Water Rights

Global Issues in Context Online Collection, 2013.

More than two hundred water basins straddle national borders. Water is necessary for life and has many household, agricultural, and industrial uses. Consequently, nations often must devise solutions, through diplomacy or conflict, for sharing frequently scarce freshwater supplies. Increasing world population and global climate change will make water rights issues more prominent in the coming decades.

In 2010, a study published in the science journal Nature predicted that 80 percent of the world's population is vulnerable to freshwater supply shortages. Threats to freshwater supplies for more than 3.4 billion people range through a myriad of problems related to scarcity, pollution, improper management, and political instability. The study concluded that safeguarding watersheds, wetlands, and flood plains is essential to preserving freshwater resources.

Whereas the industrialized world increasingly relies on expensive aqueducts, canals, dams, pipelines, and pumping systems to address localized freshwater shortages, such "concrete and steel" solutions often remain beyond the reach of a large percentage of the developing world's population. Tens of millions of people in rural areas of Africa rely on hand pumps for their primary water supply. However, an estimated one-third of all such pumps are broken at any one time. Broken pumps deny rural residents a ready fresh water source, putting villagers at risk of water shortage and increasing the risk of waterborne diseases from less clean secondary sources. A June 2012 report in the Journal of Hydroinformatics introduced a project in rural Africa to outfit hand water pumps with text message-capable data transmitters. The "smart" pumps, set to debut in seventy remote villages in Kenya, will use mobile phone networks to send text messages about water flow or breakdowns in an effort to provide real-time information on well water supplies and expedite needed repairs.

Even well-intentioned attempts to safeguard or enhance large drinking water supplies require analysis that weighs both costs and benefits from proposed solutions. For example, a proposal to drain wetlands along the Barotse Floodplain in Zambia intended to serve a needed agricultural irrigation scheme ultimately proved to be a net economic loss to the region, when factoring in losses anticipated in current fishing and farming yields.

According to 2013 estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), approximately 783 million people worldwide do not have access to an improved source of drinking water. Lack of access to clean water also contributes to inadequate sanitation for 2.5 billion people. As a consequence, an estimated five million people die every year from waterborne diseases. Over the last several decades, the efforts of the WHO, UNICEF, and other organizations have decreased the number of people without an improved water source. These organizations have conducted most of their water improvement work in Africa and Asia, the two continents that will see the greatest stress placed on water resources over the next twenty years due to economic development and disproportionately rapid population increases.

Even with improved infrastructure, water scarcity and the location of existing water sources present continuing challenges. Less than 0.5 percent of the world's water is freshwater available for human use, but the location of the available water resources is also a major concern. Much of the world's available freshwater is not located near growing population centers. The context of the distribution problem ranges from population centers developing in areas with scare water resources to a lack of development in areas with abundant freshwater. For example, the Amazon River Basin contains approximately 15 percent of the world's freshwater but supplies water to less than 1 percent of the world's population.

The areas with the least amount of water per capita frequently experience conflict, both legal and military, over scarce water supplies. Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon (1944–), in a column in the Washington Post on 16 June 2007, stated that water shortages and corresponding food shortages were a cause of violent conflicts in Darfur, Somalia, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), and Burkina Faso. Ban blamed the water shortage in Darfur on drier weather patterns in the region produced, at least in part, by global climate change.

An April 2009 report by the Asia Society, entitled "Asia's Next Challenge: Securing the Region's Water Future," argued that Asia's growing population will place great stress on the continent's water supply and will lead to conflict over water rights.

India and Pakistan have debated rights to the waters of the Indus River, which flows from India into Pakistan, for more than fifty years. The Indus River is Pakistan's primary source of freshwater. India's per capita freshwater supply decreased by 60 percent during the late twentieth century due to population increases. "Spotlight on Indus River Diplomacy: India, Pakistan, and the Baglihar Dam Dispute," a May 2006 report by the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS), predicts a similar decline in India's freshwater supply over the next fifty years. The report also stresses that Pakistan is nearing water crisis. Water stress typically produces serious economic, political, and social stress on a nation. The APCSS warns that competition for water resources could lead to armed conflict between India and Pakistan in the twenty-first century, particularly if India blocks the flow of the Indus River with a series of planned dams.

In Central Asia, the Aral Sea continues to suffer from Soviet-era diversion and mismanagement of water. Once considered the world's fourth largest lake, much of the area once covered by the Aral Sea is now classified as dry salt flats. In just over 50 years, the area of land covered by the lake has shrunk by an estimated 70 percent. Cities and towns that once drew water from the Aral Sea now face chronic water shortages. So dramatic was the loss of water that in 1990, the sea actually divided into two sections. After touring the area in April 2010, Ban Ki-moon promised regional leaders that agencies of the United Nations would provide assistance and expertise if leaders could agree on a multinational recovery plan.

In addition to population migration and urbanization, tourism also affects water needs. Local populations, preservationists, and tourism interests have fought over scarce water resources in Botswana's Kalahari Desert region. Tourism interests and animal conservationists had won rights to drill water wells, but local tribes (sometimes collectively referred to as bushmen) had been denied similar rights by the courts. In January 2011, higher courts granted the Kalahari bushmen rights to access some existing wells and to drill new water wells in the desert conservation area.

In 2012, lawmakers sought to ease a water rights dispute over the Little Colorado River in the arid western United States. The Navajo-Hopi Little Colorado River Water Rights Settlement would have required the indigenous tribes to waive their water rights in exchange for water supply and sanitation improvements. In some of the most remote communities in the combined 7.7 hectares (30,000 sq. miles) of the Hopi and Navajo reservations, as few as one in three households are connected to a public water supply, and a few homes lack all indoor plumbing. Contamination of well water from decades of mining is a common problem in the area. Navajo lawmakers rejected the settlement in June 2012.

The United Nations General Assembly designated 2013 as the UN International Year of Water Cooperation. The UN also annually observes World Water Day on 22 March. World Water Day 2013 focused on supporting global water resource sharing, anti-contamination, and improvement efforts.

COPYRIGHT 2013 Gale, Cengage Learning

Source Citation

"Water Rights." Global Issues in Context Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Global Issues In Context. Web. 14 July 2013.

Document URL

Gale Document Number: CP3208520219