But through all this runs one challenge that impacts all the others: the increasing risk of flooding. The Mexican government created a flood control programme after severe floods in the past. But with construction under way, disaster struck again. In 2007 floodwater covered 70% of the state and affected over a million people.
On 8 September 1854, London health authorities removed the handle of a water pump located at the juncture of Cambridge and Broad Streets. The well was famous in the city for the sweetness of its water, apparently used as an ingredient in a “celebrated nectar”.
Common sense and dealing with the right people would help unblock badly needed investment in water in developing countries. Mr Briscoe explains.
OECD Observer: You are launching Water Agenda to 2030. What pressures led to these reforms?
In the last edition of the OECD Observer we showed how investing in a gas-based kitchen can save lives. The simple water closet can also be a means to good health and dignity, and a source of economic wellbeing, says a new OECD report, Benefits of Investing in Water and Sanitation.
Development aid for water supply and sanitation projects has risen in recent years after a decline in the late 1990s. Considering the importance of safe water, perhaps it hasn’t risen far enough. In 2007-08, OECD Development Assistance Committee countries committed on average $5.1 billion in bilateral annual aid to the water supply and sanitation sector, 50% up on 2003-04 in real terms. When combined with aid from multilateral agencies, the total was $6.6 billion. Over the 2003-08 period, bilateral aid to water increased by an annual average of 15%, while multilateral aid rose 3% annually. Still, for DAC countries, aid to the water supply and sanitation sector rose to just 7% of all aid commitments in 2007-08, only slightly up from 6% in 2003-04.
World agriculture faces an enormous challenge over the next 40 years: to produce almost 50% more food up to 2030 and double production by 2050. With pressure from increasing urbanisation, industrialisation and climate change also rising, proper water management will be vital.
A salmon would find it a hardscrabble life in the waterways of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Not because of dried riverbeds, overfishing or pollution, but because the region has more dams per cubic metre of water than any other place on earth.
In the current financial crisis, risk-weary investors worry more about keeping their own boats afloat than in pumping money into a sector noted for high upfront costs, long pay back periods and low rates of return.
Water, is as essential to human activity as air. When cities or societies neglect water, they face collapse. The discussions and analyses emerging from the current economic crisis focus on what went wrong, how to stop the downward spiral, and how to create a better society in the future. But one thing is missing in all the talk of short-term stimulus packages and developing “green growth” economies and that is water.
A Check-list for Public Action has been developed by the OECD and its partners to assist governments considering engaging with the private sector in the water sector. It is organised around the OECD Principles for Private Sector Participation in Infrastructures–some 24 principles grouped under five points that highlight sector-specific features, government considerations and available tools and practices:
Towards a symbiotic relationship
According to President John F. Kennedy, the person who can solve the water problems of the world should receive two Nobel prizes, one for peace and the other for science. More than four decades after his death, the world is realising the complexity and urgency of the water-related problems facing humanity, and the relevance of his remark.
Letter to the editor: Secretary-General Angel Gurría argues that “advancing on the issue of water will help us move forward on almost all the Millennium Development Goals” (editorial, No. 256, July 2006). We agree, and would like to draw your attention to the Working for Water programme (WfW) in South Africa.
In your article “Virtual solution” (No. 254, March 2006), you write that “any effective policy to encourage efficient use of scarce water resources must be based on pricing.” As you explain, increasing the price of water to better reflect its scarcity would cause low-value, water-intensive crops to become uncompetitive in water-scarce countries, and their imports more attractive. There is no disputing this logic, but any water policy prescription must be based on more than pricing and consider factors other than simply water scarcity if it is to be effective and adopted by governments.
In Mexico, 80% of the population lives in relatively dry and hot areas and subterranean resources are being slowly exhausted. Access to water is increasingly becoming an issue in some of the most active and industrialised parts of the country. Yet, says the OECD’s 2004 review of regulatory reform in Mexico, rapid demographic growth and industrial development have increased the overall demand for water.
The county of Kent, known romantically as the “Garden of England”, has suffered its worst winter drought since the 1920s. In response, the UK Environment Agency warned in February 2006 that, unless serious water conservation measures were brought in by April, the county could within months witness scenes of people queueing in the streets for water as domestic supplies were being cut off.
Every Thursday at noon the Tribunal de las aguas (water court) meets outside the cathedral in the city of Valencia along Spain’s Mediterranean coast. For more than a thousand years, it is believed, the court has ruled on disputes affecting the irrigation of the arable lands known as huertas, which nourish the lemon trees, the oranges and other crops that give this region its distinctive scents and flavours, and for many, livelihoods as well.
A widely held view is that developed countries are water-abundant and farmers need pay little attention to issues like water management or quality. If only that image were true. Rising production of thirsty crops and livestock have brought severe strains on water resources everywhere, including the richest countries.
When world leaders agreed upon the United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2000, and then staged the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, they set themselves some ambitious world poverty reduction goals: the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). One of the MDGs is to “halve, by 2015, the proportion of the people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation”. That goal is turning out to be a more complicated proposition than many expected.
Bordeaux is known everywhere for its fine, if expensive, wines. But what about its drinking water? According to a recent survey of water charges in France by the Federal Union of Consumers, the drink that well-to-do diners discreetly order as “chateau de la pompe” is no longer that cheap in the city of Bordeaux either.
As the ocean covers three quarters of the surface of the earth, little wonder people see it as a possible source of freshwater. That basically means desalinating it to make it at least clean enough for agriculture and even good enough to drink. How does it work? Distillation is the cheap option, responsible for most desalinised water, but a newer filtering process using membranes, called reverse osmosis, now accounts for nearly half the world’s capacity to turn ocean into freshwater.
Most people know the story of the Dutch boy who saved his country by plugging a leaking dyke with his finger until help arrived. For the Dutch, the story had a happy ending, but millions of people living on the world’s coastlands were not so lucky in the past year. First, the tsunami in December 2004 killed over 180,000 people in southern Asia, devastating coastal communities in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Maldives.
The private water sector is larger than many people think, with thousands of businesses working every day, for the most part, to implement government policies. Are those businesses doing enough and how might they do more?
The county of Kent, known romantically as the “Garden of England”, has suffered its worst winter drought since the 1920s. In response, the UK Environment Agency warned in February 2006 that, unless serious water conservation measures were brought in by April, the county could within months witness scenes of people queueing in the streets for water as domestic supplies were being cut off.
Should water-scarce countries import water-intensive products and cultivate less water-intensive ones? After all, since all goods contain a certain amount of water in their production, exporting farm produce is rather like exporting water, albeit in virtual form. A thousand litres of water may be needed to produce a kilo of wheat, but five to ten times more is needed for a kilo of meat.
