UN and Water

 March 2004

• SG's Message On World Day for Water

• FAO and Water Management

• ADB holds National Media Workshops on Water Issues

• UNESCO project: Land-use change, watershed services and socio-economic impact in the Western Ghats region

• UNESCO pilot project on analyses of geochemical contamination of groundwater

• Multimedia CD on augmentation of groundwater recharge through artificial recharge (AGRAR)

World Day for Water 22 March 2004  

Modern society has distinct advantages over those civilizations of the past that suffered or even collapsed for reasons linked to water. We have great knowledge, and the capacity to disperse that knowledge to the remotest places on earth. We are also the beneficiaries of scientific leaps that have improved weather forecasting, agricultural practices, natural resources management, and disaster prevention, preparedness and management. New technologies will continue to provide the backbone of our efforts. But only a rational and informed political, social and cultural response — and public participation in all stages of the disaster management cycle — can reduce disaster vulnerability, and ensure that hazards do not turn into unmanageable disasters.

This year's observance of World Water Day also marks the publication of Guidelines for reducing flood losses. A manual and menu of options for decision-makers, the guidelines are a joint effort of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the National Weather Service of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the World Meteorological Organization, with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. They are also meant to contribute to the discussions at the next World Conference on Disaster Reduction to be held at Kobe-Hyogo, Japan in January 2005. I commend them to all interested actors.

Beyond water-related disaster reduction issues, the international community has taken other steps to face global water problems. In the year 2000, Heads of State pledged to stop the unsustainable exploitation of water resources by developing water management strategies that promote equitable access and adequate supplies. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, world leaders agreed to develop integrated water resources management and water efficiency plans by 2005.

The international response to current world water challenges contains much admirable effort, but for the most part it has been inadequate. If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving, by 2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water, we will need to make 270,000 new water connections per day. The requirements for meeting the sanitation goal are even more formidable. This is not to demean the dedicated efforts being made by a number of governments and thousands of civil society groups, but rather to demonstrate the urgent need to go beyond business as usual.

With that in mind, I have decided to establish an Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation. To be chaired by Former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, the Board will also include a wide range of eminent persons, technical experts, and other individuals with proven experience in inspiring people, moving the machinery of government, and working with the media, the private sector and civil society. I have asked the Board to use the unique expertise of its members to raise awareness of water and sanitation issues, to help mobilize funds for water and sanitation projects, and to encourage new partnerships.

Water is central to our hopes of eradicating poverty and achieving sustainable development. On World Water day, let us renew our efforts to give water issues the attention they deserve, now and over the long term."

FAO and Water Management 2

Over the last half-century, significant productivity gains in agriculture have protected the world from devastating food shortages and the threat of mass starvation. Water management, in both rain-fed and irrigated agriculture, was instrumental in achieving those gains. A key component in Green Revolution technologies based on fertilizer application and the use of high yield varieties, improved water management helped boost productivity - or output of "crops per drop" - by an estimated 100% since 1960.

The next 30 years will throw up new challenges. As world population grows - to an estimated 8,300 million in 2030 - agriculture must respond to changing patterns of demand for food, combat food insecurity and poverty in rural areas, and compete for scarce water with other users. To meet those multiple demands, according to FAO, agriculture policies will need to unlock the potential of water management practices to raise productivity, promote equitable access to water and conserve the resource base. It proposes a strategy to "re-invent" water management in the agriculture sector, based on modernization of irrigation infrastructure and institutions, the full participation of water users in the distribution of costs and benefits, and the revival of flagging investment in key areas of the agricultural production chain.

Water for crops. The water needs of humans and animals are relatively small - the average human drinks about four litres a day. But producing the same person's daily food can take up to 5,000 litres of water. That is why the production of food and fibre crops claims the biggest share of freshwater withdrawn from natural sources for human use, or some 70% of global withdrawals.

FAO's recent report World agriculture: towards 2015/30 projects that global food production will need to increase by 60% to close nutrition gaps, cope with the population growth and accommodate changes in diets over the next three decades. Water withdrawals for agriculture are expected to increase by some 14% in that period, representing an annual growth rate of 0.6%, down from 1.9% in the period 1963-1999. Much of the increase will take place on arable irrigated land, forecast to expand globally from some 2 million sq. km to 2.42 million sq. km. In a group of 93 developing countries, water use efficiency in irrigation - i.e. the ratio between water consumption by crops and the total amount of water withdrawn - is expected to grow from an average 38% to 42%.

Estimated global water withdrawals

Sector 1950 1995

Agriculture 79% 69%

Industries 14% 21%

Municipalities 7% 10%

"If gains in water management achieved over the past 50 years are maintained," FAO says, "pressure on resources will be reduced, while the scope for transfer of water for other, non-agricultural uses will be increased." It points out, however, that past increases in productivity have been the result of strategic investment not only in water control infrastructure, but also in agricultural research and extension. Current trends in those key areas of the production chain show a sharp decline. To meet future challenges, therefore, agricultural investment must be revived and used to support a strategic package that combines research, improved agricultural practices, capacity building for water users, and promotion of global agricultural trade.

Progress will also depend on a shift from what FAO calls "a culture of supply management" to one of "demand management". The supply-driven model underpinned most water development during the past half-century, as large national or state agencies placed extensive farming areas under irrigation. However, they proved less successful in managing those systems after construction. Decision-making was typically top-down and bureaucratic, leaving little flexibility to downstream users in choosing cropping patterns, calendars, and water delivery schedules. Often, unreliable water deliveries forced users to overexploit groundwater.

FAO views positively the far-reaching irrigation reforms, beginning in the 1990s, that led to massive transfer of responsibility to local water user associations and a shift to demand-driven management strategies. Today, farmers are increasingly involved in decision-making and in bearing the cost of operation and maintenance of irrigation systems. "One of the first priorities of modernization is to assess the physical conditions of the irrigation system and identify the practical options for moving towards more reliable and flexible water delivery service and accommodate a variable demand for water services," FAO says. Ultimately, it is the users who must decide on the level of service they require and are willing to pay for.

"Negative externalities". But water management in the new century is not simply about crop production. "While the specific objective is to provide a more reliable and adequate water supply for crops," FAO says, "management will always have significant impacts on economic activities, environmental processes and people's health." Like industry, agriculture is under pressure to reduce the impact of its "negative externalities", particularly those associated with the application of fertilizers and pesticides.

Environmental concerns must be part of modernization in water use and management. Extraction from rivers and lakes and the construction of irrigation infrastructure invariably displaces natural wetlands which are, themselves, highly productive components of agro-ecological systems. Drainage from irrigation often results in loss of water quality, the spread of water-related diseases and soil degradation through water logging and salinization. To reduce these impacts, FAO says, modern water management needs to be based on strategic environmental assessments and cost-benefit analysis, constant environmental monitoring and integration of irrigation into the wider environmental context.

But there also needs to be wider recognition that sound water management produces positive results, including the socio-economic viability of entire rural areas, through development of the social capital required to manage irrigation systems and the expansion of transport and marketing infrastructure to sell agricultural produce. 

Positive environmental effects of irrigation include the creation of artificial wetland systems, micro-climates and associated biodiversity. Land management for rain-fed agriculture helps control soil erosion and protect downstream areas from floods. "Recognizing the diversity and the amplitude of these externalities is fundamental to sustainable development," FAO says. Conversely, management focused solely on crops will become unsustainable in economic and environmental terms.

Policy interventions. FAO sees broad scope for policy intervention to help "re-invent" agricultural water management. It recommends a strategic approach to development of available land and water resources in order to meet demand for food products and agriculture commodities, and a broader awareness of the productivity gains that can be achieved through wise water use.

Individual farmers and households need to be assured "stable engagement" with land and water resources, meaning land tenure and water use rights that are flexible enough to promote comparative advantage in food staples and cash crops. Those rights must be matched by access to rural credit and finance and dissemination of technology and good practices in water use. There also needs to be a re-adjustment in management strategies away from formal irrigation systems and towards pro-poor, affordable technologies, such as small-scale water harvesting.

At irrigation scheme level, modernization programmes will help extract the full value out of sunk costs and reduce pressure on public funds. Modernization strategies should transform rigid command-and-control systems into much more flexible service-delivery systems. Agriculture should - and can - shoulder its environmental responsibilities much more effectively by minimizing the negative environmental impacts of irrigated production and seeking to restore the productivity of natural ecosystems.

Finally, government policy and investment must help local markets for agricultural produce to become more effective in meeting local demands. This means investment in key public goods, such as roads and storage, as well as institutional capacity, but will also demand a more progressive role for large-scale private investment.

FAO identifies three "pro-active themes" for agricultural water management in the years ahead:

Modernization. "Where irrigation has a comparative advantage, irrigation institutions need to adopt a service orientation and improve their economic and environmental performance - for example, by adopting new technologies, modernizing infrastructure, applying sound administrative principles and promoting user participation. The central task of providing irrigation services must be linked more closely to agricultural production, and the needs of other users at basin level

Participation. "Sharing the benefits of a common natural resource base may prove hard to negotiate. But the economic benefits can be significant if flexible transfers in land and water are permitted within a well-constructed regulatory framework. These initiatives can only succeed if strong commitment is given to the participation of users in planning and investment decisions and the full and open sharing of economic and environmental information."

Investment. "Incentives for individuals and user groups to invest in water control requires a clear comparative advantage, both in servicing local and export markets. Needed is a mix of micro-credit for small holders, well regulated commercial credit for emergent and large-scale farmers and concessional finance for large scale public infrastructure."

ADB holds National Media Workshops on Water Issues 3

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) held two media workshops on water issues in Chennai and Delhi in February to increase the understanding of Indian journalists towards water issues affecting the country. The workshop objectives were to provide a more informed assessment of the key subjects, greater media coverage and more diverse collections of writings on water. More than 50 Indian journalists attended the workshops to hear from a wide range of speakers and engage in lively debate on a variety of water-related issues, including Water and Governance, Water and Urban Water Supply, Water and Gender, Water and Agriculture, and Water and Large Scale Infrastructure Projects.

The two Indian workshops, while generating news articles stemming directly from the presentations and discussion, were designed to improve the long-term capacity of journalists to write on water issues. Distinguished speakers included the heads of the Delhi Jal Board and Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board; Bunker Roy, Founder of the Barefoot College; Ramaswamy R Iyer, Former Secretary of Water Resources; Charles Andrews, Principal Water Supply & Sanitation Specialist at the Asian Development Bank; and Professor Tushaar Shah of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

Organized as part of ADB's Water Awareness Programme, the workshops follow similar media workshops on water issues over the past 12 months in Phnom Penh, Hanoi and Chiang Mai, with over 150 reporters becoming part of a water journalists network. ADB's Water Awareness Programme (WAP) aims to improve the quality of media coverage on water issues among journalists and other media actors and promote awareness among water stakeholders and the general public including water experts, policy makers and civil society.

UNESCO project: Land-use change, watershed services and socio-economic impact in the Western Ghats region 4

The Western Ghats region of India is a hill-forested region that is the primary catchment for most of the rivers in peninsular India. The region is rapidly undergoing a variety of changes in land-use and land-cover, including intensive use, degradation, cultivation and afforestation. Recent research and field observations indicate that these land-use changes could have very significant but complex influences on different aspects of watershed functioning, including summer season flows, groundwater recharge, and soil erosion, in ways that affect different stakeholders differently.

UNESCO had supported an initial pilot study on forest hydrology in the region. UNESCO's HELP (The Hydrology for the Environment, Life and Policy) programme has now helped initiate a 4-year research project titled "Land-Use Change, Watershed Services and Socio-Economic Impact in the Western Ghats Region of Karnataka" in collaboration with Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED), National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) and Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). The project, supported by the Ford Foundation, is an inter-disciplinary and participatory exploration of the links between land-use, watershed functions and socio-economic impact in the portion of the Western Ghats located in Karnataka state. The Karnataka Forest Department, one of the important stakeholders, has officially expressed support for this study.

The project covers two sub-regions- (1) the Uttara Kannada sub-region that has a rainfall regime of 1700-6000 mm and steep to rolling terrain covered with semi-evergreen to dry deciduous forest and with populations engaged in agri-horticulture; and (2). The Mysore/Chamarajnagar sub-region represents a drier regime of 600-1500mm rainfall, with steep outcrops covered with dry deciduous to scrub thorn forest, surrounded by flat plains that are heavily cropped. In each sub-region, the project proposes to choose 3 "blocks" that capture variations in rainfall, forest type and agriculture within the sub-region.

The project, launched with a review-cum-planning workshop held at Bangalore in January 2003, brought together selected hydrologists and social scientists from across the region to review the state of our knowledge regarding the effect of forest conversion and degradation on hydrological and soil erosion processes and the consequent socio-economic impacts.

The first day had presentations covering the effects of plantations, effects of degradation and mining, review of hydrological processes, and methodological issues in assessing socio-economic impacts

February onwards, the project has been in an intensive "site-selection" phase. Comprehensive GIS databases on land-cover, topography, streams, soils, settlements, administrative boundaries, etc. have been prepared for both regions by CISED and ATREE. Using these databases, each sub-region was further characterised into distinct "blocks", and several potential micro-catchment pairs or triplets were identified in each block. The potential sites were then visited by interdisciplinary teams to verify their suitability and understand the nuances on the ground.

UNESCO pilot project on analyses of geochemical contamination of groundwater 5

The first phase of the above pilot project, was carried out in Andhra Pradesh by the Indo-French Centre for Groundwater Research, and National Geophysical Research Institute in collaboration with the UNESCO New Delhi office.

Figure 1 : Geographical location of the study area with location of water sampling wells.

The study area selected in general is undulating and majority of the area is with a slope of 2 percent. Maheshwaram is a closed watershed. There are no major streams in the area. A network of 1^st and 2^nd order streams ultimately drains into Mankal Cheruvu that forms the discharge boundary.

Under the first phase, frequent analysis has been performed to analyze the change in the Fluoride content (F) in groundwater with the objective to find the manner of decreasing the value towards the pre-monsoon periods. However, the variations have indicated an increasing 

trend. It is, therefore, necessary to continue the sampling with the similar interval and with repeated analyses to cross check the results. It is also recommended that several soil and rock samples could be analyzed for F content including the soil samples from the area of extensive agriculture to decide and separate the areas influenced by the anthropogenic activity and the natural dissolution.

Under the Second Phase of the contract it is proposed to carry out the following activities:

* Preparation and Calibration of the Groundwater flow model using Nested Square Meshes.

* Development of new module for incorporating geo-chemical reaction to the mass-transport model.

* Development of Algorithm and Software for Space-Time kriging estimation and testing of the developed software for the known cases from the published literatures etc.

* Prediction of contaminants migration (Flouride and Arsenic) using mass transport modeling in the aquifer system

* Optimization of Monitoring network based on pre-set constraints

* Delineation of the areas having high and low concentration of F and As and evolving their migration trend.

* Study of the appropriate schemes for pumping and containment of this contamination.

Multimedia CD on augmentation of groundwater recharge through artificial recharge (AGRAR) 6

There is a drastic imbalance between the rates of extraction of groundwater and its recharge. This has led to severe depletion of groundwater and resultant problems of water scarcity. The disaster has been partly induced by natural factors (consecutive droughts) and partly by human intervention. The present pattern of extraction is unregulated, with no concern for sustainability of the resource or one's own long-term economic interests.

The people are aware of the problem of scarcity and have realised that the rate of extraction in the past has led to drastic depletion. There is greater awareness of the need for management of groundwater among people. Regulatory systems are more effective if they are initiated, enforced and followed by the community itself for its own benefit. However, the community needs to be educated and mobilized, especially because there are varied vested interests of people from different social and economic strata. Education and consensus building are, therefore, the prerequisites for community management of groundwater.

Towards this, an educational CD on artificial recharge and rainwater harvesting is being prepared, with support from UNESCO New Delhi. The contents of the CD will include training materials with effective animation
and simulation modelling of the processes.