sufficiency
234 million people in Asia do not have access
to sufficient and adequate food
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Global Groundwater Overdraft Change in Cereal
Production from Baseline 2025
Source Rosegrant et al. 2002. World Water and
Food to 2025 Dealing with Scarcity
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Number of Malnourished Children by Region 1997
and 2025 Baseline
Source Rosegrant et al. 2005. Looking Ahead
Long-Term Prospects for Africas Food and
Nutrition Security (in press)
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RISKS

• There were 2,200 water-related disasters from
  1990 to 2001.
•  Floods 50

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Major floods and droughts worldwide in 2002
Korea
China
Germany
???
Austria
Czech
USA
Russia
China
France
Afghanistan
USA
Korea
Turkey
Mexico
Nepal
Senegal
Bangladesh
Haiti/ Jamaica
Philippines
India
Ethiopia
Vietnam
Ecuador
Sri Lanka
Indonesia
Kenya
Micronesia
Peru
Kenya
Bolivia
Uruguay
There is pressing need to develop advanced
risk management in order to secure human life and
ensure sustainable socio-economic development and
poverty alleviation.
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Let us see the global utilization of water

• Surface water development has almost peaked
• Pollution has dwindled surface water resources
• The ease of access and flexibility in tapping has
  made groundwater a very popular resource

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Groundwater as THE solution

• The increasing popularity of groundwater stem
  from various attractive features of it (or our
  understanding of it)
• It can be tapped almost everywhere (technology
  permitting)
• Local fix
• It is comparatively cleaner for consumption (the
  effect may not be visible immediately, viz.
  arsenic)
• Initial capital cost of extracting groundwater is
  still considered cheaper than the conventional
  treatment of surface water for consumption.

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Thus

• Groundwater is an extremely important natural
  resource as a primary source for agriculture,
  domestic, and industrial water supplies in many
  countries.
• In order to maintain the sustainable uses of
  groundwater resources, evaluations of changes in
  groundwater quantity and quality are necessary
  and important.

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Groundwater Resource of the world
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GW Use by sector (WWDR II)
South and West Asia Agriculture Southeast Asia
domestic East Asia Industrial
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So how is groundwater linked to society?

• Linked to a constellation of social issues
• State thus governance
• Community thus management
• Agriculture/industry/ water supply thus poverty
  and livelihood
• Partnership thus stakeholdership, gender issues

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Links of the MDGs to groundwater issues

• MDGs are not attainable if we dont exploit
  available groundwater

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Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Target 1 Poverty Halve, between 1990 and 2015,
  the proportion of people whose income is less
  than one dollar a day
• groundwater is a factor of production in
  agriculture, industry and other economic
  activities
• Target 2 Hunger Halve, between 1990 and 2015,
  the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
• groundwater is a direct input to irrigation for
  expanded grain production
• It aides to the reliable water for subsistence
  agriculture, home gardens, and livestock
• Reduced urban hunger due to cheaper food prices
• Healthy people are better able to absorb the
  nutrients in food than those suffering from
  water-related diseases, particularly worms

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Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education

• Target 3 Ensure that, by 2015, children
  everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to
  complete a full course of primary schooling
• Groundwater improves domestic water supply and
  lead to improved school attendance due to
  improved health and reduced water-carrying
  burdens, especially for girls
• Facilitates having separate sanitation facilities
  for girls and boys in schools increases girls
  school attendance

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Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower women

• Target 4 Eliminate gender disparity in primary
  and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and
  to all levels of education no later than 2015
• Reduced time, health, and care-giving burdens
  from improved water services give women more time
  for productive endeavors, adult education,
  empowerment activities, leisure
• Higher rates of child survival are a precursor to
  the demographic transition toward lower fertility
  rates having fewer children reduces womens
  reproductive responsibilities

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Goal 4 Goal Reduce child mortality

• Target 5 Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and
  2015, the under-five mortality rate
• Improved quantities and quality of domestic water
  and sanitation reduce main morbidity and
  mortality factor for young children
• Improved nutrition and food security reduces
  susceptibility to diseases

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Goal 5 Improve maternal health

• Target 6 Reduce by three quarters, between 1990
  and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
• Improved health and reduced labour burdens from
  water portage reduce mortality risks
• Improved health and nutrition reduce
  susceptibility to anaemia and other conditions
  that affect maternal mortality
• Sufficient quantities of clean water for washing
  pre-and-post birth cut down on life-threatening
  infections

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Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases

• Target 8 Have halted by 2015 and begun to
  reverse the incidence of malaria and other major
  diseases
• Aides better water management and reduces
  mosquito habitats
• reduces incidence of a range of other water-borne
  diseases
• Improved health and nutrition reduce
  susceptibility to/severity of HIV/AIDS and other
  major diseases

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Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability

• Target 9. Integrate the principles of
  sustainable development into country policies and
  programmes and reverse the loss of environmental
  resources
• Target 10. Halve by 2015 (ie in the time period
  1990 2015) the proportion of people without
  sustainable access to safe drinking water and
  basic sanitation
• Target 11. By 2020 to have achieved a
  significant improvement in the lives of at least
  100 million slum dwellers
• All of these are linked to groundwater

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Discussion 3

• IF groundwater utilization is indispensable for
  our development, then
• Who is the custodian of groundwater in our
  countries?
• Do you know who it is for your country?
• Are continents of Asia, Africa and Americas
  comparable??

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Technical Issue

• In the present times study of groundwater has
  become an interdisciplinary research
• Technical issues are needed manly for
• Creating better base for planning
• Hydrological assessments
• Selection of technologies for identification,
  development, sustainable utilization and, more
  recently, restoration
• Inevitable cost and benefit evaluation
• Understanding hydrological systems
• How water fits within the broader hydrological
  cycle
• Groundwater behavior when confined within the
  aquifers
• Understanding hydrogeological chemical systems
• How water behaves in the aquifers
• Fluctuation
• Dissolved Chemical processes
• Pollutions

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In essence

• It involves understanding hydrological cycle,
  climatological conditions, remote sensing,
  geomorphology, geological information and
  geophysical properties of groundwater.
• Knowledge of hydraulics and fluid dynamics for
  ground water assessment
• Understanding of the principles of engineering
  for groundwater exploitation.
• Comprehensive knowledge of physics and
  mathematics for developing flow models and
  understanding solute and mass transport.
• Groundwater quality studies involves a thorough
  knowledge of Chemistry
• Study of sociology and economics for assessing
  the socio-economic impact on people in the
  presence of too little or excess of water
• Political science and economics for tackling
  issues related to water governance and
  sustainable development.

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New technique as solutions?

• Modeling rainfall-runoff, aquifer,ecosystem and
  catchment models.
• Process models, hydroecological models and
  management models backed up by decision support
  systems and expert systems.
• Stochastic and deterministic models (both complex
  as well as (simple lumped and black-box models to
  very sophisticated physically-based models)
• Surface-soil-vegetation-atmosphere interface
  Model
• Satellite data (GEOSS)

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Discussion 4

• Do you think robust technology gives us a better
  edge in governing or managing groundwater?
• What is happening in Kenya or Nigeria?

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let us note!!!

• Studies have demonstrated that the sophistication
  and likeness to reality of a model are no guide
  to its predictive success (Naef,1981).
• Problem of scale exists as the results of a
  limited experiment carried out over distances of
  tens of meters have to be extrapolated to
  kilometres by modeling. Or vice-versa!!
• Sprinkling of algebraic symbols is not a
  solution!!

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VIGILANCE OF THE RESOURCE IN DECLINE -
WMO Global Runoff Data Center Archives
Best global coverage 20-25 years ago

• Data Bank Closure
• -- Commercialization of data
• -- Legislative challenges/IP rights
• Network loss
• Delays in data reduction/reporting
• Worst in developing world

Vörösmarty 2002a
Additional records certainly exist (e.g.
national collections) --but currently
unconsolidated often in difficult-to-use,
non-digital formats dedicated global archive
is in decline
Vörösmarty 2002b
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Is this enough?
Distribution of Hydrological Network
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State of our Coping mechanisms(some examples)

• Most countries do not make distinction between
  surface and groundwater when making policies or
  taking decisions (poor judgment)
• Most countries have not constituted apex
  institution dealing with groundwater issues.
  (Institutional weaknesses)
• IWRM is still a surface water based instrument
  (based on the countries submission to WSSD)
• In most cases, some guidelines exist but are
  hardly enforced (implementation weaknesses)
• A recent survey of school teachers established
  groundwater as the most misunderstood resource
  (capacity building needs is at all level)
• data rich knowledge poor situation.
• Poor regional cooperation shared aquifers?

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Perceived Solution

• Groundwater resource management requires the
  integration of the key hydro geological and
  socioeconomic elements that determine and control
  the interaction between water or land use and the
  groundwater systems
• Most easy statement to read
• Most difficult to operationalize

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MUCH STILL REMAINS TO BE DONE

• There is a need for better assessment
• There is a need to forge wider and better
  partnerships
• There is a need to advance science of groundwater
  and be responsible to make that science matter to
  people and resources.
• There is a need to find common platform

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Integration of social and technical issues is
thus needed for

• Improved policy planning
• Better understanding of resource
• Increasing participation
• Better design of regulation and their enforcement
• Work out a better financing mechanism

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A possible framework

• May work!

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HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE
Groundwater
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How will you apply it?

• It is country specific
• Based on the level of sophistication reached in
  social and technical understanding vis-à-vis
  groundwater

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PERTINENT QUESTIONS

• How much have we advanced our awareness of
  groundwater resources?
• How can we make this resource as part of the
  global water-system?
• How can we quickly collect information with
  little effort to generate required responses?
• In what directions should we go to further
  advance the awareness of people?

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The challenge we all have

• How to put water in the mindsof people?
• How will you do it?

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UNESCO Water Portalhttp//www.unesco.org/water
Thank you