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dam-l IWMI FORECAST: GRIM WATER SCENE, END OF GREEN REVOLUTION? (fwd)
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From cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in Fri May 7 02:01:46 1999
Message-ID: <37327C40.96243DAC@del3.vsnl.net.in>
Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 11:08:09 +0530
From: Himanshu Thakkar <cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in>
Reply-To: cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in
Organization: Centre For Water Policy
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Subject: IWMI FORECAST: GRIM WATER SCENE, END OF GREEN REVOLUTION?
05/05 2008 ENVIRONMENT: GRIM WATER FORECAST COULD END GREEN ...
COLOMBO, (May 5) IPS - Nearly 1.4 billion people or a quarter of
the world's population live in regions that would face severe wa-
ter shortages in the first quarter of the new millennium, an
international research study shows.
"These regions do not have sufficient water resources to main-
tain 1990 levels of per capita food production from irrigated
agriculture... and also meet reasonable water needs for domestic,
industrial and environmental purposes by 2025," the International
Water Management Institute (IWMI) said in a study completed late
last year.
The study, by the Colombo-based agency on water supply and de-
mand of 118 countries in the period 1990 to 2025, said that of
particular concern was the overlooked problem of declining water
tables in the semi-arid regions of Asia and the Middle East.
These regions contained some of the major breadbaskets of the
world such as Punjab in India and North China.
"There is an urgent need to focus the attention of both pro-
fessionals and policy makers on the problems of groundwater de-
pletion which must be seen as the major threat to food security
in the coming century," the report noted.
Douglas J. Merrey, IWMI's deputy director-general, said in an
interview that the institute's study was aimed at looking at the
trends in the next 25 to 30 years, using existing global data,
and make some projections and assumptions.
IWMI, established in 1984, has been conducting worldwide pro-
grammes to improve food security and the lives of poor people
through fostering sustainable increases in the productivity of
water used in agriculture through better management of irriga-
tion and water basin systems.
Based in Colombo, the institute -- formerly known as the In-
ternational Irrigation Management Institute -- has country pro-
grammes in Burkina Faso, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and project of-
fices in Mexico and Turkey. IWMI is supported by over 20 govern-
ments and donor agencies including the Asian Development Bank
and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Merrey said that the IWMI study found that a lot of countries
would have to make serious decisions regarding water management
and supply.
"In some cases, this would mean making irrigated agriculture
more efficient and more productive with limited water use. In
some countries, where there isn't enough water, agriculture may
have to be curtailed, thus raising problems of food security and
food production," he added.
Food imports or transporting water from wet-zone regions, were
some of the options.
The IWMI study said that 348 million people faced severe eco-
nomic water scarcities in regions where the potential water re-
sources were sufficient to meet reasonable water needs by 2025.
"But these regions would have to embark on massive water de-
velopment projects, at enormous cost and possibly severe envi-
ronmental damage, to achieve this objective," it said.
Irrigation consumes or depletes over 70 percent of the total
developed water supply in the world. Most people, the study
found, believed that existing irrigation systems were so ineffi-
cient that most future water needs could be met by increasing
the efficiency of irrigation and transferring the saved water to
domestic, industrial and environmental sectors.
But the report stressed that "it was exceptionally difficult
even to know what irrigation efficiency means, much less to mea-
sure it."
Water scarcity leads to declining water quality and pollution
and has an adverse impact on poor people. Many of the poor in
developing countries are forced to drink or use polluted water.
Poor people in Asia spend 60 percent of their income on cere-
als, the bulk of which are produced on irrigated land since the
1960s.
Real cereal prices have fallen, and the direct and indirect
effects of the green revolution of irrigated land, the study
said has been by far the greatest source of poverty reduction in
Asia.
"But there are reasons to fear that water scarcity may halt or
even reverse these trends, as in the case of China," IWMI said.
Some other studies show that because of impending water short-
ages in China's northern region, China would have to import as
much as 210-370 million tonnes of grain per year to feed its
population in 2025. This in turn would trigger steeply rising
cereal prices and a disruption of the world market, the report
said.
With regard to groundwater, IWMI said that many of the popu-
lous countries in the world - China, India, Pakistan, Mexico and
nearly all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa -
have "literally being having a free ride over the past two or
three decades by depleting their groundwater resources."
It warned that "the penalty of mismanagement of this valuable
resource is now coming due, and it is no exaggeration to say that
the results could be catastrophic for these countries, and given
their importance, for the world as a whole."
SL news, May 7, 1999
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