November 20, 2003

Water without which there would be no life, is fast becoming a precious commodity which comes at a price not always affordable. Common sense tells us that before this dilemma becomes a catastrophe, something needs to be done, writes Saifuddin Ismailji

The UN declared 2003 the International Year of Fresh Water, marking this year for creating awareness and taking stock of the disappearance of fresh water reserves and the significance of sustainable fresh water use.

During mid-2003, certain parts of the world recorded extremely high temperatures of an unprecedented sort. This was alarming and debates began calling for adequate measures to rectify the methods of conservation — critical for the future of the planet — especially in the face of global warming which is posing a serious threat to fresh water supplies.

Of the 70 per cent of the earth’s surface made up of water, the oceans account for 97.5 per cent, while fresh water constitutes only 2.5 per cent. Of this, 0.3 per cent of fresh water comes from rivers, lakes and reservoirs. Thirty per cent is water extracted from the ground, while the rest is stored in the highlands in the forms of glaciers in the mountains.

More than half the world’s population relies on this fresh water that flows from mountains into the rivers and reservoirs. Many factors which include poor planning or irresponsible and corrupt practices in urban development damage or poison this vital source of life.

Consequently, about one billion people today have no access to safe drinking water around the globe. These are mainly in Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Latin America.

According to a Unesco report, 1/3 of the earth’s land surface (four billion hectares) is threatened by desertification, and over 250 million people are directly affected by this desertification. Twenty-four billion tons of fertile soil disappears annually. From 1991 to 2000 alone, droughts were responsible for over 280,000 deaths. These accounted for 11 per cent of the total number of water-related disasters.

The International Year of Fresh Water has provided a unique opportunity in forming alliances through the creation of the International Partnership for Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions, with the objective of addressing the complexity, diversity and magnitude of mountain issues.

Some 78 national committees were established to lead observance of the International Year of Fresh Water in various countries in Africa, Asia (including Pakistan), Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Near East, North Africa and North America.

These international efforts have helped create a network of support, commitment and resources for mountain development and thus harness water resources around the world. Last year during the International Year of Mountains, Canada and the US played a pivotal role in awareness raising activities and initiatives.

The International Year of Fresh Water is drawing to a close, but the work has just begun. The challenges that we face today towards shaping and implementing lasting solutions to the problem of scarcity of fresh water have never been greater.

It is indeed commendable that the president of Pakistan has taken an initiative to look into the strengthening of the future of fresh water reserves in the country. One of the procedures required for this is the construction of dams and reservoirs to ensure water is properly stored and not wasted.

Pakistan has one of the world’s largest reserves of fresh water in the form of its overhead tanks (mountains), 7,000 metres above sea level. Intense heat melts the snow rapidly which accelerates the steady flow of glaciers. This abundance of water is not properly channeled towards storage, i.e. reservoirs and dams, and is thus wasted.

Heat, lack of rain and unsustainable planning in the development of rural and mountain areas have resulted in diminishing fresh water supplies, specially in rivers and lakes. This has been a cause of major concern over the years. The existing dams are inadequate and will not meet the water supply demand in the near future.

Pakistan has 134 million acre feet (MAF) per year of fresh water available to the population of about 130 million. Of this total population, 70 per cent is dependant on agriculture, and thus directly linked with the availability of water. According to the past 28 years’ record, an average of 35 MAF of water goes into the sea, which is equivalent to water preserved in three dams.

In the current year, despite concerns over water shortages, some nine million acres feet of water has gone wasted into the sea. Thus, there is a need for the release of at least 10 MAF of water below Kotri to make water available in Sindh by building up new reservoirs in agreement to the relevant share in the distribution.

Punjab showed a sign of brotherliness in the distribution of water to other provinces, (2.7 to Balochistan and 2.1 to Sindh), in addition to their accorded share. The pre-1991 Water Accord approved by the Council of Common Interest, calculated the water distribution on a historical average of: Punjab 51.6 per cent, Sindh 41.4 per cent, the NWFP five per cent and Balochistan two per cent.

The Kalabagh Controversy

For over a decade, the Kalabagh dam has been politicized and the project has not taken off the ground. In his address to the nation on 13 Sept, 2003 General Musharraf said, “To meet our water needs over the next 50 years we will have to construct four water reservoirs, namely, Kalabagh, Bhasha, Skardu and Akhori dams, and we must start work on them. A purely technical issue has been turned into a political one. I want to resolve this issue through national consensus.”

“The nation will have to decide whether to start construction on either Kalabagh Dam (storage capacity 6.1 MAF) or Bhasha Dam (storage capacity 7.34 MAF) from June 2004. Otherwise, the people, specially of Sindh, will suffer heavily as the country’s progress and prosperity depends on water,” said the president.

Both dams have to be completed before 2013. This will be the time when silting of the Tarbela and Mangla dams will deprive the country of some 6.2 MAF, which is equivalent to the storage capacity of one big dam.

It is estimated that the Tarbela dam will be silted up to 3/4 of its capacity and the Mangla dam by half its present capacity by 2050. If the above is not taken seriously with a sustainable plan for the availability of water resources, the country will be in a state of emergency facing a great water crisis, specially the Sindh province.

Thus, the General has emphasized that between the years 2013 to 2050, two more dams must be ready in order to keep our lifeline intact. Feasibility reports for these two dams at Akori and Skardu dams are underway.

In the short-term plan to meet water scarcity, the measures recommended include raising the height of the Mangla dam by 30 feet to store additional three million acre feet of water. It is said that this will be completed by 2007.

Ecosystem in the mountains Mountains are fragile ecosystems, highly sensitive to changes in temperature and serve as a barometer of global climate change. Climatologists believe that when they closely monitored the biological and physical components of mountains, the study provided an early glimpse of what may come to pass in lowland environments. Information on the state of mountains’ environments assists local and international organizations in formulating plans and strategies to reverse deterioration and global warming trends.

Highlands are the overhead tanks and mountains are like “organic systems profoundly linked to us and all the world’s environments. Mountains are vital for ecological health of the world and one of the main sources of collecting and storing the single most precious element for life — fresh water.

Vegetation in the mountains protect the watersheds that supply fresh water for drinking and to grow food, shelter biodiversity and generate energy. These high places are also the treasure chests for the world’s most unique ecosystems that lend life to a great variety of plants and animals.

Climatic conditions in the mountains are stacked in narrow bands, one on top of the other. As the world heats up, however, conditions within each of these narrow bands changes. Scientists have already witnessed examples of species moving uphill in search of more suitable habitat. It’s a worrisome sight when a waterfall evaporates mid-air before reaching the ground, and the lakes lay buried in the haze of the afternoon heat.

The change in the global climate has already shown signs of disruption in the mountain environments and the life of most mountain people is now much harder. One of the indirect consequences of global warming in mountain regions is the increasing risk of infectious diseases. Scientists have reported that the mosquitoes that carry malaria, dengue and yellow fever are spreading to higher altitudes as temperatures warm.

Mountain people are among the world’s poorest citizens. With few resources to ward off infectious diseases, they are likely to be among global warning’s greatest victims if human activities that contribute to climate change are not reversed soon.

Warming trends are forcing many species to migrate to higher elevation and thus mountain people may have to abandon their homes in search of new pastures. Climatologists predicted that a rise in global temperatures of 31/4 C would be equivalent to an ecological shift upwards of about 500 metres in altitude. Species which may not adapt to the change could be confined to the upper and lower impassable barriers and thus face extinction, with the rarest species in the front line.

Mountains will become more dangerous as melted permafrost and glacial runoff accelerate soil erosion as well as the likelihood of falling rocks, landslides, floods and avalanches. Floods will affect irrigation first and then cause drought, making survival harder for subsistence farmers as well as those who grow cash crops. Nearly all economic activities such as logging and tourism are likely to decline as mountain ecosystems change irrevocably.

River people who rely solely from their washing to their fishing on river waters are the worst hit when rivers are polluted, not to mention the misery they suffer by the drying up of rivers causing desertification. Today these areas are inhabited by one-fifth of the world’s population.

Desertification is not the natural expansion of existing deserts but the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. It is a gradual process of soil productivity loss and the thinning out of the vegetative cover because of human activities and climatic variations. Desertification already affects one quarter of the total land surface of the globe today.

Wetlands are water recyclers and generate nutrients for food products. Wetlands serve as breeding grounds for fish and also provide us with a vast range of fertile grazing lands and staple food plants. This very source is today threatened by agricultural pollution through nitrogen, phosphorous, pesticides and warmer climatic condition, coupled with scarce rainfall.

Fresh water is also a source of life giving energy through thermal activity. It takes a 30-40-year natural process during which time the water is enriched by calcium and sulfate. Thermal energy causes the water to rise up and pour outward forming into a skin healing substance, created for the joy of life returning to your soul. Garam Chashma (hot spring) in the upper Chitral valley and at Tato Pani near Chilas could cease to exist should the natural air-conditioning system diminish.

Due to the influx of mass domestic tourism leading to development of infrastructure, the environs of the lake Mahodand in the Swat valley, show a pathetic state and the lake itself is shrinking over the years. Likewise, in many mountainous zones around the world, environmental agencies envisage that water holes will dissolve and snow lakes and the glaciers, particularly at an elevation lower than 6,000 metres, will gradually shrink.

The rivers of the world are the birthplace of history: the origins of civilizations, the first grain of rice, the first trading route and travel expeditions (originating from rivers into the seas). Indeed, fresh water has written the earliest history on the flowing canvas of the rivers and streams.

Fresh water was the backbone of the ancient civilizations that flourished and prospered by the rivers 7,000 years ago, some of which ended because the river either changed its course or dried up causing desertification.

The Indus river basin (Pakistan) and the Nile delta (Mesopotamia) served as two ends to the ancient civilization belt that connected Turkey and Iraq, along the agriculture-trading route, and each thrived by the banks of the great rivers. The prosperous 7,000-year-old Harrappa (Pakistan) civilization came to an end as the river Hakra dried up.

The Zambezi river, the source of the majestic Victoria Falls, is shrouded in mystery since the occupation of early inhabitants. Evidence of pre-historic sites found along the two-kilometre wide and 100-metre deep Victoria Falls makes an amazing contrast between the forces of fresh water and the mysterious existence of our earliest ancestors.

N Legends associated with fresh water sources

By the brink of fresh water lie many local legends and folk tales like the one that echoes from the bottom of the lake of Saif-ul-Muluk.

The local legend has it that when the divine beauty of the fairy of the lake, under the captivity of the genie, came into the prince’s awareness, he came to her rescue. Evil and might ruled and the prince was killed by the genie. The fairy in desperation drowned herself in the lake to free her soul from the evil genie.

Our lifeline

Water is life and the rivers and streams that flow from mountain slopes are bonds connecting mountain and lowland communities. We are part of a globalized civilization, each of us affected with the prosperity or otherwise of the other. The people of one country suffering famine due to drought tend to burden the neighboring countries.

The tenderness of fresh water

On the lighter side of life, those blessed with water in its many forms of goodness celebrate a full life — at times taking it for granted. “The soul of man resembleth water: From heaven it cometh, to heaven it soreth. And then again to earth descendeth, changing ever.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Time for action

While the discovery of “no tech” water treatment methods have been developed through simple processes of heat and UV radiation, there are serious indications of acute shortage of fresh water in years to come. Unless immediate action taken to repair nature’s airconditioning comes into force, the world could be on the brink of declaring an emergency. Countries like Pakistan, China and Sri Lanka have successfully employed the ancient method of rainwater harvesting.

Nothing can live without freshwater. We can’t survive for even three days without it. I don’t know if there is any matter, element or commodity with as many diverse characteristics as water: clear and transparent.

In its simple colourless and odourless form, it has the power to generate electricity and heal aging bodies, refresh weary eyes and has a charm that entices you to travel into the highlands. It shows its uniqueness in the living science lab at the Yellowstone National Park, where it bubbles up and shoots up from the ground.

Water is one of the most purest sources of life. . . Yet, so negligently we abuse this most precious gift of nature — we graze down forests for short-term gains and clear the land for farming, ranching or mining in unnecessarily large amounts.

We let the water that normally flows into mountain watersheds to wash over barren slopes to cause deadly avalanches, landslides and flooding. Those responsible for these actions are indeed aware that they cause “fertile soil and forests to be lost, rivers to silt up and rare species of plants and animals to face extinction.

They know that environmental degradation often means increasing poverty and hunger for mountain people. As resources become scarce, conflicts over their use can arise. Many men, women and families have no choice but to migrate to low lying cities. Mountain communities disintegrate and entire cultures and languages disappear.

Some of us spend thousands of litres of water to luxuriate in a bath once, while there are those who spend half a day fetching water from a distant water source to their homes for consumption. Most of us leave the tap running while washing and brushing our teeth in the morning. Some don’t even bother to fix leaking taps. When it comes to fresh water, we let it go down the drain so carelessly.

The government must take the first step to enforce the law of installing push-knob taps and discard the conventional taps to avoid unnecessary running of water during daily washing. Build dams and reservoirs. Ensure the fountains work on the circulation basis so that the water does not go to waste. Plant the type of evergreen trees that derive water from underground, thus minimizing watering along the avenues.

We all have to take precautions and save water in our day to day life: Have the kitchen sink’s drainage pipe attached to a barrel outside. The nutrient-rich water containing the ground-up of vegetable waste can be poured on to the vegetable garden and plants in the yard. Take short showers. Turn off the water while you wash and brush your teeth. Better still, install push-knob taps, the future “life-saving” device. Fill a milk bottle with water and put it in the toilet cistern, this reduces the volume of water used for flushing by 45 litres every day.

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