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NEWS FROM THE WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE
From the Office of the Chairman
Worldwatch Issue Alert
Alert 2000 - 4
Embargoed for Release
6 PM, June 21, 2000
POPULATION GROWTH SENTENCING MILLIONS
TO HYDROLOGICAL
POVERTY
Lester R. Brown
At a time when drought in the United
States, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan is in
the news, it is easy to forget that
far more serious water shortages are
emerging as the demand for water in
many countries simply outruns the supply.
Water tables are now falling on
every continent. Literally scores of countries
are facing water shortages
as water tables fall and wells go dry.
We live in a
water-challenged world, one that is becoming more so each year
as 80
million additional people stake their claims to the Earth's water
resources. Unfortunately, nearly all the projected 3 billion people to be
added
over the next half century will be born in countries that are already
experiencing water shortages. Even now many in these countries lack enough
water
to drink, to satisfy hygienic needs, and to produce food.
By 2050, India is projected to add 519 million people
and China 211 million.
Pakistan is projected to add nearly 200 million,
going from 151 million at
present to 348 million. Egypt, Iran, and Mexico
are slated to increase their
populations by more than half by 2050. In
these and other water-short countries,
population growth is sentencing
millions of people to hydrological poverty, a
local form of poverty that is
difficult to escape.
Even with today's 6 billion people,
the world has a huge water deficit.
Using data on overpumping for China,
India, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, and the
United States, Sandra Postel,
author of Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation
Miracle Last?, calculates the
annual depletion of aquifers at 160 billion cubic
meters or 160 billion
tons. Using the rule of thumb that it takes 1,000 tons of
water to produce
1 ton of grain, this 160-billion-ton water deficit is equal to
160 million
tons of grain or one half the U.S. grain harvest.
At
average world grain consumption of just over 300 kilograms or one third
of
a ton per person per year, this would feed 480 million people. Stated
otherwise, 480 million of the world's 6 billion people are being fed with
grain
produced with the unsustainable use of water.
Overpumping is a new phenomenon, one largely confined to the last half
century. Only since the development of powerful diesel and electrically
driven
pumps have we had the capacity to pull water out of aquifers faster
than it is
replaced by precipitation.
Some 70
percent of the water consumed worldwide, including both that
diverted from
rivers and that pumped from underground, is used for irrigation,
while some
20 percent is used by industry, and 10 percent for residential
purposes. In
the increasingly intense competition for water among sectors,
agriculture
almost always loses. The 1,000 tons of water used in India to
produce 1 ton
of wheat worth perhaps $200 can also be used to expand industrial
output by
easily $10,000, or 50 times as much. This ratio helps explain why, in
the
American West, the sale of irrigation water rights by farmers to cities is
an almost daily occurrence.
In addition to
population growth, urbanization and industrialization also
expand the
demand for water. As developing country villagers, traditionally
reliant on
the village well, move to urban high-rise apartment buildings with
indoor
plumbing, their residential water use can easily triple.
Industrialization
takes even more water than urbanization.
Rising
affluence in itself generates additional demand for water. As people
move
up the food chain, consuming more beef, pork, poultry, eggs, and dairy
products, they use more grain. A U.S. diet rich in livestock products
requires
800 kilograms of grain per person a year, whereas diets in India,
dominated by a
starchy food staple such as rice, typically need only 200
kilograms. Using four
times as much grain per person means using four times
as much water.
Once a localized phenomenon, water
scarcity is now crossing national borders
via the international grain
trade. The world's fastest growing grain import
market is North Africa and
the Middle East, an area that includes Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, Libya,
Egypt, and the Middle East through Iran. Virtually
every country in this
region is simultaneously experiencing water shortages and
rapid population
growth.
As the demand for water in the region's cities
and industries increases, it
is typically satisfied by diverting water from
irrigation. The loss in food
production capacity is then offset by
importing grain from abroad. Since 1 ton
of grain represents 1,000 tons of
water, this becomes the most efficient way to
import water.
Last year, Iran imported 7 million tons of wheat,
eclipsing Japan to become
the world's leading wheat importer. This year,
Egypt is also projected to move
ahead of Japan. Iran and Egypt have nearly
70 million people each. Both
populations are increasing by more than a
million a year and both are pressing
against the limits of their water
supplies.
The water required to produce the grain and
other foodstuffs imported into
North Africa and the Middle East last year
was roughly equal to the annual flow
of the Nile River. Stated otherwise,
the fast-growing water deficit of this
region is equal to another Nile
flowing into the region in the form of imported
grain.
It is now often said that future wars in the region will
more likely be
fought over water than oil. Perhaps, but given the
difficulty in winning a water
war, the competition for water seems more
likely to take place in world grain
markets. The countries that will "win"
in this competition will be those that
are financially strongest, not those
that are militarily strongest.
The world water deficit
grows larger with each year, making it potentially
more difficult to
manage. If we decided abruptly to stabilize water tables
everywhere by
simply pumping less water, the world grain harvest would fall by
some 160
million tons, or 8 percent, and grain prices would go off the top of
the
chart. If the deficit continues to widen, the eventual adjustment will be
even greater.
Unless governments in water-short
countries act quickly to stabilize
population and to raise water
productivity, their water shortages may soon
become food shortages. The
risk is that the growing number of water-short
countries, including
population giants China and India, with rising grain import
needs will
overwhelm the exportable supply in food surplus countries, such as
the
United States, Canada, and Australia. This in turn could destabilize world
grain markets.
Another risk of delay in dealing with
the deficit is that some low-income,
water-short countries will not be able
to afford to import needed grain,
trapping millions of their people in
hydrological poverty, thirsty and hungry,
unable to escape.
Although there are still some opportunities for
developing new water
resources, restoring the balance between water use and
the sustainable supply
will depend primarily on demand-side initiatives,
such as stabilizing population
and raising water productivity.
Governments can no longer separate population policy
from the supply of
water. And just as the world turned to raising land
productivity a half century
ago when the frontiers of agricultural
settlement disappeared, so it must now
turn to raising water productivity.
The first step toward this goal is to
eliminate the water subsidies that
foster inefficiency. The second step is to
raise the price of water to
reflect its cost. Shifting to more water-efficient
technologies, more
water-efficient crops, and more water-efficient forms of
animal protein
offer a huge potential for raising water productivity. These
shifts will
move faster if the price of water more closely reflects its value.
Copyright 2000 Worldwatch Institute
For additional data and information, see
www.worldwatch.org/chairman/
CONTACT: Reah Janise Kauffman
Worldwatch Institute
1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036-1904
PHONE: (202)
452-1992 x 514
FAX: (202) 296-7365
EMAIL: rjkauffman@worldwatch.org
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