ENVIRONMENT: Lack of Water Becomes Loss of Wealth

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Dec 11 2002 (IPS) - Wealthy nations will soon have to start producing food for other nations rather than buying from them to preserve a water balance, a leading expert told IPS Wednesday.

William Cosgrove, vice-president of the World Water Council said just before the release of a major new study correlating water shortage with poverty that in buying food from other places, countries such as the U.S. and Canada "are really purchasing a water resource."

Export of food grown often with use of scarce water resources means "a lot of water is being moved around the planet," Cosgrove said. "These wealthy nations will soon be called upon to produce more food with their water resources for other countries, so they will have to learn to use water better."

The new Water Poverty Index (WPI) in the report establishes a clear link between water scarcity and poverty. "That is what our instincts have always told us, but this is the first time that link has been established and analysed," Cosgrove said.

The Water Poverty Index was developed by a team of 31 researchers in consultation with more than 100 water professionals from around the world. The researchers were from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Britain and from the World Water Council.

The top 10 water-rich nations in the world are: Finland, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Guyana, Surinam, Austria, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland. The 10 countries lowest on the WPI are all in the developing world – Haiti (the lowest), Niger, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Malawi, Djibouti, Chad, Benin, Rwanda, and Burundi.

"The links between poverty, social deprivation, environmental integrity, water availability and health becomes clearer in the WPI, enabling policy makers and stakeholders to identify where problems exist and the appropriate measures to deal with their causes," says Caroline Sullivan, who led an interdisciplinary team to develop the WPI concept at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.

The link between poverty and water shortage established by the report will be presented as a prime subject at the 3rd World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan, in March. About 10,000 government officials, representatives of international and non-governmental organisations, industry and water experts will discuss the world water crisis and its solutions at the forum.

"The international Water Poverty Index demonstrates that it is not the amount of water resources available that determine poverty levels in a country, but the effectiveness of how you use those resources," says Dr. Sullivan. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and have more or less the same amount of water, but Haiti ranks last at 147th while the Dominican Republic ranks 64th.

The report establishes that some of the world’s richest nations such as the United States and Japan fare poorly in water ranking, while some developing countries score in the top ten. In order to show where the best and worst water situations exist, the report grades 147 countries according to five measures – resources, access, capacity, use and environmental impact.

Following is a global snapshot on each of the five counts:

Capacity: This defines the ability to purchase, manage and lobby for improved water, education and health. The top five here are Iceland, Ireland, Spain, Japan and Austria. These countries have high incomes and healthy and well-educated populations. The bottom five are Sierra Leone, Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and the Central African Republic. Besides being among the world’s poorest, these countries also suffer from inadequate health and education provision.

Resources: These measure the per capita volume of surface and groundwater resources that can be drawn upon. The top five are Iceland, Surinam, Guyana, Congo and Papua New Guinea. The bottom five are United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. The top countries have abundant resources, and small populations in relation to the resources. The bottom countries are all in desert areas but despite the scarcity of water, Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are in the top 50 per cent as measured by the WPI, reflecting their ability to overcome shortages through effective management and use.

Access: This measures a country’s ability to access water for drinking, industry and agricultural use. The 21 countries with very high scores are Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States. The lowest five are Eritrea, Chad, Ethiopia, Malawi and Rwanda.

Use: This measures how efficiently a country uses water for domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes. The lowest ranking country is the United States, because of wasteful or inefficient water use practices. The U.S. also has high per capita domestic water use, and high volumes of water are used per dollar of industrial production. Also in the bottom five are Djibouti, New Zealand, Cape Verde and Italy. The top five countries are Turkmenistan, Indonesia, Guyana, Sudan and Equatorial Guinea. They are relatively efficient in terms of the amount of water used, compared to revenue generated by that use.

Environment: This measures ecological sustainability, looking at water quality, environmental strategies and regulation, and numbers of endangered species. The top five countries in this category are Finland, Canada, United Kingdom, Norway and Austria. The U.S. is number six. The bottom five are Haiti, Morocco, Mauritius, Jordan and Belgium.

The situation in large Asian countries varies a great deal. While China, with its huge population, scores quite well on capacity, and moderately on use, its scores on resource, access and the environment are all low. In India, a very low resource per capita score is counteracted by a relatively high score for use and capacity, but access and the environmental components are weak.

Canada will be a key player in moves to redress what Cosgrove calls the "virtual" movement of water through foodstuffs. "Canada has nine per cent of all the world’s fresh water, so that it can serve as a model of what a water-rich, wealthy country can do," he says.

Experts say that 20 per cent of the world’s population in 30 countries faced water shortages in the year 2000, a figure that will rise to 30 per cent in 50 countries by 2025. They have warned that unless action is stepped up, the number of people living under threat of water scarcity will increase to 2.3 billion by 2025.

"Because the WPI includes indicators of health and of water quality, it can be used to address the link between lack of water access and ill health," says Dr. Sullivan. According to the WHO (World Health Organisation), diarrheal diseases alone account for more than three million deaths per year, and give rise to one billion incidences of illness, many of which involve loss of capacity to work. Every year, more than five million people die from some kind of water related disease, and more than three billion incidence of disease occur.

An estimated one half of people in developing countries are suffering from diseases caused either directly by infection through the consumption of contaminated water or food, or indirectly by disease-carrying organisms (vectors), such as mosquitoes, that breed in water.

"The WPI is work still in progress," says Dr. Sullivan. "It is not a definitive statement. The country rankings are not by any means the most important aspect of the WPI. It has been designed ultimately as a tool for monitoring progress, mainly at the community or district level."