Water Poverty of Nations: Its Causes and Remedies

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Water Poverty of NationsIts Causes and Remedies

• Tushaar Shah

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Intensification of Water Scarcity has been the
defining dimension of Global Water Challenge..

• Notions of Water Scarcity
• IWMI-absolute and economic water scarcity
• Malin Falkenmark- demographic water scarcity
• Tony Turton
• First orderPhysical water scarcity
• Second order Scarcity of Social adaptive
  capacity
• WolfeBrooks
• First order Physical Water Scarcity
• Second order Scarcity of Capacity for efficient
  resource management
• Third order Capacity for social, cultural,
  political adaptation

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Alternative Water Futures..

• IWMI Water Scarcity Map
• Cosgrove Rijsberman, WWV scenarios BAU, Water
  Crisis, Sustainable Mgt
• Rosegrant Co Water Food to 2025
• Consequences of Business as Usual or crisis
  scenario
• Growing food, water and livelihood insecurity
• Lack of capacity to fight droughts, climate
  change
• Environmental degradation- groundwater depletion,
  river desiccation, destruction of wetlands, water
  quality deterioration
• All-round misery
• Challenge for India From Global to Local
• Operational implications?
• Mechanics of intervention
• How to ensure adequate access to water in
  domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors and
  still leave enough for ecological services?
• A new global Water Poverty Index built by
  scientists at the University of Keel and
  Wallingford provides relative standing of 147
  countries according to their water poverty.

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The Water Poverty Index ranks India (WPI53.2)
47th from the bottom, and China 43rd (WPI41.1)
from the bottom out of 147 countries. Haiti,
Malawi, Eritrea, Niger and Ethiopia are the
water-poorest countries of the world Guyana,
Norway, Iceland, Canada and Finland are the water
richest.
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Structure of Water Poverty Index
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Critique

• Questions about whether all the components belong
  to the WPI and whether they should have the same
  weight
• The Index of Access is the true index of
  water poverty. No reason why capacity indices
  belong in WPI, or even use and resource
  components do.
• WPI is a much better index of the effectiveness
  of overall national water resource management
  structures, institutions and policies.
• Even so, the WPI is a sterling contribution,
  because
• It prevents us from making sweeping statements
  about a country based on events in a small region
  (groundwater depletion in India based on Mehsana
  or Canadas water problems based on Ontario)
• It offers a compilation of global data set to
  researchers
• Above all, the WPI helps us assess the veracity
  of some common assumptions that have driven the
  global debate on water, i.e
• what is the relationship between water scarcity
  and water poverty of nations?
• What factors determine water poverty of a nation?
• What is the relationship between water
  environment and water scarcity?

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In sum, alleviating water poverty has little to
do with water per se, and all to do with the
wealth creating capacity of a nation.

• In the long run, overcoming water poverty is
  about creating water welfare by enhancing
  space, time and form utilities in managing its
  water resources.
• It is about making institutional, technical and
  policy interventions appropriate to our overall
  evolutionary context.
• Many interventions that work in a society earning
  US 3000 ppp per capita are unlikely to work in
  another with average earning of US 500 per
  capita. The latter will have a need pull, even
  a want pull but not a demand pull. Piped
  water supply schemes do not work because of the
  lack of demand pull.
• Resource productivity improvement in specific
  sectors is often a result , rather than a cause
  of economic progress.

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Implications

• Physical or absolute water scarcity is but a
  minor deterrent to a countrys water welfare in
  the long run.
• Social adaptive capacity seems unlikely to
  explain low water poverty of scarce-water
  countries high GNP does. Social adaptive
  capacity to water scarcity is much higher in
  India than in America, in Bangladesh than in
  Britain. Indeed, the whole point of progress is
  not having to adapt to unpleasant realities like
  water scarcity.
• Poverty being multi-dimensional is bunkum poor
  are deprived in multiple ways rich are income
  rich.
• Income-rich are seldom water poor, and
  vice-versa. Overall socio-economic progress is
  the key adjustment variable
• Limits to Leapfrogging Low HDI countries
  trying out High HDI country water strategies must
  fall flat on their face
• Soft and Hard water paths of economic
  development
• At 4.8 growth rate, Indias per cap GDP will be
  US 1450 in 2025 according to Planning
  Commissions vision statement, it will be over
  3600 by 2020 if true, this will help more to
  overcome Indias water poverty than water sector
  interventions
• India, which derives 55 of its GDP from the
  services sector has a big opportunity for Green
  Growth compared to China whose GDP growth depends
  critically on manufacturing.

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Thank you.