Global Water issues

1
Global Water issues

• Both Quantity and Quality
• Source WRI-Global Trends

2
How can water affect sustainable development?

• Unhealthy population has low productivity
• Costs of disease and health care
• Source of fish and other foods/products
• Time consumed in getting water
• Irrigation but need sufficient quantity and
  irrigation may preclude other uses for rural
  and urban populations
• Payments for environmental services

3
Freshwater Ecosystems

• Freshwater ecosystems -- Some 34 percent of fish
  species, mostly fresh water, are threatened with
  extinction (IUCN)
• Freshwater ecosystems have lost a greater
  proportion of their species and habitat than
  those on land or in oceans
• More than 40 percent of the world's fish species
  and some 12 percent of animal species reside in
  freshwater habitats
• 6 percent of the world's fish catch, 7 million
  mtons per year, come from rivers and lakes, as
  well as the world's irrigation water.
• Rivers and lakes are also crucial as
  transportation and shipping routes, as power
  sources, and, as waste sinks

4
Freshwater Ecosystems (cont.)

• Since 1970, when Egypt's Aswan Dam came into
  operation, the number of commercially harvested
  fish species on the Nile dropped by almost two
  thirds, and the sardine catch in the
  Mediterranean has fallen by more than 80 percent
• In 1950, there were 5,270 large dams today,
  there are more than 36,500
• the number of waterways altered for navigation
  has grown from fewer than 9,000 in 1900 to almost
  500,000 today
• Industrial discharges and agricultural and urban
  runoff are pervasive stresses

5
Water consumption

• Global water consumption rose sixfold between
  1900 and 1995 -- more than double the rate of
  population growth -- and continues to grow
• Agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of
  water consumption worldwide, and the United
  Nations projects a 50- to 100-percent increase in
  irrigation water by 2025
• In developing countries, for example, 60 to 75
  percent of irrigation water never reaches the
  crop and is lost to evaporation or runoff
• Although the use of water-efficient drip
  irrigation has increased 28-fold since the
  mid-1970s, it is still employed in less than 1
  percent of the world's irrigated areas

6
Water Related Diseases in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America

7
Proportion of Preventable Water Related Diseases
in East Africa
8
Development issues/water

• Delivering clean water
• Removing wastewater
• Sanitation
• Water as a productive resource
• How do we manage water equitably and across
  international borders
• Water scarcity is not so much an issue as are
  power, poverty and inequality
• distribution

9
Case 1 - India

• Problem with rural sewage collection wastes
  left in open and not collected
• Less than 2 of population has sewage facilities
• Resources, training and administration are
  limitations

10
India - solutions

• Low cost, low technology, easy maintenance
• Pit latrines and simple bucket systems
• Piping wastes into underground pot where they
  break down
• Parallel education program

11
Bangkok, Thailand

• Fast growing city
• Human wastes
• Sewage sludge even when waste treated is a
  problem
• 172 tons of sludge a day from water treatment and
  night soil (human waste)

12
Bangkok - solutions

• Options
• Agricultural use good fertilizer
• Land reclamation and landfill
• Incineration
• Recycling and re-use
• Agricultural and Incineration chosen
• Cement kiln and drying ovens

13
Tanzania, Dar Es Salam

• Old sewage system
• Pit latrines poorly maintained
• Sewage collected channeled to the ocean without
  treatment
• High coliform count around beaches where people
  play and live

14
Tanzania - solutions

• Waste stabilization ponds were adopted
• 9 set up in Dar Es Salam
• Others in small municipalities
• Pulp and paper mills also adopted practice
• Remove up to 70 of biological oxygen demand
• Simple and do not require highly skilled
  operators, but
• still have a problem with fecal coliform