“Water, water everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1798.
The above line comes from Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a tale about a seaman returning from a long adventure at sea who stops a man attending a wedding to tell him his story. In the piece mentioned above, the mariner’s ship became stuck in a dead calm, and the sailors began to die of thirst. The wedding guest’s reactions varied from amusement to impatience, to fear, and to fascination as the tale was told in its length. The poem was written over 225 years ago, but can’t we look at water resources in this world today and go through those same emotions when we learn how parts of the earth struggle to keep from running out of fresh water?
Steady Supply, Tricky Distribution: The earth’s surface is about 71% water including all sources such as oceans, lakes, rivers, wet lands. Sea water is saltwater and impossible to drink, but Mother Nature turns it into stormy clouds that separate it from the salt, and rains fresh water across the land. Fresh water accumulates in lakes and rivers, and provides water for consumption and irrigation. But this distribution is not always consistent with the demand for water by the earth’s inhabitants. Climate change has caused many a migration to take place in various parts of the world throughout history as local water supplies mysteriously dry up. And climate change is in the early stages of fomenting more and bigger migrations as the demand for fresh water grows in parts of the world with rising populations. About 97% of the earth’s aggregate water supply is salty sea water leaving only about 3% to manage all forms of life on land. The fresh water cycle itself consists of a large number of processes over wide areas of the earth and vastly different time frames, all of which are orchestrated by the sun’s energy. Global warming aggravates this process by pushing average temperatures higher that can cause more extreme weather-related water events to occur such as flooding and droughts.
Too Little, Too Much, Too Dirty: is how the world’s water situation is described by Charlie Iceland of the Water Resources Institute (WRI). The WRI points to nearly half of the earth’s inhabitants living today under what is known as “highly water-stressed conditions” that occur for no less than one month per year. Governments of countries, provinces, states, and/or regions need more collaboration and co-operation to develop equitable distribution of fresh water, and build necessary infrastructure to protect against flooding. This would require a “politics of trust” that could lead to long term regional or widespread planning. About 70% of all freshwater is needed for agriculture leaving only 30% available for household and industrial usage. In many parts of the globe, politics stands in the way of successful water policy. A recent study done by Jens Marquardt and Markus Lederer of the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany points out that political populists frequently show disregard for scientific answers to fresh water supply problems, and dismiss policies designed to combat global warming as being liberal agendas.
A Case in Point: The South American country of Chile, the continent’s most water stressed country, but also one of the best economies, provides a laboratory of what could happen when politics gets involved. Not unlike other parts of the world, Chileanos who needed water would capture it from streams or rivers, or drill wells to pump out groundwater. Nowadays certain portions of Chile’s groundwater have dried up, and the rules and laws that govern water rights were written years ago before the depletion of groundwater became the problem that it currently is. Conservative politicians in the government believe that water rights should go hand in hand with land rights giving large landowners the right to pump ample amounts of water for their purposes. On the other hand, liberal politicians believe that water is a human right, and that outsized allocations of water to big landowners can impact the rights other parts of the population. A building can be placed on one side of a property boundary, and trees can be removed if they grow across a property line onto another property. But groundwater from a well could be drawn from multiple properties depending on where the well was located, with the water serving the owner of the property that hosts the well. Modern methods of drip irrigation and hydroponics for farming, and desalination and “rain gardens” for urban areas could make a positive impact, but politics has a tendency to block progress in these areas for years at a time. In Chile simpler rules would also help, but there are 56 governing bodies that regulate water with no overall lead.
Another Case in Point: Australia is essentially a large island that is surrounded by saltwater bodies, and has a large, scarcely populated interior. Like many other countries, farming in Australia uses a major amount of water, more than the remainder of the entire population. In 2012, Federal and state governments were able to agree on a water pricing scheme that would establish a fresh water reserve by buying back unused water entitlements from farmers. In the time since the agreement was reached, Australia has conserved water equivalent to about 20% of what was formerly consumed. At the same time, farm output has risen due to more effective and efficient usage of water resources coupled with investments in technology such as buying water allocations online and having them delivered automatically. Even with this promising approach there is widespread disapproval and many complaints. The system has a tendency to drive water prices higher, and that would support the conservation effort, but with that comes a threat to rural livelihoods. Then along comes politics. About 90% of Australians live in an urban environment bringing with them a lot of votes. The two principal parties are the conservative leaning Liberal Party, that favors the farmers and stopped the water buybacks, plus the Labor Party that promptly resumed they buybacks when they came into power. Water theft is also big business for those who are able to capture and divert groundwater. It’s against the law, but the undersized fines keep the poachers in business.
What Happens When There is Too Much: In last April and May, Kenya had its worst flooding in many years. As many as 300 people were killed, and bridges, schools, and railways as well as homes were destroyed. Kenya had recently endured several years of drought, and at first the rains were welcome. The government ignored warnings from the previous year that flooding risk was growing, and was caught unaware by the danger and destruction. People were found struggling to survive with just the clothes they wore, losing everything else in the flooding. In the previous examples, scarcity of water brings about an expected solution—higher prices. But the problem of suddenly having more rain and flooding than the existing infrastructure can handle is not so easily resolved. After the waters resided, the government went about doing what it should have been doing all along, and that is enforcing laws and rules about building living spaces too close to rivers. Evicted residents were poorly compensated, and in some cases refused to leave. The attitude of distrust for the government spilled over into conspiracy feelings on the part of evicted homeowners who in some cases believed that the government engineered the flood. In other places water disputes can turn violent as they have in South Africa, Madagascar, and Mozambique. Flooding in Iran and Afghanistan has forced refugees to move into places where they are not welcome. Conflict between countries has so far been rare, but Egyptians are angry about a dam on the Nile River built by Ethiopia that constrains the amount of water that Egypt receives. This dispute has not come to blows yet, but the tension appears to be high enough for something to start. About 60% of the 310 rivers that support more than one country with fresh water have no framework for settling water related disputes. China and the Gulf States are buying land in places like Africa and South America to grow food to be exported back to the owning countries. In this respect, they are using the local host country’s water supply to grow their foodstuffs as they don’t have enough water of their own.
Conclusions: The result of failed water policies will certainly be a pickup of migration. In Chile the vineyards are already relocating further south. In Australia the outback towns and cities are shrinking. Inundated Africans will need to migrate to safer areas that may have the other extreme—not enough fresh water. Coleridge’s ancient mariner was able to get his message across. I hope in these modern times there are enough people in high places who will also listen.
“The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Whose beard with age is hoar, Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest Turned from the bridegroom’s door.
He went like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn.”
Sources:
The Economist, The Poisonous Politics of Water, August 31, 2024.
Wikipedia, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.