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dam-l Drought article from Worldwatch/LS
>
>NEWS FROM THE WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE
>Worldwatch Institute
>
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>August 26, 1999
>
>DROUGHT FORESHADOWS LARGER WATER THREAT
>
>Sandra Postel
>
>This year, much of the eastern United States is suffering through the third
>worst drought of the century. If these conditions persist into the fall and
>winter, scientists say it could surpass in severity the devastating droughts of
>1929 and 1966.
>
>Authorities in seven states and the District of Columbia have issued drought
>advisories, warnings, or emergencies. Throughout the mid-Atlantic region, more
>than three-quarters of all streams and rivers(including the Delaware,
>Susquehanna, and Potomac(have hit record or near-record low flows. Rising
>salinity and low oxygen levels have caused massive fish kills, including one
>numbering 200,000 in Maryland waterways. In late July, a salt front moving up
>the Hudson River was just 6 miles downstream of the water supply intake for the
>city of Poughkeepsie, New York.
>
>In the worst-hit areas, wells have run dry, causing owners to drill deeper in a
>frantic search for water. Corn crops have withered under searing heat and
>rainless skies. Maryland has had the driest growing season since record-keeping
>began a century ago.
>
>At the moment, stricken regions can take solace in the knowledge that droughts
>eventually come to an end. But a much larger, long-term water threat is going
>virtually unnoticed even as it builds to staggering proportions: Water supplies
>are running short in several of the world's major food-producing regions, even
>as global food needs continue to climb.
>
>[Available for free downloading on Friday August 27, 1999: "When the World's
>Wells Run Dry, by Sandra Postel, from World Watch magazine, September/October
>issue, at:
>http://www.worldwatch.org/mag/1999/99-5.html
>Follow instructions from the order form for free download with registration]
>
>Water tables are falling from the overpumping of groundwater in the
>breadbaskets
>and rice bowls of central and northern China, northwest India, parts of
>Pakistan, much of the United States, North Africa, the Middle East, and the
>Arabian Peninsula. Farmers in these regions are pumping groundwater faster than
>nature is replenishing it. Just as a bank account dwindles if withdrawals
>routinely exceed deposits, so will an underground water reserve decline if
>extractions exceed replenishment.
>
>During the last three decades, as farmers sunk millions of wells, the depletion
>of underground aquifers has spread from isolated pockets of the agricultural
>landscape to large portions of irrigated land. In India, a
>government-commissioned study found that "overexploitation of ground water
>resources is widespread across the country." As much as a quarter of India's
>grain production could be at risk as a result of ground water depletion.
>
>Likewise, overpumping is widespread in China's north-central plain, which
>produces some 40 percent of the nation's grain. Across a wide area, water
>tables
>have been dropping 1 to 1.5 meters a year, even as the nation's water demands
>continue to climb.
>
>In the United States, one-fifth of all irrigated land gets water from a vast
>underground reserve known as the Ogallala. One of the planet's greatest
>aquifers, it spans portions of eight states, from South Dakota in the north to
>Texas in the south. In its southern reaches, the Ogallala gets very little
>replenishment from rainfall and decades of heavy pumping have taken a toll. The
>volume of water depleted to date is equal to the annual flow of 18 Colorado
>Rivers.
>
>All told, the world's farmers are racking up an annual water deficit of
>some 160
>billion cubic meters-the amount used to produce nearly 10 percent of the
>world's
>grain. The overpumping of groundwater cannot continue indefinitely. Eventually,
>the wells run dry, or it becomes too expensive to pump from greater depths.
>
>Even if groundwater depletion was the only water problem in our farming
>regions,
>we would have ample cause for concern; but it is not. Many major rivers now run
>dry for large portions of the year-including the Yellow in China, the Indus in
>Pakistan, the Ganges in South Asia, and the Colorado in the American Southwest.
>Worldwide, one in five acres of irrigated land is damaged by a buildup of salt
>that is slowly sapping the soil's fertility. Cities and farms now compete for
>scarce water, as do neighboring countries that depend on the same river.
>
>Meanwhile, populations continue to grow fastest in some of the world's most
>water-short regions. The number of people living in water-stressed countries is
>projected to climb from 470 million to 3 billion by 2025. With this number of
>people living in countries lacking enough water to be food self-sufficient,
>competition for grain imports will increase. Whether the United States, Europe,
>and other exporters will produce sufficient surpluses to meet those import
>demands is only half the issue. The other half is whether the exports will be
>offered at a price that poor, food-importing nations-especially those in South
>Asia and sub-Saharan Africa-can afford.
>
>Hanging over these worsening water problems is the prospect of climate change.
>One likely effect of higher temperatures and more rapid melting of winter
>snowpacks is a reduction in available water supplies during the summer months,
>when farms and cities need water most. In addition, for some period of
>time, our
>reservoirs and water systems will be poorly matched to altered rainfall and
>river flow patterns(creating additional vulnerabilities in our water and food
>systems.
>
>Water scarcity is now the single biggest threat to global food production. Only
>by taking action now to conserve the water supplies in our major crop-producing
>regions can we secure enough water to satisfy future food needs.
>
>-END-
>
>
>SANDRA POSTEL is author of Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last?
>(W.W. Norton, 1999). She directs the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst,
>Massachusetts, and is a Senior Fellow of Worldwatch Institute.
>
>******************************************************************
>Publications by Sandra Postel on the Worldwatch web site:
>
>This brief will be available August 27, 1999 at
><www.worldwatch.org/alerts/990827.html>
>
>Ordering information on Sandra Postel's book, Pillar of Sand: Can the
>Irrigation
>Miracle Last?, is available at www.worldwatch.org/pubs/ea/pos.html.
>
>The current issue of World Watch contains an article by Sandra Postel on water
>shortages that will be available as a free PDF file August 27, 1999 at
><www.worldwatch.org/mag/1999/99-5.html>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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