AFRICA

Egypt Must Ratify Nile Water Agreement

Last modified on 2012-02-22 17:17:07 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The impact of climate change is likely to exacerbate the water scarcity in Nile Basin in which most of its members have already been identified as water deficient countries. If such phenomena is not addressed it might lead to a regional conflict over water.

 

Ethiopia’s tribes cry for help

Last modified on 2012-02-18 23:49:00 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Violent clashes between the Ethiopian army and tribes from the region are on the rise. A local human rights worker told me of their fears of an escalation in the crisis to civil war. “Many tribes are saying they will fight back rather than be moved off their traditional lands to make way for these plantations. They are living in fear but feel they have nothing to lose by fighting back.”

Roadblocks are now in place in many parts of the Lower Omo Valley, limiting accessibility and ensuring the relocations remain out of the spotlight. Tribal rights NGO Survival International is leading calls for a freeze on plantation building and for a halt to the evictions. They have been campaigning to draw more attention to the deteriorating situation in the region since the Ethiopian government announced plans for the Gib III Dam [PDF] – Africa’s tallest, and one that is scheduled for completion later this year.

When completed, it threatens to destroy a fragile environment and the livelihoods of the tribes, which are closely linked to the river and its annual flood. Up to 500,000 people – including tribes in neighbouring Kenya – rely on the waters and adjacent lands of the Omo River and Lake Turkana, most of which lies in Kenya. The Karo people, now estimated to number just 1,500 along the eastern banks of the Omo River, face extinction. Already suffering from dwindling fish stocks as a result of the dam, the reduced river levels have also harmed their crop yields.”

Read more: Aljazeera

 

Kariba Dam Wall On Zimbabwe Side Risk Collapsing:Mangoma

Last modified on 2012-02-16 16:36:44 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“I repeat that the wall on the Zimbabwean side is weak and requires anchoring and this is being attended to. It is something that is high on the agenda because without the dam wall you really have nothing,” “Mangoma said.

The Kariba dam on the Zambezi River is one of the largest dams in the world, standing 128 m tall and 579 m long. The dam was built by Italians between 1955 and 1959 during the colonial time when Zimbabwe was still called Rhodesia. It borders with Zimbabwe’s northern neighbour Zambia which also generates electricity on the dam.

At the time of the construction of the dam several people and animals were killed forcing authorities to embark on an “Operation Noah” aimed at saving thousands of animals while over 57 000 people were relocated to safer areas away from the flooding rising water.”

Read more: Radio VOP

Uganda Hydropower Plant Plan Hits Funding, Technical Snags

Last modified on 2012-02-15 18:08:16 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Plans by Uganda to start building the planned 700 MW Karuma hydropower project this year have been thrown into jeopardy, following disagreements with would-be financiers over the design and capacity of the plant.

Days after the East African nation abolished subsidies in the energy sector, prompting a huge rise in the cost of electricity, the potenial financiers, including the Germany Development Bank, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, stated that it was not realistic that the water flow at Karuma would sustain the generation of 700 MW.

They argued that it did not make economic sense for Uganda to invest heavily in the project when it was clear the plant would only achieve full capacity during specific periods. The project has a $1.3-billion price tag.”

Read more: Engineering News

 

Will Ancient Mega Lake Bring Peace To Sudan?

Last modified on 2012-02-09 20:43:02 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“At least 300,000 people died and almost three million were displaced by the Darfur conflict in Sudan. Egyptian-American geologist Farouk El-Baz believes that limited access to water is one of the root causes of this conflict. Doctor El-Baz is director of Boston University’s center for remote sensing. He is known for his use of satellite images to search for water in the Mideast and North Africa. His work led to the discovery of a large underground water source in Egypt’s East Uweinat region near the borders with Libya, Chad and Sudan. This Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) contains over five million cubic feet of groundwater and is already bringing life and prosperity to a desolate part of the Eastern Sahara.

In 2007, Dr. El-Baz (left) used satellite-based ground penetrating radar to discover an ancient lake in the northern Darfur region of Sudan. At over 19,000 square miles this “Northern Darfur Mega-Lake” is vast– approximately the size of Lake Erie in North America.

Some time in recent geological history the lake slipped hundreds of meters beneath the desert sands and vanished from sight. Doctor El-Baz believes this underground lake can help restore peace to the Sudanese people so he proposed a 1000 wells project for Darfur.”

Read more: Green Prophet

 

Africa land grabs ‘could cause conflicts’

Last modified on 2012-02-05 06:26:18 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“ILC zeroed in on West Africa, where it said land acquisitions by foreign entities were causing major environmental and agricultural damage along the River Niger, at 2,265 miles the third longest river in Africa after the Nile and the Congo.

“The siphoning of water for huge areas of farmland will worsen the already low water levels of the Niger,” it said. The result was a “50 percent diminution of the delta flood plain’s land area.”

It concluded, “Given that social conflict over resources between farmers and pastoralists has always been a feature of the Niger Basin, the Coalition suggests that large-scale irrigation could heighten tension between local and downstream water users.”

On Jan. 20, two Liberian land campaigners wrote in The New York Times that the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, co-winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, was likely” “sowing the seeds of future conflict by handing over huge tracts of land to foreign investors and dispossessing rural Liberians.”
Read more: UPI

Sudan Dam Protest At President’s Doorstep

Last modified on 2012-02-03 16:06:08 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“We call for the rights of people affected by the dam,” their signs said.

“The peaceful protesters dispersed at the request of security officers.

It is the latest gathering in Khartoum by supporters of residents
displaced by the Merowe dam. City police forcibly broke up two
sympathetic demonstrations in December.

On November 20, about 1,000 people affected by the hydroelectric project
began a sit-in at Al-Damer, a town around 300 kilometres (180 miles)
north of Khartoum, over the government’s alleged failure to compensate
them with new homes as promised.

The sit-in continues.

Completed in 2009 at a cost of more than $2 billion (1.5 billion euros),
the Chinese-built development, northwest of Al-Damer, doubled Sudan’s
power generation capacity.

But it also forced 15,000 families from their homes three years ago to
make way for the dam and the huge reservoir that formed behind it.”

Read more: Dam and Alternatives

 

Zimbabwe’s government to give water to poor after typhoid outbreak; wealthy must buy water

Last modified on 2012-02-01 08:48:40 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Zimbabwean authorities say they are making sure poor townships get uninterrupted water supplies after a typhoid outbreak, leaving wealthy areas with reduced supplies.

“Harare official Tendai Mahachi told reporters Tuesday well-to-do suburbs will get water about twice weekly. He said “the wealthy can afford to buy water” and cope with outages.

“At least 900 cases of the bacterial disease have been treated this year in poor western suburbs of Harare, many having had no piped water for months and even years.

“No deaths have been reported in the typhoid outbreak blamed on food contaminated by feces from broken sewers during water shortages.”

Read more: Washington Post

Sharing The Benefits Of Large Dams

Last modified on 2012-01-25 17:54:47 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“It’s been nearly 50 years since the Akosombo dam was built in Ghana in 1965, flooding the lands and homes of 80,000 people, creating the largest manmade lake in the world, and securing Ghana’s electricity supply.

Since then, west African countries have built more than 150 large dams. Like Akossombo, many have stimulated national development while also bringing considerable environmental and social challenges. Some local grievances have even passed down through the generations, clogging up government offices and courts with complaints over the way ageing dams were built.

Large dam construction largely went out of fashion among major donors after 1990, as global concern grew over local impacts. But the past decade has seen the World Bank and other major multilateral banks renew their support for large dams in the face of increasing energy and food demand. Can these projects avoid repeating history?”

Read more: China Dialogue

 

What Risks Lie Ahead for African Water Security?

Last modified on 2012-01-17 19:03:47 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Africa is home to some of the largest lakes in the world, both in size and volume.

These lakes play a significant role in the political, social, economic and environmental life of many of the continent’s people and their importance is set to increase. However, the strain placed upon these water resources is also forecast to pose significant challenges for their future sustainable development. This points to the important internal dimension of African water politics. That these issues remain, for the moment, relatively marginal, also impels all those concerned with water to consider its future management with great care.

Mainstream consensus in water security and politics holds that African water resources are at risk, and that most countries are water stressed. Moreover any decision-maker has to take into account the variability of rain, risks of droughts and floods and the fact that sovereignty over rivers and lakes is often shared as a result of the demarcation of colonial borders.”

Read more: All Africa

 

South Sudan Tribal Conflict 2011-12

Last modified on 2012-01-13 19:11:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“An estimated 60,000 people have been displaced in South Sudan’s Jonglei state since late December, when some 6,000 to 8,000 armed members of the Lou Nuer tribe carried out a series of attacks on members of the rival Murle community. There have since been fatal revenge attacks by Murle members.

Following are key dates and background on factors affecting the conflict.

Key facts and figures:

* South Sudan, born in July after a referendum agreed under a 2005 peace deal with Sudan ended decades of civil war, is a poor country awash with weapons and where security is fragile.

* The recent attacks are the latest in a series of conflicts between the Lou Nuer and Murle cattle-herding communities over water and grazing land. Cattle have been raided and women and children abducted during conflict between the communities.

* The Murle are a minority group, marginalised politically and in terms of development. The Lou Nuer are a subgroup of the Nuer, the ethnic group of Vice President Riek Machar, and have thousands of men in the army.”

Read more: Alertnet

 

Rivers must flow: The case against big dams

Last modified on 2012-01-11 18:32:59 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“More than 50,000 large dams now choke about two-thirds of the world’s largest rivers. The consequences of this massive engineering programme have been devastating. Large dams have wiped out species; flooded huge areas of wetlands, forests and farmlands; displaced tens of millions of people, and affected close to half a billion people living downstream.

Large dams hold back not just water, but silt and nutrients that replenish farmlands and build protective wetlands and beaches. Dams change the very riverness of our waterways, in ways we can’t always see, but that the earth can certainly feel.

Of all the complex and interconnected environmental disruptions that dams inflict on the landscape, the most obvious is the permanent inundation of forests, wetlands and wildlife. Reservoirs have flooded vast areas - at last count, the world’s dams had flooded an area bigger than the United Kingdom.

Equally important is the quality of these lost lands: river and floodplain habitats are some of the world’s most diverse ecosystems. Plants and animals that are closely adapted to valley habitats often cannot survive along the edge of a reservoir.”

Read more: Aljazeera

 

 

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Egypt’s enemy or a blessing in disguise?

Last modified on 2012-01-06 18:42:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Preliminary construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GRD) began in April 2011 on the Blue Nile River near the Sudanese border. Scheduled for completion in 2014, it is planned to be the biggest hydropower dam in Africa, with more than twice the generating capacity of the Aswan High Dam. But long before the completion date, the project is already generating significant concern amongst the nine other countries that share the Nile, especially Egypt.

Over the past century many treaties have been signed in an attempt to assure each riparian country a right to Nile water, with Egypt generally receiving the lion’s share.  But sub-Saharan African counties have long argued that the old treaties deny their modern right to livelihood, and after a decade of political to-and-fro between these countries and Egypt, the GRD is now underway.

Most recently, the Egyptian government protested that no quantitative studies have been conducted with regard to the dam’s effects, a complaint that resulted in a trilateral ministerial meeting being held in November between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan.  During this meeting, it was announced that an independent technical committee of experts from each country would be formed in six months time to produce such a study.”

Read more: Egypt Independent

 

Waiting for water on the Banks of the Benue

Last modified on 2012-01-02 19:11:28 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Inquiry reveals that Makurdi’s water woes are far from over, AMETO AKPE, supported by a grant from the Pulitzer center on crisis reporting writes that poor planning and governance continues to enable the crisis.

“The inhabitants of Makurdi, capital town of Benue State located in north-central Nigeria, have waited for almost three decades for access to safe drinking water. Teased by the unfulfilled promises of one administration after the other, they have watched billions in naira squandered on projects that either never see the light of day or being flawed and poorly planned bring no real relief or at best only short-lived respite. Though this scenario is replicated all over the country, Makurdi is peculiar, as the town sits on the banks of one of Nigeria’s largest rivers, the Benue, from which the state derives its name.

“Thus in Makurdi, a popular saying plays out, ‘for many live by the riverside but wash their hands with spittle!’ Dwellers face a dreary quality of life with serious threats to health and general wellbeing, brought about and heightened by water scarcity and the inability to access safe drinking water. Most households, a greater proportion of which are poor, rely on yard wells, water vendors and streams – whose offerings are usually a cocktail of disease carrying bacteria from which many have died. A visit to Wadata, a slum neighborhood on the waterfront, gives a glimpse into the daily struggle of many.

“Residents, bereft of alternatives, wash, bath and drink from the polluted river Benue; same place where some defecate and dump garbage. Several residents testify that pipe-borne water has never run in their district, and even in relatively well off neighborhoods water runs once a week for about an hour.”

Read more: Business daily

Sudan riot police break up dam protest

Last modified on 2011-12-23 06:19:10 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Police then forcefully moved in and detained an unknown number of the demonstrators.

Their protest came exactly one month after about 1 000 people displaced by the dam began a sit-in over the government’s alleged failure to compensate them with replacement homes as promised.

They are continuing their sit-in at Al-Damer, a town around 300km north of Khartoum.

Completed in 2009 at a cost of more than $2bn, the Chinese-built Merowe dam doubled Sudan’s power generation capacity.

But it also displaced 15 000 families, who were ordered to leave their homes three years ago to make way for the dam and the huge reservoir that formed behind it.

Protests by villagers opposed to the project broke out in 2006, leaving three people dead and dozens injured.

Khartoum sits on the confluence of the Blue and White Niles. The government has aggressively sought to tap the power of the river waters, a valuable resource that could help offset the loss of oil revenues when South Sudan separated in July.”

Read more: news24

 

 

UN reports improved access to safe drinking water, but poorest countries still lagging

Last modified on 2011-12-21 22:04:03 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

 

World Rivers Review

Last modified on 2011-12-14 18:30:47 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Flying across any continent today confirms that the world’s rivers are dominant features in the landscape, and are places where humans and animals gather to reap the many benefits and services they provide. Rivers of all sizes all over the world have underpinned the process of human development. As we progress into the twenty-first century, this development process must now be reassessed. Across the world, we have mismanaged and in some places almost destroyed the core ecological fabric on which river health – and indeed our own survival – depends. Human-caused stressors now endanger the biodiversity of 65% of the world’s river habitats, putting thousands of aquatic wildlife species at risk.

One of the most comprehensive studies of global rivers to date has examined human stressors on all the major rivers of the world. This study, published in September 2010 in the journal Nature, evaluated the state of the world’s rivers by taking into account the major “ecological insults” we impose upon them. The 23 threat factors used in this analysis all have well-documented impacts on human water security and aquatic biodiversity. These were grouped according to their effects on river ecological health and biodiversity, and on human water security. Each of these threats was weighted separately, which is important since the effects of a factor such as nitrogen pollution on fish, for example, are not the same as its consequences for human water security.

Using geo-referenced global databases jointly developed by the team, the combined impact of these multiple threat factors can be displayed graphically, demonstrating global conditions across the 99 million km2 of major river basins included in the study.”

Read more: International Rivers

Going Without Clean Water

Last modified on 2011-12-10 19:02:52 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“In the U.S., we use an average of 100 gallons each day for washing, cooking, cleaning, drinking, (and lawn watering).

This doesn’t account for the water that’s required to grow our food, manufacture our computers, or refine the fuels we rely on to drive our cars and keep our homes, and water, warm.

In other parts of the world, nearly 900 million people do not have access to the daily minimum water requirement of 5-13 clean and safe gallons, according to the United Nations (U.N.).

Thirteen gallons of water in the U.S. is enough to flush the average toilet five times, or run the dishwasher once, or take an approximately 10-minute shower. (Learn more with National Geographic’s waterfootprint calculator.)

Every other year, global water expert Peter Gleick publishes a status report on the world’s biggest water concerns—The World’s Water. In the seventh volume, released in October, Gleick and his research team single out climate change and transboundary water management; global water quality, including threats from sewage, fossil fuels, and hydrological fracking; China’s Dams; and U.S. water policy as potential problem areas.”

Read more: National Geographic

 

The big challenge for a new Egypt: water

Last modified on 2011-12-09 18:06:45 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Egypt’s historical dominance of the Nile waters dates back to colonial era agreements made when Britain controlled much of east Africa and the Nile basin. The accords grant Egypt 55.5bn of the 74bn cubic metres a year of the Nile’s usable flow.

Ethiopia and others have long been calling for a new order based on a developmental discourse and their right to the Nile waters, but Hosni Mubarak’s regime used its political and military dominance in the region to stifle any tangible change in the hegemonic status quo.

Momentum for change had undoubtedly been building prior to Mubarak’s fall: the Nile Basin Initiative was established in 1999; the co-operative framework agreement recently gained support by a two-thirds majority; and therefore, theoretically, a process of progression to the Nile Basin Commission could begin. This momentum is likely to intensify now that Mubarak is gone, and three emerging factors are transforming water dynamics in the Nile basin and bringing further challenges for Egypt.

First, the instability of the revolution has arguably diminished Egypt’s regional presence and diplomatic strength in the basin. Incorporated in the Mubarak regime was a regional dominance, with significant support from the United States. This gave Egypt both a diplomatic and military advantage, which appeared insurmountable to the less powerful upstream states. For example, Egypt had consistently put pressure on the Arab League not to supply loans to Ethiopia for Nile water development.”

Read more: The Guardian

 

At the Nexus of Agrofuels, Land Grabs and Hunger

Last modified on 2011-12-08 05:18:27 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Industrialised agricultural practices currently produce 13.5 percent of all green house gas emissions, mostly methane and nitrous oxide. The latter is emitted in huge doses through the spraying of fertiliser, which is used 800 times more frequently today than it was 100 years ago.

The production of fertilisers themselves requires the burning up of fossil fuels, emitting up to 41 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

On top of this, heavy farm machinery spits about 158 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, while the water needed for industrial-style irrigation is pumped using fossil fuels that release another 369 million tonnes of C02 into the atmosphere.

And yet, powerful governments like the U.S. and various players from the eurozone, together with the WBG, continue to advocate for the proliferation of agrofuels, which employ the same dirty, large-scale farming techniques described above, as a “green solution” to the climate crisis.

In fact, the production of mono crop agrofuels guzzle thousands of gallons of freshwater, are processed into biodiesels – the very products that have overheated the planet to begin with – and create long, oil-thirsty transport chains to carry the product.”

Read more: All Africa

 

Africa’s great ‘water grab’

Last modified on 2011-12-04 03:03:18 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

The banks of the Niger river, in southern Mali, have been flooded by a steady stream of foreigners. Coveted by foreign investors eager to snap up large tracts of fertile farmland, the river basin has been at the centre of a race to get hold of African land at rock-bottom prices. Meanwhile, last week, hundreds of smallholder farmers and civil society activists flocked to the same river basin for the first international conference to tackle the global rush for land.

West Africa‘s largest river, the Niger is thought to sustain over 100 million people as it snakes 4,180km through Guinea, Mali and Niger before emptying into Nigeria’s colossal Niger Delta. In Mali, the Office du Niger is home to the vast majority of the country’s largescale land deals, seen by campaigners as emblematic of the “land grabs” taking place in developing countries. Recent estimates suggest that foreign investment in Mali’s limited arable land jumped by 60% between 2009 and 2010. But the potential knock-on effects of these land deals on local communities’ access to water has rarely made it centre-stage.

Ongoing research from the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development seeks to redress this blindspot, honing in on how such land deals might affect water access for fishing, farming and pastoralist communities. In a policy paper out on Thursday, the IIED’s Jamie Skinner and Lorenzo Cotula warn that an alarming number of African governments seem to be signing away water rights for decades, with major implications for local communities.

Read More: The Guardian

 

Ethiopia – government crackdown in Omo region intensifies

Last modified on 2011-11-05 05:11:11 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“Survival has received disturbing reports of a crackdown on tribal people opposed to Ethiopia’s program to remove them from their lands in the Omo region and force them to resettle in villages.

The authorities have organized community meetings to inform people of their controversial plans to lease out tribal lands to state and private companies for conversion into large-scale sugar cane, cotton and biofuels plantations.

After one such meeting, a group of Bodi and Chirim tribal people were shown where they are to be resettled. However, after seeing the place, they refused to be moved. The government responded by calling on the security forces to attend a follow-up meeting. When they still refused to move, four young men were rounded up and jailed.

Some Bodi felt so intimidated that they said the government could take the land for sugar, because they ‘could see that death was very near for them if they said no.’

Members of the Suri tribe have also been arrested in the town of Tum for opposing a plantation run by a Malaysian company, which has swallowed a large part of their land where they graze their cattle.

Many Suri say the arrests are a show of force, to intimidate them into not opposing the plantation. ‘We lived there in peace, in the heart of Suri land, the place where all of the Suri cattle were grazing during both the rainy and dry seasons. Now, in this place there is a plantation, owned by a rich Malaysian company.’ said one young Suri man.

‘The Malaysian investors and the government trained 130 soldiers who were given 130 machine guns. If Suri become aggressive towards the farms the soldiers are to kill Suri men, our sons,’ said a Suri woman.”

Read more: Survival

 

How the Global 1% Shape the World’s Development Agenda

Last modified on 2011-10-31 20:19:18 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The infrastructure sector is a key example for the G20’s powerful role behind the scenes. The group has commissioned a high-level panel of experts to prepare recommendations on future infrastructure investment in Southern countries. This panel brings together 17 leading representatives of large corporations, banks and government agencies. Civil society groups and trade unions are absent from its roster. The panel has just submitted its recommendations to the G20’s heads of state, who will convene for their annual meeting in Cannes/France next week. The new report illustrates what is wrong with delegating extensive powers to an exclusive body like the G20:

• Public interest ignored: In its early announcements, the high-level panel narrowly focused on the promotion of economic growth, at the exclusion of poverty reduction, environmental protection, and human rights. In its new report, the panel will recommend six criteria according to which the World Bank and other funders should prioritize their future projects. As the Boell Foundation reports, these criteria include issues such as regional integration and attractiveness for the private sector. They are silent on poverty reduction, protection of the environment and even climate change.
• Big is beautiful: The high-level panel was asked to identify a number of projects which exemplify the new approach to infrastructure development. Early on, this list included a transmission line between Ethiopia and Kenya and the Inga hydropower scheme on the Congo River. The transmission line will depend on the completion of the controversial Gibe III Dam on the Omo River, which violates numerous international agreements and will impoverish up to 500,000 indigenous people. The Inga dams will cost billions of dollars and will generate electricity for aluminum smelters and far-away urban centers, but will ignore the needs of Africa’s rural poor. The first two stages of the hydropower scheme have turned out to be white elephants and monuments of corruption. Scientists have warnedthat the proposed new dams may have “truly alarming” impacts on the capacity of the Atlantic Ocean to absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.”

Read more: International Rivers

 

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Water for Africa, and the Nobel Peace Prize

Last modified on 2011-10-08 19:18:14 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The remarkable president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen for their work on women’s rights. This award is rightful recognition of the commitment and dedication of these women to strengthening the rights and dignity of women in Africa, and around the world.

“A few years ago, with the support of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Pacific Institute produced a remarkable book of gritty, compelling black and white photographs taken by Gil Garcetti throughout West Africa. The photographs in Water is Key: A Better Future for Africa tell the story of the tragedy that comes from the lack of safe water and sanitation, but also the beauty and hope that clean water offers: the smile of a healthy child, the simple act of washing, and the joy of people working together as a community for the common goal of safe water. The books were given to community groups, non-governmental organizations, and others working on African water issues to help them raise awareness and funds for their efforts.

“The book also includes four short essays on water by President Jimmy Carter, Dr. Mary Robinson, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. In honor of President Johnson-Sirleaf’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize, I reproduce her essay on water from Water is Key, here.”

Read more: Forbes

Egypt’s New Democrats Ready to Defend Nile

Last modified on 2011-09-30 18:14:16 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“In the beginning, Egypt was the Nile. That could now change, as Egypt, Sudan and the countries that supply the Nile’s waters face new politics, economic development, skyrocketing demographics and climate change.  Egypt confronts at least a half a dozen other African countries that have for generations delivered their waters to Egypt’s Nile. What historically appeared to be Egypt’s birthright has now become a privilege they must negotiate with their upstream neighbors. It is a major issue in Egypt’s upcoming elections.

“Some of the political parties are talking about the Nile agreement,” said Dr. Mahmoud Abo-Zein  “but all of them are talking about water security, which means no disturbance of the historic rights and that countries should not implement projects which would affect our uses of the Nile in Egypt.” And that is what is at stake for Egypt as a newly elected government in Cairo will define its role in a new regional initiative that will decide the future of the Nile and its beneficiaries.

“The Nile Basin Intiative was begun in 1999. Dr. Abu-Zeid spent a good part of his 12 years as Egypt’s minister of water resources and irrigation trying to save those historic water rights in negotiated agreements with Ethiopia and at least five other African countries. A few months ago, it became clear that upstream neighbors could replace Egypt’s old river-related traditions, with or without Egypt and Sudan. Then, Ethiopia announced construction of a new dam that made Cairo nervous.They call it the Renissance Dam

“We saw that the new dam Ethiopia has started to build might affect the historic rights of Egypt,” said Abu-Zeid. Construction of Ethiopia’s $5-million hydro-electric dam on a principal source of Egypt’s Nile began several months ago.

Ethiopia recently agreed to host officials from Egypt and Sudan to prove that the dam, now called the Renaissance Dam, will not be used to irrigate any of the large corporate farms the Ethiopian government has leased to foreign investors in recent years. Though Ethiopia’s funding of the dam’s construction is uncertain, Egypt remains concerned and suspicious.

Read more: Voa news

How a Big Dam Fuels Landgrabs, Hunger and Conflict in Ethiopia

Last modified on 2011-09-14 20:22:48 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The Gibe III Dam, which is currently under construction, will disrupt the river’s annual flood cycle and lower the water levels of Lake Turkana. Critics have long feared that once the dam is built, the Ethiopian government will establish plantations in the Omo Valley and use the regulated water flow to irrigate export crops. The government dismissed such fears as baseless, and argued that the dam would not reduce the amount of water in the Omo River and Lake Turkana.

“Now that the dam is being built, the government is showing its true colors. An official map of the Lower Omo Valley delineates three blocks of land with a total of 245,000 hectares (close to 1,000 square miles) that will be turned into sugar plantations, to be managed by a state-owned sugar company. A briefing paper by the Oakland Institute, a research and advocacy organization, suggests that in addition, 11 smaller concessions have been awarded for private cotton plantations.

“Growing thirsty crops such as sugar cane and cotton for the world market does not make sense in a region that is scarce in water and prone to hunger and resource conflicts. The dam and the associated land grabs will turn the Gibe III hydropower project into a social and environmental disaster on several accounts:”

Read more: Huffington Post

 

Ancient Mediterranean Water Supply Networks Revived

Last modified on 2011-09-13 15:51:19 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

Years of drought had dried up the ancient water supply networks existing around the Mediterranean Rim. However, with rainfall returning over the past 5 years, the hydraulic heritage has come to life again. The names of the tunnels that carry the revived streams -khettaras in Morocco, foggaras in Algeria or qanâts in Iran- evoke the trickling sounds of water. These underground infiltration galleries are the most characteristic and original illustration of local communities’ recovery of ancestral schemes. As IRD researchers and their partners1 show, these water mines in the middle of the desert, most of which had been abandoned, have now been restored by oasis inhabitants.

These communities are now reinvesting in the maintenance of khettaras and in agriculture, especially young people returning to rural environments after experiencing unemployment in towns and cities. This is a risk owing to the uncertainties of climate, but fully assumed to revive collective action and to reappropriate the rules governing water-supply access, indeed in anticipation of possible new shortages in the years to come.

Click Here To Read More: Science Daily

Lead by example on climate change, says Fedusa

Last modified on 2011-09-12 22:58:17 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) says it is highly disappointed with government’s no show at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) meeting on Monday morning held to address problems caused by acid mine drainage.

“Representatives from government departments were scheduled to meet with organised business and organised labour — namely Fedusa and the Congress of South Africa trade unions [Cosatu].”

Cosatu had recently joined Fedusa ‘s Section 77 Protest Action against Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) and waste water treatment and wished to formally add additional concerns relating to water quality and accessibility.”

To Read More Click Here: Mail & Guardian Online

The Prem Rawat Foundation to Aid Relief Efforts in Drought-Stricken Kenya

Last modified on 2011-09-09 18:47:34 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“MC will use TPRF funding to assist families in northern Wajir districts, where reports say matters are made more difficult by the remoteness of the pastoral inhabitants in the area. MC organizers say their efforts will focus on the repair and rehabilitation of current water sources, providing clean and safe water, building latrines and offering hygiene education. There are also plans to rehabilitate water catchments, which will help alleviate community conflict over water resources while improving access for both humans and livestock.

United Nations estimates that more than four million Kenyans are among those threatened by starvation (BBC). The UN’s Food Security & Nutrition Analysis Unit anticipates that the situation is likely to persist until at least December. The crisis goes beyond fluctuations in climate, say some experts, because Kenyans have learned to cope with low rainfall throughout their history.”

Read more: Market Watch

 

African Energy’s New Friends in China

Last modified on 2011-09-09 17:20:42 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“When completed in 2013, Gibe III on Ethiopia’s Omo River will be Africa’s tallest dam, a $2.2 billion project that critics say will deprive birds and hippos of vital habitat. Some 600 miles to the north, Sudan is preparing to build the $705 million Kajbar dam on the Nile, which would inundate historic towns and tombs of the Nubian people, descendants of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. The $729 million Bui project on the Black Volta River, to be finished in 2013, will boost Ghana’s hydropower capacity by a third—and flood a quarter of Bui National Park while displacing 2,600 people.

What these megaprojects have in common is Chinese money and know-how. Companies such as Sinohydro and Dongfang Electric are key players in their construction, and they’re financed by Chinese banks with support from the government in Beijing. The country’s engineering and manufacturing giants have recently completed or are participating in at least $9.3 billion of hydropower projects in Zambia, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere on the continent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and International Rivers, a Berkeley (Calif.) environmental group.”

Read more: Bloomberg

 

Botswana Bushmen Drink From Reopened Borehole

Last modified on 2011-09-06 16:45:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Survival International says Botswana’s Bushmen are drinking water from a borehole in the Kalahari desert for the first time in nine years.

It is a significant victory against the government that once evicted them from their ancestral lands.

The government capped the well at Mothomelo in 2002 to help force the tribe out of an area rich in diamonds.

In 2006 a court ruled the eviction illegal. But few Bushmen returned because the only water available was in handmade sand depressions.

Only in January did a court rule that the Bushmen have a fundamental right to water.

Survival International said Monday the Mothomelo well was re-drilled and a solar pump installed by Vox United charity working with Gem Diamonds, which mines in the Bushmen’s lands.”

Read more: Trib.com

Nigeria floods: Ibadan reflects on Eleyele Dam tragedy

Last modified on 2011-09-05 14:32:38 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“After six hours of torrential rain the Eleyele Dam, which provided drinking water to the Nigerian city of Ibadan, could hold back the flow no longer.

Water poured over the top, flooding everything in its path.

It was nearly midnight last weekend and many people were asleep in their homes. More than 120 people – many of them children – perished.

“It was like an ocean wave making a loud noise as it came. It was very terrible,” Aleton Adejoke told the BBC.

“We managed to close our gate to stop the water rushing in. But thank God we didn’t go fishing.”

But just 30m (100 ft) from her house a tragedy was unfolding.

Floating cars

In a corrugated metal shack, eight children were trapped alone while their father was away working a night shift. Theirs was the closest house to the river and the speed of the water gave them no chance to escape.”

Read more: BBC

 

Gadhafi Turns Water Project Into A Weapon

Last modified on 2011-09-03 16:00:28 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Moammar Gadhafi’s retreating loyalists have cut off water supplies to Tripoli, the rebel-held capital, from the Great Man-Made River, a $33 billion system he built to tap into a vast underground aquifer in the Sahara to sustain his arid country.

It was hailed as an engineering masterpiece when it was completed in the 1990s after more than a decade of construction.

But now the Great Leader, fighting a rearguard action against NATO-backed rebels after six months of civil conflict, has callously turned it into a weapon of war against his own people.

U.N. agencies and aid groups say Gadhafi’s forces cut off water from the Great Man-Made River to western Libya, including the capital, on Aug. 21, the day after anti-Gadhafi rebels entered the city after six months of civil war.

Read more:UPI

Horn of Africa Drought

Last modified on 2011-08-30 21:48:22 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“As Muslims around the world mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and celebrate Eid Al-Fitr, many Somali Muslims will not be able to participate due to the ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa.

Hundreds of thousands of Somalis, threatened by drought and civil war, have wound up at Dadaab - the world’s largest refugee camp.

Situated on the Kenyan-Somali border, the Dabaab complex comprises three refugee camps – Dagaheley, Ifo and Hagadera. Spanning an area of 50km, the camps are designed to host a total of 90,000 people.

However, with a population of 440,000 hungry refugees, Dabaab houses nearly five times more people than its infrastructure is supposed to handle.

And with drought threatening 12 million people throughout the Horn of Africa, the numbers are growing.

Al Jazeera’s Azad Essa, reporting from Dadaab, said that despite aid agencies claiming that the number of new arrivals had reduced to around 800 per day from a high of 1500-1800 arrivals per day in July, little on the ground has changed.

“A few thousand have moved to the new Ifo camp, but thousands still remain on the outskirts, living in squalor conditions.”

Read more: Aljazeera

 

Tripoli Faces Severe Water Shortage

Last modified on 2011-08-28 17:51:50 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Libyans are experiencing a severe water shortage in the capital Tripoli.

While rumours circulate that it is due to sabotage or poisoning by Gaddafi forces, the truth is that the water tanks are empty because there has been no electricity to power pumps for 45 days.

 

Read more: Aljazeera

Expanding Deserts, Falling Water Tables and Toxins Driving People from Homes

Last modified on 2011-08-25 02:35:17 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“People do not normally leave their homes, their families, and their communities unless they have no other option. Yet as environmental stresses mount, we can expect to see a growing number of environmental refugees. Rising seas and increasingly devastating storms grab headlines, but expanding deserts, falling water tables, and toxic waste and radiation are also forcing people from their homes.

Advancing deserts are now on the move almost everywhere. The Sahara desert, for example, is expanding in every direction. As it advances northward, it is squeezing the populations of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria against the Mediterranean coast.

The Sahelian region of Africa – the vast swath of savannah that separates the southern Sahara desert from the tropical rainforests of central Africa – is shrinking as the desert moves southward. As the desert invades Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, from the north, farmers and herders are forced southward, squeezed into a shrinking area of productive land.”

Read more: Common Dreams

 

Ghana Expert Calls For Tougher Laws Against Water Pollution

Last modified on 2011-08-20 14:33:30 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“People have therefore called on the government to put in place the necessary legislation and infrastructure to ensure that the area would not go the way of some oil-producing African countries where the resource had been mismanaged.

The West African country discovered oil in commercial quantities in June 2007 off its southwest coast.

Following the discovery, there were high expectations especially among those in the region that the resource would be used to improve infrastructure as well as the living standards of the people in the area.

Executive Secretary of Ghana Water Resources Commission (WRC), Ben Ampomah, urged the government here on Monday to institute tougher laws against the pollution of water bodies especially by mining firms operating in the country.

In an interview with Xinhua, the expert said the current laws left companies and individuals, who polluted water resources, off the hook after paying paltry fines.

Due to the rising incidence of water pollution by large and small scale mining companies, Amomah said, water pollution was an urgent national issue which had even reached to the level of a national security concern and so it needed a holistic concrete action to be solved.

The laws on pollution were not punitive enough and the commission had have to negotiate with mining firms for remedies any time pollution occurred, he added.”

Read more: Xinhua News

 

Somalia: Rights Group Says All Sides Guilty Of Crime

Last modified on 2011-08-19 18:09:38 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The report’s author, Ben Rawlence, told the BBC that al-Shabab carries out unrelenting daily repression and brutality in areas under its control, taxing the population for access to water, forcefully recruiting men so they cannot grow crops and restricting access to aid agencies.

“Al-Shabab must carry the burden of that responsibility for the way in which the demands of the fighting has led to human rights violations which have contributed to famine,” he said.

Mr Rawlence said al-Shabab often fired from within populated areas towards TFG troops and UN peacekeepers, who responded “without paying too much attention to who is there”.

The report also accuses the TFG of carrying out arbitrary arrests and detentions, and says those who flee the country face more problems, enduring rape and extortion, allegedly by the Kenyan police.”

Read more: BBC

 

Water and sanitation in Katine

Last modified on 2011-08-11 15:54:59 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Here, as in many parts of rural Africa, fetching water is a woman’s job, as are most household chores. Therefore, a water source that is not only closer to home but safe goes some way to improving the lives of women such as Ati. Her family pays UShs 500 (18 US cents) a month to the water source committee elected by the village. That money, she explains, would be used for repairs if the borehole broke down.

Given that Amref drilled 11 boreholes in the first three years of the Katine project, eight in one year sounds a lot. But Amref’s acting water and sanitation officer in Katine, Lenox Ochan, says this became possible after abandoning plans for a UShs 150m ($54,000) motorised water pump for Tiriri health centre.

Local government and health centre staff had opposed the pump scheme because it was too expensive to build and maintain, especially since the national water utility has since extended piped water to the health centre. But Amref had appeared so insistent on the pump that its abandonment is seen as a victory for local officials – and for villagers such as Ati who have got boreholes built with the money that has been freed up.”

Read more: Guardian

 

MPs Join Opposition To Ethiopian Dam

Last modified on 2011-08-10 16:54:43 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The dam will reduce the Omo River flow into Lake Turkana causing the lake’s water levels to drop by 10 meters. This will critically alter the ecosystem affecting over 300,000 people. The lake will also become saline and undrinkable,” he argued.

While seconding the Motion, which was supported by several MPs from across the political divide, nominated MP Rachael Shebesh accused the government of ignoring the plight of its people by allowing Ethiopia to carry on with the project despite the issues raised.

She added that the dam would kill the economic livelihoods of the people living around the Lake and affect their independence.

“If you are negotiating as a government on behalf of your people the first people you should consider are those who will be affected by what you’re negotiating about. The government should not negotiate away the rights of Kenyans,” she said.

“This dam will make 300,000 people crawl to their knees!” she moaned.

“However Water Minister Charity Ngilu assured the House of the government’s commitment to protecting its people. Ms Ngilu said the government had already set up a committee to look into the issue before presenting its report in September.

She added that when the Ethiopian government first undertook to construct Gibe I with a capacity of 839 million cubic meters on River Gibe, which is a tributary of River Omo, no questions were raised. She however observed that the construction of Gibe II, still on River Gibe, caused concern.”

Read more: Capital FM News

 

When The Water Ends: Africa’s Climate Conflicts

Last modified on 2011-08-05 20:13:41 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“For thousands of years, nomadic herdsmen have roamed the harsh, semi-arid lowlands that stretch across 80 percent of Kenya and 60 percent of Ethiopia. Descendants of the oldest tribal societies in the world, they survive thanks to the animals they raise and the crops they grow, their travels determined by the search for water and grazing lands.

These herdsmen have long been accustomed to adapting to a changing environment. But in recent years, they have faced challenges unlike any in living memory: As temperatures in the region have risen and water supplies have dwindled, the pastoralists have had to range more widely in search of suitable water and land. That search has brought tribal groups in Ethiopia and Kenya in increasing conflict, as pastoral communities kill each other over water and grass.”

“When the Water Ends,” a 16-minute video produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration with MediaStorm , tells the story of this conflict and of the increasingly dire drought conditions facing parts of East Africa. To report this video, Evan Abramson , a 32-year-old photographer and videographer, spent two months in the region early this year, living among the herding communities. He returned with a tale that many climate scientists say will be increasingly common in the 21st century and beyond — how worsening drought in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere will pit group against group, nation against nation. As one UN official told Abramson, the clashes between Kenyan and Ethiopian pastoralists represent “some of the world’s first climate-change conflicts.”

Read more: Yale Environment

Shell faces first Nigeria spill claims in UK

Last modified on 2011-08-05 19:43:46 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“A British court has ruled that a Nigerian community devastated by oil spills can claim compensation in the UK from the energy giant Shell.

Royal Dutch Shell has already accepted responsibility and promised to pay some form of compensation for the spills, which took place in 2008 and 2009, destroying parts of the Bodo fishing communities in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta wetlands.

But Wednesday’s decision could open the company up to larger claims.

Shell said it does not comment on the legal process, which could take several months to reach a conclusion.

“SPDC (Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria) has always acknowledged that the two spills which affected the Bodo community, and which are the subject of this legal action, were operational,” a statement from Shell said.

Leigh Day & Co, the lawyers representing the Bodo communities, who live in the snaking, oil-rich creeks and
waterways, said the case was the first of its kind because it would be handled under British jurisdiction.

“SPDC has agreed to formally accept liability and concede to the jurisdiction of the UK,” a statement on the law firm’s website said.”

Read more: Aljazeera

 

In Arid South African Lands, Fracking Controversy Emerges

Last modified on 2011-08-04 21:56:07 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The controversy has put the government in a tough spot. Seventeen years after the end of apartheid, the African National Congress-led government is under pressure to deliver jobs, services, and greater prosperity to the country’s largely impoverished and increasingly impatient population. The sparsely populated, semi-desert Karoo has a mixed-ethnic population of 300,000, including native Khoisan people, other black Africans, and white farmers. Many of the region’s residents live in squalid settlements that are a remnant of the apartheid era, and the government clearly hoped that a hydrofracturing boom would bring jobs and greater prosperity to the region.

Opposition to fracking in the Karoo has been centered not in the black settlements, but more among the white farmers and landowners who fear that the industry will pollute and deplete already scarce water supplies in this rain-starved region. Each fracking drilling well requires millions of liters of water and produces large quantities of tainted wastewater that must be treated.”

Read more: Yale Environment

Congolese Ignore Cholera Warnings

Last modified on 2011-07-28 18:59:47 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“In any case, said Keto, he was not worried: he had drunk the river water and still felt fine. And in any case, he added, he had never heard of water making you sick.

Keto lives on one of the islets along the river Congo, a stone’s throw away from Kinshasa’s port of Ngamanzo.

Like a lot of other local people who don’t have running water in their homes, he uses the river not just for drinking water but for cooking and the laundry.

And in the the absence of decent sanitary facilities, the river also serves as a toilet, which only increases the health hazards.

The country’s latest cholera outbreak began in the northeastern province of Province Orientale in March, spreading west to Bandundu before reaching Equateur and Kinshasa.

Or to put it another way, it followed the course of the Congo river.

According to the latest official toll, the outbreak has already killed 279 people out of the 4,062 cases detected across the country.

The Ngamanzo dispensary recorded its first case in mid-June and has since recorded 15 cases in all, including a 35-year-old woman who succumbed to the disease.”

Read more: ioL News

 

UN Calls For Suspension Of Giant Ethiopian Hydropower Dam

Last modified on 2011-07-28 18:47:56 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

 

The Geopolitics of Water in the Nile River Basin

Last modified on 2011-07-24 16:31:00 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“In Africa, access to water is one of the most critical aspects of human survival. Today, about one third of the total population lack access to water. Constituting 300 million people and about 313 million people lack proper sanitation. (World Water Council 2006). As result, many riparian countries surrounding the Nile river basin have expressed direct stake in the water resources hitherto seldom expressed in the past. In this paper, I argue that due to the lack of consensus over the use of the Nile basin regarding whether or not “water sharing” or “benefit sharing” has a tendency to escalate the situation in to transboundary conflict involving emerging dominant states such as the tension between Ethiopia-Egypt over the Nile river basin.  At the same time, this paper further contributes to the Collier- Hoeffler conflict model in order to analyze the transboundary challenges, and Egypt’s position as the hegemonic power in the horn of Africa contested by Ethiopia.   Collier- Hoeffler model is used to predict the occurrence of conflicts as a result of empirical economic variables in African states given the sporadic civil strife in many parts of Africa. In order to simplify my argument and analysis, I focused on Ethiopia and Egypt to explicate the extent of water crisis in the North Eastern part of Africa. ”

Read more: Global Research

Drought Just One Example of Africa’s Changing Environment

Last modified on 2011-07-18 18:43:43 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“As a prolonged, severe drought puts 10 million people at risk in East Africa, humanitarian agencies are hard-pressed to supply enough food and water. Crops have been destroyed, farmland damaged, seeds consumed as food and livestock sold so families can survive. Thousands of people have migrated to neighboring countries hoping to find relief. They often just find more of the same.

The U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) has issued warnings for years on the affects of potential climate change, deforestation and the loss of grasslands and wetlands.

“This is not a new phenomenon. I mean we seem to be seeing the increasing frequency over recent years these kinds of events,” said Nick Nuttall, chief spokesman for UNEP, which is based Nairobi.

While droughts are not definitive proof of climate change, Nuttall said,” “It certainly is part of environmental change, which is happening in the Horn of Africa, but also happening across Africa in terms of land quality…availability of fresh water, in terms of more frequent drought and floods.”

Read more: VOA News

 

Ethiopia Moves Forward with Massive Nile Dam Project

Last modified on 2011-07-14 18:06:00 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Ethiopia has announced that it will construct a controversial multibillion-dollar Nile River dam that could supply more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity for itself and its neighbors, including newcomer South Sudan.

The project—the Grand Millennium Dam—has sparked worries about environmental and human costs and is refocusing attention on the country’s troubled history with large dams.

(Read more about South Sudan’s energy situation in National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge Blog: “Building a New Nation and New Energy in South Sudan.“)

At a public ceremony in March, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi laid the cornerstone for the new dam, a hydroelectric power plant that will span a section of the Blue Nile River in the country’s Benishangul-Gumuz region.

The Blue Nile originates in Ethiopia’s Lake Tana and is one of two major tributaries of the Nile, the world’s longest river.”

Read more: National Geographic

 

Libya Warns Rebel-Held East Of Water Shortages

Last modified on 2011-07-12 16:30:50 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Libyan officials warned Tuesday that the rebel-controlled eastern half of the country could be cut off from water supplies without a truce to allow for maintenance work on a power plant pumping water up from the desert.

About 70 percent of the country relies on water brought up from underground aquifers deep in the southern desert, and the plant powering it in the east is falling apart, said the Libyan agricultural minister.

“Out of six turbines, we are using one turbine in the plant because of lack of maintenance,” said Abdel-Maguid al-Gaud, who is also head of the system known as the Great Man-made Water Project, which supplies water to both halves of the country. “It’s going to close itself.”

Al-Gaud called for a cease-fire with the rebels and NATO forces conducting airstrikes against Moammar Gadhafi’s military, and he urged the U.N. to lift a ban on importing spare parts so the power plant could be repaired and restored to full power. U.N. Security Council resolutions ban imports of many items into Libya.

Libya has several times demanded a cease-fire in the four month-old war, but the rebels and NATO have insisted on Gadhafi’s departure first.

Currently the plant is pumping 400,000 cubic meters of water per day out of the desert, instead of a normal rate of twice that.”

Read more: ajc

 

Ethiopia pushes ahead with plans to dam the Nile

Last modified on 2011-07-08 18:55:10 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Ethiopia says that a controversial multi-billion dollar dam will not restrict the flow of the Nile waters to Egypt and Sudan.

“The Grand Millennium Dam, a $4.5 billion (Dh16.5 billion) hydroelectric project, will allow Ethiopia to export electricity to its neighbours and regulate the flow of the Nile to them, Tadesse Haile, Ethiopia’s Minister of Industry, said in an interview during a recent visit to the UAE.

“The fact that we are building this dam has nothing to do with [our] neighbouring countries — in fact it is in favour of them. It has no negative impact on water usage [by those countries],” he said.

“Ethiopia is the source of 85 per cent of the Nile’s flow and was involved in a long-standing dispute with Egypt over the sharing of the river’s water. Haile insisted that the dam would not reduce the Nile’s flow to Egypt and Sudan.

“It is not the case. By the way, Egypt and Sudan will be enjoying the regulation of the water [flow]… Hydropower does not consume water, it only regulates it, leaves the water to flow… Without this dam, the water could have flown and Egypt and Sudan could suffer as a result of unregulated water by way of a flood, which was the case in the past,” he said.

“Egypt and Ethiopia will likely sign an agreement to use Nile water on “fair and equitable” terms once a democratic government is elected in Egypt, he added.”

Read more: Gulf news

Africa Drought Endangers Millions

Last modified on 2011-07-05 16:55:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Drought conditions and extreme food shortages in the area at expected to last into 2012. “The prognosis is that it’s going to go downhill from here,” Bunker said.

“Resources are woefully inadequate,” OCHA emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio last week. “We have an appeal that is at the moment only 40 percent met. Some of the key sectors that are needed to protect and save the lives of people in Somalia are not being addressed at all.”

Other U.N. agencies are painting a similarly dire picture of the food security situation in East Africa, but say they are assisting as best they can.”

“Desperate hunger is looming across the Horn of Africa and threatening the lives of millions who are struggling to survive in the face of rising food prices and conflict,” WFP executive director Josette Sheeran said in a release. “It is essential that we move quickly to break the destructive cycle of drought and hunger that forces farmers to sell their means of production as part of their survival strategy.”

Read more: New York Times

 

The Decline Of Agriculture?

Last modified on 2011-07-05 16:36:24 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Severe weather events around the world will increase, even parts of the globe that don’t normally see extreme weather events,” said Steff Gaulter, Al Jazeera’s senior weather presenter. “Those parts of the world that already struggle with water shortages will find matters worsening, including Australia, Mexico, the southwest United States, and parts of Africa.”

Gaulter agrees with the FAO that poorer countries are likely to be the worst affected because they have less resources to cope with disasters.

“With worsening water-shortages, there will be more crop-failures, which means an increase in malnutrition,” she added. “There is also likely to be an increase in disease as people drink water that is unsuitable for consumption. All of this is an added expense that will be particularly punishing for poorer regions to endure, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Approximately 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa currently lack access to clean drinking water.

“It is also estimated that by 2020, an additional 75 to 250 million people there will also face water shortages,” said Gaulter. “That’s in less than ten years.”

Read more: Aljazeera

South Africa: Two warriors die, alongside the right to water

Last modified on 2011-07-03 15:13:05 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Manqele’s water war

Meanwhile, a few hours drive down the coast in southwest Durban, Manqele was working closely with the late Fatima Meer, sociologist Ashwin Desai and Westcliff Flats Residents Association leader Orlean Naidoo to help unite Chatsworth’s African and Indian residents in what became the Durban Social Forum, no easy task given the area’s divided history, desegregation dynamics and acute race/class tensions. In 1999, Manqele became ill, lost her job and saw her municipal arrears reach $1300.

The first water disconnection by city authorities was in January 2000. Manqele explained in the documentary film, Plumbing the Rights, “That man came now to close the water. I haven’t got water after that I haven’t got food too, and then I’m thinking one way may be to sell my body there, I’m thinking food again to I’m thinking I can’t got there to prostitute me I’m old. All night I can’t sleep and high blood pressure is high.”

Chatsworth activists then helped Manqele illegally reconnect the pipes, allowing her and the seven children to consume more than the 25 litres per person (two flushes of the toilet each) that the city was allegedly supplying free each day. But as Naidoo recalled, the water only kicked in once arrears were cleared: “What kind of free water service is that – when people can’t afford to pay their daily bill, how are they going to pay off their arrears to get their free water? So that’s just a false hope.”

The turn to illegality was demonstrated on film by Chatsworth organiser Brandon Pillay, later elected an ANC city councilor: “There’s a copper disc that’s placed inside of this pipe and that actually shuts off the water so what we do is we just try to open up this pipe, and on opening this pipe we just remove the disc and then we have water.”

Manqele told the filmmaker a few months later, as cholera joined the diarrhea and AIDS pandemics, ” “That’s why me now I go back there to open the water… I’m scared for the cholera and then I need the water because me my condition… and I’m worried for the children, the suffering of the children, that’s why now if I never did that thing [illegal reconnection] now I’m going to die, I can’t stay without water.”

Read more: Links

 

Water wars: 21st century conflicts?

Last modified on 2011-06-29 19:09:17 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Water scarcity is an issue exacerbated by demographic pressures, climate change and pollution,” said Ignacio Saiz, director of Centre for Economic and Social Rights, a social justice group. “The world’s water supplies should guarantee every member of the population to cover their personal and domestic needs.”

“Fundamentally, these are issues of poverty and inequality, man-made problems,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Of all the water on earth, 97 per cent is salt water and the remaining three per cent is fresh, with less than one per cent of the planet’s drinkable water readily accessible for direct human uses. Scarcity is defined as each person in an area having access to less than 1,000 cubic meters of water a year.

The areas where water scarcity is the biggest problem are some of the same places where political conflicts are rife, leading to potentially explosive situations.

Some experts believe the only documented case of a “water war” happened about 4,500 years ago, when the city-states of Lagash and Umma went to war in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.”

Read more: Aljazeera

 

 

 

800 Somali Kids Arrive In Kenyan Camps Daily

Last modified on 2011-06-28 21:36:48 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“An international aid group says over 800 Somali children arrive at Kenyan refugee camps each day to escape their country’s devastating drought.

Save the Children says that the children are part of the nearly 1,300 people who come each day to the overcrowded Dadaab refugee camps in northeastern Kenya.

The group said Tuesday that some families walk through sand and searing heat for more than a month looking for food, water and shelter.

The U.N. refugee agency says 20,000 Somalis have arrived in Kenya over the past two weeks alone, a sharp increase from last year when some 6,000 to 8,000 Somalis were arriving in Kenya each month.

Save the Children says the children arrive from Somalia exhausted, malnourished and severely dehydrated.”

Read more: Jakarta Post

Floods, Droughts, And A Global Water Warning

Last modified on 2011-06-27 17:58:00 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE ), a joint satellite mission by NASA and the German space agency DLR, tracks freshwater availability over the globe. And according to hydrologist James Famiglietti at the University of California, Irvine, it’s not revealing a pretty picture. His team has observed steadily declining groundwater reserves in many of the world’s major aquifers, particularly those in the arid and semi-arid parts of the globe. Between 1994 and 2006, annual fresh-water flow increased 18% suggesting an acceleration in the global water cycle of evaporation and rainfall.

A redistribution of precipitation from the mid latitudes to higher and lower latitudes means that wet regions get wetter and dry get drier . Famigliette’s research is among the first to demonstrate that these conditions–previously predicted by climate models–are already happening. And this isn’t just a story about available drinking water because it causes tremendous concerns about food, energy, economic, and international security.”

Read more: Wired

 

Sudan Seeks To Tap ‘Blue Gold’

Last modified on 2011-06-27 17:30:40 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Sudan is aggressively seeking to tap its abundant Nile waters with new dam projects as the oil-rich south’s independence looms, but experts warn of the social and environmental costs, and the bearing on the Nile water sharing dispute.

Khartoum sits on the confluence of the Blue and White Niles.

The cash-strapped government has good reasons for wanting to exploit its “blue gold,” a valuable resource that will help to offset the imminent loss of revenues from southern oil — some 36 percent of its income — when south Sudan proclaims independence on July 9.

“Sudan is clearly gearing up in terms of agriculture, because of the oil gap that comes with the separation of the south. To the extent that it can do more in the way of dams, that is its economic security,” said a Sudan-based environmentalist, requesting anonymity.

Last week, during a ministerial visit, the engineer responsible for heightening the vast Roseires dam, on the Blue Nile, said the $400 million project, which is due for completion in June 2012, would create three million feddans (1.3 million hectares) of farmland.”

Read more: Zawya

 

At Least 10 Killed In North Kenya Clashes: Police

Last modified on 2011-06-27 15:35:02 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Clashes over control of grazing land and water sources in drought-afflicted northern Kenya killed at least 10 people on Saturday, police said.

Police and local leaders said the fighting occurred on the border between the Isiolo and Samburu districts, an area that is prone to drought and has been plagued by deadly clashes over resources in the past few years.

Marcus Ochola, the deputy police commissioner for Eastern Province, told Reuters six raiders and four local herders had been killed, more people had been wounded and the death toll might rise.

Civic leader Abdullahi Golicha also put the death toll at 10, split roughly between raiders and herders, and said the fighting was still going on so there could be more casualties.”

Read more: Reuters

 

Water For Peace In Darfur

Last modified on 2011-06-26 05:27:25 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Dwindling natural resources, caused in part by climate change, had pitted nomads against farmers and others who previously lived in harmony until desertification forced them to compete violently for water.

While his words generated some controversy at the time, the United Nations is now backing serious efforts to right the ecological situation in Darfur as a key driver for peace.

On 27-28 June, the UN, AU and Sudan’s Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources open a major international conference on Water for Sustainable Peace in Darfur. Some 200 experts on water and development will gather in Khartoum to address the challenge of creating a sustainable water sector for Darfur. That reversing environmental degradation must happen in order to establish recovery and sustainable peace in Darfur is now accepted wisdom.

While there is water underground below the sands of Darfur, the stark reality is that some areas are facing chronic depletion of water resources. Camps for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons are running dry. The water supply for rapidly growing towns is plummeting. The population of Nyala in South Darfur, for example, has grown by 300 percent in 30 years while the water table has fallen by eight to 10 metres. Another year of low rainfall could mean that aquifers under these camps and urban centres could fail catastrophically. The gravity and urgency posed by this situation cannot be ignored and impact the chances for peace.”

Read more: Next

 

Estuaries on the northwestern coast of Madagascar As Seen From Orbit

Last modified on 2011-06-23 17:06:04 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“This photograph highlights two estuaries located along the northwestern coastline of the island of Madagascar. The Mozambique Channel (top) separates Madagascar from the southeastern coast of Africa. Bombetoka Bay (upper left) is fed by the Betsiboka River and is a frequent subject of astronaut photography due to its striking red floodplain sediments. Mahajamba Bay (right) is fed by several rivers including the Mahajamba and Sofia Rivers; like the Betsiboka, the floodplains of these rivers also contain reddish sediments eroded from their basins upstream.

The brackish (mix of fresh and salty water) conditions found in most estuaries host unique plant and animal species adapted to live in such environments. Mangroves in particular are a common plant species found in and around Madagascar estuaries, and Bombetoka Bay contains some of the largest remaining stands. Estuaries also host abundant fish and shellfish species — many of which need access to freshwater for a portion of their life cycles — and these in turn support local and migratory bird species that prey on them.

However, human activities such as urban development, overfishing, and increased sediment loading from erosion of upriver highlands threaten the ecosystem health of the estuaries. In particular, the silt deposits in Bombetoka Bay at the mouth of the Betsiboka River have been filling in the bay.”

Read more: Spaceref

Struggle Over The Nile

Last modified on 2011-06-14 17:10:08 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“For centuries, Egypt has sought to be Master of the Nile – seeking to tame the river’s unpredictable flow and ensure exclusive control over its use.

“We are wholly dependent on the Nile. We have no other water sources. So, the truth is any threat against the Nile waters will result in the reduction of Egypt’s share. This would threaten us with thirst and death …. We don’t have hostile intentions against anyone. We don’t go to war just for the sake of fighting. But if someone is going to stop the water, Egypt will die of thirst. Then we will fight … with all means available” Hussam Swailam, former Egyptian military general

But today, countries upstream are challenging this dominance and pushing for a greater say and greater share of the River Nile.”

“I know that some people in Egypt have old-fashioned ideas based on the assumption that the Nile water belongs to them and that Egypt has the right to decide … who gets what of the Nile water and that the upper riparian countries are unable to use the Nile water because they will be unstable and because they will be poor. These circumstances have changed and changed forever” Read more: Aljazeera

 

Water Scarcity Root of Darfur Conflict

Last modified on 2011-06-12 14:03:55 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The conflict in Western Sudan’s Darfur region erupted more than eight years ago.  It has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced an estimated two million people.  Disputes over scarce water and grazing land between black African farmers and Arab pastoralist communities triggered the war.  Lack of access to water remains one of the major drivers of the ongoing conflict in Darfur.   An international conference in Khartoum at the end of June will focus on the critical issue of water and how the equitable use and management of this limited resource can help build peace in this troubled region.

When people in developed countries want water, they turn on the tap.

When people in Darfur want water, they have to search far and wide for it.

A UN video shows women and children walking long distances through the arid desert to fetch water in Darfur.  They wait in lengthy lines at the communal well to fill their jerry cans with water for their drinking and washing needs.  This process is repeated every three or four days.

According to the United Nations, one person uses nearly 400 liters of water per day, in the world’s wealthiest countries.  In Darfur, 400 liters of water is shared by 20 people.”

Read more: voanews

Mozambique’s Lake Niassa Declared Reserve and Ramsar Site

Last modified on 2011-06-12 13:53:11 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“The Government of Mozambique has also approved the proposal for the designation of Lake Niassa as a Ramsar site, including not only the reserve, but surrounding wetlands and watershed. This wetland will be the second Ramsar site for Mozambique after the declaration of Marromeu Complex in 2003.

Lake Niassa, spanning 3,369,776 acres and almost 2,300 feet deep is Mozambique’s part of the third largest and the second deepest lake in Africa.

“Globally, Lake Niassa is exceptional. Ninety-nine percent of the freshwater fish species that inhabit its waters only occur within this lake — scientists estimate that up to 1,000 freshwater fish species will eventually be described; a total that would equal more than the number of fish species found in all of the United States and Canada,” said Michele Thieme, WWF-US Freshwater Conservation Biologist.

Through collaboration of the Government of Mozambique (Ministries of Tourism, Fisheries, Environment and Defense, the Niassa Provincial Government), USAID, The Coca-Cola Company and WWF, village level mechanisms for monitoring illegal and overfishing, erosion and deforestation, managing fisheries, and mitigating the impacts of climate change were developed. Zones were created that will allow for total protection of species in some areas, seasonal protection in others, depending on spawning times and dedicated artisanal fishing areas.”

Read more: PR Web

 

The Commodification of Water And Land in Mali

Last modified on 2011-06-10 18:05:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“This ecological representation of water as a common good explains why the creation of the ‘water business’ and the commercial logic of ‘public-private partnerships’ is so unacceptable. This commercially based logic, over and above preaching democratisation and good governance, involves predatory appropriation of wealth that belongs to others by the private sector; this is carried out through privatisations that have actually been totally discredited in Africa since the 1980s.

This logic is implemented by the private multinationals of the water sector and their allies (World Bank, IMF and the elite of African leaders). They do so by classical forms of privatisation (joint management, concessions, delegation of management), as well as so-called innovative practice (participation of the private sector, partnerships between water operators, prepaid metres, water heritage companies etc). The logic is one of domination and it excludes political participation of citizens and users. In Mali, these users have discreetly been transformed into a GIE (Economic Interest Group). (Translator’s note: A legally recognised French form of business consortium) and educated according to the management gospel of the water multinationals, according to which one is supposed to ‘make water pay for itself’. This implies that water is sold, commoditised, considered in the same way as oil. Citizens are encouraged to forget their rights and obligations as political subjects responsible for defining their own future. They are led instead to believe that this responsibility lies in the hands of the commercially minded technocracy.

The United Nations declared 2008 as the international year of rights to water and sanitation. On 28 July 2010 they adopted a resolution that declared the right to water and sanitation as a fundamental human right. In order to avoid this being mere lip service, citizens need to take renewed control of their political responsibilities. Water needs to be removed from the WTO GATS framework (General Agreement on Trade and Services).”

Read more: allAfrica.com

 

How Dams Can Bring About Rainfalls and Drought

Last modified on 2011-06-09 15:03:41 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“It is undisputed that dams can influence local rainfalls. Humidity evaporates from reservoirs and irrigated fields and gets recycled as rainfall. Evaporation from reservoirs can also cause more frequent storms. On the other hand, dams and levees can reduce evaporation and rainfalls when they drain wetlands and open up woodlands for deforestation.

The Niger Delta in West Africa illustrates how dams can influence rainfalls. In September, the delta’s wetlands extend to an area of 30,000 square kilometers – roughly the size of Belgium – and feed rainfalls over a much larger region. Yet upstream dams on the Niger have reduced the flows into the delta by 10-15%, and a major proposed hydropower project upstream on the river would reduce inflows by a further 33%. “Such a change would significantly reduce the window in the seasonal cycle when the wetland can influence rainfall,” warns Christopher Taylor of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Great Britain.

What does this mean for the Three Gorges Dam? A group of researchers in the US and in China analyzed regional rainfall data before and after the completion of the dam on the Yangtze. They found that precipitation decreased somewhat south of the reservoir, and increased significantly about 100 kilometers north of the reservoir.

Yet the rainfalls around the reservoir are only half the story. The dam has impacts on wetlands throughout the lower Yangtze basin. During the flood season, the Yangtze used to greatly expand the area of the Dongting and Poyang lakes, two large flood basins in the Yangtze Valley. Their combined surface used to expand from about 4,000 to about 24,000 square kilometers every year. Land reclamation for agriculture reduced the size of the lakes, and by storing flood water for electricity generation, the Three Gorges Dam is now greatly diminishing the seasonal expansion of the two flood basins. During this year’s drought, the majestic Dongting Lake – home of the famous Chinese dragon boat races – turned into a sad mudflat with isolated pools of water.”

Read more: International Rivers

Plan B Updates: When The Nile Runs Dry

Last modified on 2011-06-08 02:30:26 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“A new scramble for Africa is under way. As global food prices rise and exporters reduce shipments of commodities, countries that rely on imported grain are panicking. Affluent countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China and India have descended on fertile plains across the African continent, acquiring huge tracts of land to produce wheat, rice and corn for consumption back home.

Some of these land acquisitions are enormous. South Korea, which imports 70 percent of its grain, has acquired 1.7 million acres in Sudan to grow wheat–an area twice the size of Rhode Island. In Ethiopia, a Saudi firm has leased 25,000 acres to grow rice, with the option of expanding this to 750,000 acres. And India has leased several hundred thousand acres there to grow corn, rice and other crops.

These land grabs shrink the food supply in famine-prone African nations and anger local farmers, who see their governments selling their ancestral lands to foreigners. They also pose a grave threat to Africa’s newest democracy: Egypt.

Egypt is a nation of bread eaters. Its citizens consume 18 million tons of wheat annually, more than half of which comes from abroad. Egypt is now the world’s leading wheat importer, and subsidized bread–for which the government doles out approximately $2 billion per year–is seen as an entitlement by the 60 percent or so of Egyptian families who depend on it.

As Egypt tries to fashion a functioning democracy after President Hosni Mubarak’s departure, land grabs to the south are threatening its ability to put bread on the table because all of Egypt’s grain is either imported or produced with water from the Nile River, which flows north through Ethiopia and Sudan before reaching Egypt. (Since rainfall in Egypt is negligible to nonexistent, its agriculture is totally dependent on the Nile.)

Unfortunately for Egypt, two of the favorite targets for land acquisitions are Ethiopia and Sudan, which together occupy three-fourths of the Nile River Basin. Today’s demands for water are such that there is little of the river when it eventually empties into the Mediterranean.”

Read more: Earth Policy Institute

Riots Over Water Cuts

Last modified on 2011-06-07 15:42:22 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Hardly 20 days after the local government elections, voters from Pienaar outside Nelspruit are accusing the ANC of failing them by allowing the community of about half a million people to go without water for more than a week.

Angry members of the community burnt tyres and blockaded the streets with several objects including stones from Sunday afternoon until the early hours of Monday morning.

Members of the public order police unit had a tough time trying to control the stone-throwing community members, who also burnt a number of tyres at the crossroads in Lehau Trust near the Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport.

Lehau Trust forms part of the Greater Pienaar area and violence escalated towards other parts like Daantjie shortly after 6pm on Sunday, preventing motorists from passing through KaNyamazane or KaBokweni townships.

“Our members were forced to fire rubber bullets to disperse the crowds that was burning tyres, blockading the road, throwing stones and other objects,

and threatening people,” said a police spokesperson who was at the scene, Lt-Col Mtsholi Bhembe.

By yesterday morning, Bhembe told The New Age, no injuries were reported by police or community members.

A member of the community shouted that they wanted the new executive mayor of Mbombela municipality, Catherine Dlamini, to come and address them.

Dlamini later arrived in the company of several managers from Mbombela municipality as well as the head of security in the provincial government, Welcome Nkuna.

Although the mayor told the community leaders that their problem was being addressed, no common ground was found.”

Read more: The New Age

 

Drought crisis leaves struggling Somalia on the brink

Last modified on 2011-06-06 15:22:15 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The current drought in Somalia is no ordinary drought. It is the worst the country has seen in 36 years. Most areas have received little or no rain for nine months. Pasture is depleted and cattle and goats are dying in large numbers, leaving thousands of animal carcasses littering the roadsides. People are seeing riverbeds dry for the first time in their lives.

Families are becoming destitute. They are dependent on livestock for survival, and have resorted to desperate measures to try to keep their animals alive. Many have used food normally kept for the family to feed their dying herds, some even going so far as to take the grass off the roofs of their houses, leaving them without adequate shelter. Children in particular are suffering from a lack of food and water. In some areas, malnutrition is affecting over 30% of children, one of the highest rates in the world.

In addition, prices of basic goods are rising and, in some regions, prices for cereals have increased by 135% since last year.

People in Somalia are no strangers to adversity. Since the 1990s they have suffered the effects of civil war and successive droughts, forcing nearly one and a half million people to flee their homes. The UN estimates that the current drought has displaced 55,000 people since January.

This combination of dry spells, violent conflict and rising prices has pushed Somalia to the brink.

The international community must do more to address the current crisis in Somalia. Due to a major funding shortfall, aid agencies are struggling to meet the needs of the 2.4 million people, a third of the population, affected by the crisis.”

Read more: Guardian

 

Groundwater Depletion Is Detected From Space

Last modified on 2011-05-31 19:35:02 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Yet even as the data signals looming shortages, policy makers have been relatively wary of embracing the findings. California water managers, for example, have been somewhat skeptical of a recent finding by Dr. Famiglietti that from October 2003 to March 2010, aquifers under the state’s Central Valley were drawn down by 25 million acre-feet — almost enough to fill Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.

Greg Zlotnick, a board member of the Association of California Water Agencies, said that the managers feared that the data could be marshaled to someone else’s advantage in California’s tug of war over scarce water supplies.

“There’s a lot of paranoia about policy wonks saying, ‘We’ve got to regulate the heck out of you,’ ” he said.

There are other sensitivities in arid regions around the world where groundwater basins are often shared by unfriendly neighbors — India and Pakistan, Tunisia and Libya or Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories — that are prone to suspecting one another of excessive use of this shared resource.

Water politics was hardly on Dr. Famiglietti’s mind when he first heard about Grace. In 1992, applying for a job at the University of Texas, he was interviewed by Clark R. Wilson, a geophysicist there who described a planned experiment to measure variations in Earth’s gravitational field.”

Read more: New York Times

 

Water Emerges as a Hidden Weapon

Last modified on 2011-05-29 05:30:26 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“In 1983, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi initiated a huge civil water works project known as the Great Man-Made River (GMMR) – a massive irrigation project that drew upon the underground basin reserves of the Kufra, Sirte, Morzuk, Hamada and the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer – to deliver more than five million cubic metres of water per day to cities along Libya’s coastal belt.

“The Colonel’s GMMR project was discounted when first unveiled as an uneconomic flight of fancy and a wasteful exploitation of un-renewable freshwater reserves,” Middle East-based journalist Iason Athanasiadis told IPS. “But subsequently it was hailed as a masterful work of engineering, tapping into underground aquifers so vast that they could keep the 2007 rate of dispersal going for the next 1,000 years.”

Lying beneath the four African countries Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan, the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) is the world’s largest fossil water aquifer system, covering some two million square kilometres and estimated to contain 150,000 cubic kilometres of groundwater.

Fossil water is groundwater that has been trapped in underground fossil aquifers for thousands or even millions of years. Unlike most aquifers the NSAS is a non-renewable resource, and over extraction or water mining could cause rising sea levels.

“The GMMR provides 70 percent of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya’s vast underground aquifers like the NSAS in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometres to the north,” Ivan Ivekovic, professor of political science at the American University of Cairo told IPS.

“The entire project was drawn out over five phases. Phase one took water from eastern pipelines in As- Sarir and Tazerbo to Benghazi and Sirte; phase two supplied water in Tripoli and western pipelines in Jeffara from the Fezzan region; and phase three intended to create an integrated system and increase the total daily capacity to almost four million cubic metres and provide up to 138,000 cubic metres per day to Tobruk.”

With an estimated cost of nearly 30 billion dollars, the GMMR’s network of nearly 5,000 kilometres of pipeline from more than 1,300 wells drilled up to 500 metres deep into the Sahara was also intended to increase the amount of arable land for agricultural production. ”

Read more: IPS

World Bank gives Niger $90 mln for drinking water

Last modified on 2011-05-24 20:43:43 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The World Bank gave Niger 90 million dollars (64 million  euros) to pay for drinking water supplies and sanitation in several parts of the country, the bank said in a statement Tuesday.

“The funds will benefit some 500,000 people in the capital Niamey and residents of the town of Tahoua in the west, as well as Agadez in the desert north and the nearby uranium mining community of Arlit.

“The project provides for equipment to distribute and store water and supply 23 urban centres with public fountains, as well as the construction of thousands of units to collect used water for sanitation.

“Landlocked in the heart of the Sahel, Niger is a large but very poor country, about two-thirds desert. Its main source of foreign income is uranium, mined by a French company.”

Read more: Google

Water shortages lead to land grab in Africa

Last modified on 2011-05-20 19:51:12 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“Oil-rich Arab countries are the most “water stressed” in the world, according to a new analysis, and they are turning to buying water-rich land in other countries to secure their food supply.

“Maplecroft, a research firm, identifies Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as world’s most water-stressed countries, defined as those with the least available water per capita. It calculated the ratio of domestic, industrial and agricultural water consumption, against renewable supplies of water from precipitation, rivers and groundwater.

“As a means of offsetting shortfalls, India, South Korea and China, along with the oil-rich Gulf states, are acquiring water-rich land for agricultural purposes in developing countries to ensure the security of food supplies and decouple themselves from volatility in global food prices,” says Tom Styles, a Maplecroft analyst. “This recent phenomenon, dubbed ‘land grab,’ is taking place on a huge scale across many countries in Africa, especially those involved in post-conflict reconstruction with poor development.”

“Water stress is a major issue for the large emerging economies, including India and South Korea, which are both categorized as high-risk countries in the Maplecroft index. China is rated medium risk.

“The firm says water shortages in these countries have the potential to constrain economic development and create social unrest if dwindling resources result in higher prices and limited access for their populations.

“Hence the “land grab.”

Read more: market watch

RAIN in the Desert

Last modified on 2011-05-12 21:34:08 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

The history of these proud desert people reaches back a thousand years. Severe droughts and the desertification of farmland now threaten the culture and traditional homelands of the Toureg and Wodaabe people.  The tribes have been forced to travel farther and farther away from traditional grazing grounds to keep their herds alive.

After visiting Niger as a tourist in January, 2000, Bess Palmisciano, a lawyer by trade, founded the non-profit RAIN for the Sahel and Sahara to address the needs of these people. She is a very hands-on director of the organization and was recently honored as one of New Hampshire’s “Most Remarkable Women of the World 2011” for her work in Niger.

RAIN has developed programs to improve the lives of these nomads through agriculture, education, water security, and income producing activities. The programs teach skills and practices to enable beneficiaries to become more self-sufficient.  RAIN also places special emphasis on a program to mentor girls.

 

Rift MPs Oppose Nandi World Bank Dam

Last modified on 2011-05-09 22:30:31 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“Three MPs from Nandi are opposed to a plan to hive off 3,000 acres of on indigenous forest land in the region for the establishment of a Sh50 billion World Bank-funded water and electricity project aimed at benefitting residents of three provinces.

The MPs -David Koech, Elijah Lagat and Henry Kosgey- said they would not allow the destruction of any section of the 20,000 hectare indigenous forests at Kimondi in Nandi South for the project which is being funded through the Lake Basin Development Authority.”We are opposed to destruction of the indigenous forests which our communities have been preserving for many years”, said Koech.

The MPs said the project would have a serious impact on the environment and said the government and the donors should find alternative land in the region for the project instead of destroying forests.

The project is expected to produce more than 30 Megawatts of electricity and will supply water to areas in Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western regions.

Objection to the project has been growing with environmentalists and even local community leaders warning that the project-expected to be the biggest multi-purpose water dam in the country- would impact negatively on the environment and would destroy the few remaining sources of medicinal trees such as Elgon teak, prunes, crotons and other rare species of trees which take decades to mature.

The leaders warned that that food production in western Kenya as well as water flowing from River Yala to Lake Victoria would be negatively affected. Environmental groups and local community leaders say the project will also destroy habitation of rare antelopes and other wild species which have migrated to the forest swamps.”

Read more: allAfrica.com

 

Presidents of SA and the Democratic Republic of Congo engaging “aggressively” on Inga hydroelectric project

Last modified on 2011-05-06 19:06:44 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The Grand Inga project has the potential to be the largest hydroelectric project in the world, dwarfing even the Three Gorges dam in China, and could make a significant contribution not only to addressing SA’s energy needs but also to providing millions of people in other countries with access to electricity.

It has the capacity to generate 40000MW of electricity — more than SA’s current generation.

The South African government’s integrated resource plan makes provision for imported hydro power, and Ms Peters said during a panel discussion during the World Economic Forum on Africa that the quantity imported could be amended if circumstances changed.

However, development of the $80bn Grand Inga project has been hamstrung for many years by a lack of finance, and by political risk and instability . But the World Bank, the African Development Bank and other investors have expressed interest in investing in the project.

Currently, the two dams on the Inga Falls — the largest in the world, situated about 140km outside Kinshasa — operate at a low output of about 1000MW.

Ms Peters indicated that work was being undertaken by the government and scientists on clean coal technologies to reduce the carbon emissions from SA’s coal-fired power stations, which provide the bulk of the country’s electricity.”

Read more: Business Day

The Next Big Thing In Industry: Water Profiteering

Last modified on 2011-05-02 16:43:47 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“My colleague, Anil Naidoo from the Council of Canadians, and I were invited to the meeting to debate the libertarian economist David Zetland and William Muhairwe, managing director of Uganda’s national water company. Both Zetland and Muhairwe are big proponents of full-cost pricing and dismissive of the government’s role in providing water.

Some may wonder why Anil and I would go there to debate, especially when the audience was comprised of people employed in the water industry. The truth is that there is no better place to really figure out what they are up to. An hour debate was a small price to pay for free entrance to the $2,500.00 event that gave us real insight into the newest plans of the global water cartel.

The conference started on a sour note with a keynote address from Michel Camdessus, former Managing Director of the IMF. Camdessus is one of the masterminds behind the scheme to force the 1.44 billion people who make $1.25 a day to pay for the full cost of water. It was also disappointing that Kofi Annan appears to be running interference for the water corporations, basically saying in his speech that the time for protest is over and that we all need to get along.

One of the most distasteful moments of the conference, which was held in a Five Star hotel in Berlin, was when Sanjay Bhatnagar, CEO of WaterHealth International, took the mic to brag about how his investors were making piles of money selling water in villages in Africa and India. WaterHealth issues smart cards that are used to fill jugs with water—a 21st century “innovation” for redistributing wealth from the poor in the developing world to the “global investors” of the company.”

Read more: Food & Water Watch

 

Abengoa to develop Ghana’s first desalination plant

Last modified on 2011-04-29 19:25:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

” Abengoa, the company that develops innovative technology solutions for sustainable development in the energy and environment sectors, has signed an agreement with Ghana Water Limited Company (GWCL), Ghana’s public water trading company, to construct a desalination plant and to operate it for 25 years in the town of Nungua, south eastern Ghana, some 15 kilometres from the capital. This will be the first desalination project that the company has developed in West Africa.

“ The plant, which will require an investment of $115 million and will have a capacity to produce 60,000 cubic metres of water per day, represents an important step forward in improving the facilities for supplying drinking water in the country, which has a rapidly expanding population. The capital, Accra, has a population of approximately three million people and currently struggles to meet demand from the surrounding towns and villages. The new desalination plant will therefore help to supply local areas such as Teshie, Nungua and Tema.”

Read more: Environment Expert

Privatization Has Failed to Deliver Safe, Affordable Water for All — Here’s a Better Idea

Last modified on 2011-04-29 17:42:27 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“National ministers from Africa gathered with hundreds of people from United Nations agencies, development banks, public water operators, non-profit groups and trade unions from around the world to celebrate World Water Day last month in Cape Town. A priority on the agenda: responding to the growing urban water challenge. The number of people living in cities in Africa with no access to tap water at home or in the immediate area increased by 43 percent (from 137 million to 195 million) between 2000 and 2008.

It is unbelievable that in this day and age — with the untold wealth generated by human activity — that millions of people die each year from waterborne diseases.

The right to water is akin to the right to life, but many governments are reluctant to recognise this most basic reality and shoulder their responsibilities to deliver safe, affordable water.

Fortunately, Bolivia boldly pushed through a resolution endorsing the human right to water and sanitation in the United Nations General Assembly last year. Working with other allied governments, Bolivia managed to shame various rich countries such that rather than oppose such an obvious right, they merely abstained. The nonbinding resolution passed on 28 July 2010. Among the arguments used against the resolution is a lack of clarity about what responsibilities the right to water will place on governments.”

Read more: AlterNet

 

Ethiopian Opposition Questions Construction of “Renaissance Dam”

Last modified on 2011-04-27 01:05:31 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The Ethiopian Federal Democratic Forum, commonly known as Medrek, fears foreign aggression against the country due to the construction of “Renaissance Dam”, as the government calls it. Medrek released an official statement questioning the government about its preparedness to face any foreign aggression against the dam, saying that hydro-politics is often a source of mounting conflicts in the 21^st century.

Medrek, which was the main opposition party before the recent elections, asked the Ethiopian Government if it had taken Nile Basin members into confidence about the construction of the dam. Raising doubts about corruption, it also asked the government whether it had prepared a mechanism to ensure that the public money was directed toward the targeted project and that there was no frittering away of the taxpayers’ money by corrupt officials.

Medrek also called for reaching a national consensus on the construction of the dam in Benishangul region, which will likely generate 5,250-MW power. The government recently announced its willingness to go ahead with the construction of the dam, which would cost 80 billion birr, to exploit the abundant resources of energy in the country. The government has rejected “unsubstantiated” claims as they call it that the dam would cause significant harm to downstream countries. It has assured Ethiopians that Egypt cannot do any harm to the project, though Cairo has been successful in lobbying global financial institutions from financing the project.

Touted to be the biggest hydropower plant in Africa, it is expected to be completed in four years. Ethiopia is said to have over 45,000-MW potential of hydropower. The Ethiopian Government will finance a major chunk of the project. It also seeks remittances from overseas Ethiopians under the GTP project. Further, the government has started issuing Millennium Bond, giving five percent interest rate, to finance the project.”

Read more: Ezega.com

 

COTE D’IVOIRE: Crisis could hit drinking water supply

Last modified on 2011-04-20 17:31:05 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Hundreds of thousands of urban residents in Côte d’Ivoire could be hit by drinking water shortages in the coming weeks, as the post-electoral violence interrupted the supply of chemicals used at treatment plants throughout the country.

“The risk of shortages is particularly worrying given the cholera outbreak in neighboring Ghana, with more than 6,000 cases to date, said François Bellet, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) specialist in the UN Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) West and Central Africa regional office.

“Between January and March Côte d’Ivoire’s main city Abidjan saw at least 515 cases of cholera, with 12 deaths, according to Kadjo Yao of UNICEF’s WASH team in Abidjan. It is unclear whether cholera is still infecting people, as surveillance systems are down, the agency says.

“The situation [of drinking water supply] is extremely uncertain – we’re on a razor’s edge,” said Bellet, who is currently in Côte d’Ivoire.”

Read more: Irin News

Egypt Holds On Tight To Nile Water Rights

Last modified on 2011-04-12 16:15:24 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Egypt has announced a final effort to re-negotiate the terms of the Cooperative Framework Agreement which apportions water from the Nile River to various basin countries. Since 1929, Egypt has held a near-monopoly on the water, but last year Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda signed the Entebbe Treaty that neither Egypt nor Sudan recognize in order to arrest that monopoly.

At the beginning of April 2011, Ethiopia started construction on the Grand Millennium Dam near Sudan. Egypt asked permission to conduct an assessment to gauge the impact of the 6,000MW hydropower plant on its own water supply, but Ethiopia refused. Almasry Alyoum reports that concerned parties will try one more time to find a fair solution.

Under the terms of the Entebbe Treaty, Nile basin countries will no longer have to ask Egypt’s permission to undertake water diversion projects on the mighty river. Emboldened by this, Ethiopia – which contributes more water to the river’s annual flow than any other country – began construction on a massive dam project.

Egypt sent a 40-person delegation to Uganda in order to persuade President Museveni to oppose the dam project currently underway in Ethiopia’s Benshangul Gumuz state. Egypt’s 85 million inhabitants rely almost exclusively on the Nile for their water needs, while Ethiopia claims that electricity produced by the hydropower project can benefit everyone.”

Read more: Green Prophet

 

Shale Gas Stirs Ecology Fears In S.Africa’s Karoo

Last modified on 2011-04-08 17:43:51 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“South Africa’s Karoo, a vast arid wilderness, may contain gas reserves that could solve the country’s energy problems — but only through an extraction process called fracking that has greens seeing red.

The sprawling and ecologically sensitive region, home to rare species such as the mountain zebra and riverine rabbit, may hold vast deposits of natural gas in shale rock deep underground.

Once unobtainable, such reserves can now be exploited with new techniques and could serve as a badly needed energy source for Africa’s largest economy, which is heavily reliant on coal.

Petrochemicals group Sasol (SOLJ.J), Anglo American (AAL.L) and Falcon Oil and Gas (FO.V) are among those eyeing shale gas in the region, although oil giant Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) is leading the pack with exploration rights to 90,000 sq km (34,750 sq mile).

But farmers and conservationists are opposed to shale gas development in a parched region famed for its succulent lamb, big skies and rare plant and animal life.

Public concern focuses on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, in which drillers blast millions of litres of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into underground rock to create cracks for gas and oil to escape.”

Read more: Reuters

 

Defiant Ethiopia To Proceed With Massive Dam On The Nile River

Last modified on 2011-04-06 11:27:19 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“Defiant of Egypt’s historic monopoly over its flow, Ethiopia is pushing ahead with a controversial plan to build a massive dam on the Nile river. Egypt and Sudan have maintained control of the Nile through a series of laws originally brokered by colonial powers in 1929.

But last May, six upstream countries signed a legally binding document that dispossessed Egypt of its right to veto decisions regarding the Nile’s distribution. Buoyed by President Hosni Mubarak’s recent ouster, and undaunted by criticism, Ethiopia insists that it will proceed with its plan even without international support.

At a recent news conference, Ethiopia’s Water and Energy Minister Alemayehu Tegenu explained that construction of the dam near the Ethiopian and Sudanese border is expected to start soon, Reutersreports.

This despite widespread opposition to the project, which Minister Tegenu suspects is a direct result of Egypt’s campaign to prevent the dam’s construction.

But Mr. Tegunu is adamant that Ethiopia will proceed with the $4.78 billion dollar project even without donor support. In order to finance the project, they will sell off government bonds.

At present, Ethiopia uses 1% of its annual 86% contribution of Nile water, while Egypt has access to 55 out of the river’s 84 billion cubic meter annual flow. Last year, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi signed an agreement to re-apportion the Nile, an agreement Egypt refuses to acknowledge.

The Nile Dam is expected to generate 5,250MW of hydroelectricity after its completion in approximately 44 months, contributing more than a third to the country’s $12 billion plan to generate 15,000 MW within the next 25 years.”

Read more: Green Prophet

 

Ethiopia Offers Olive Branch in Nile Water Sharing Dispute

Last modified on 2011-03-31 19:47:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Ethiopia is offering Egypt and Sudan an olive branch in their bitter dispute over sharing the waters of the Nile River. The offer includes possible joint ownership of a huge Ethiopian hydropower project that Egypt has tried to block.

“Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi launched a furious attack Friday on powerful interests seeking to prevent construction of a 5,200-megawatt dam on the Blue Nile, in the highlands along the Sudanese border.

“Meles says the massive project would allow Ethiopia to earn precious foreign exchange from electricity exports. But traditional funding sources have dried up, largely due to opposition from environmentalists, as well as from Egypt, which depends almost totally on the Nile for its water supply.

“Speaking to the opening session of an international hydropower conference, Meles vowed the $4.8-billion project would go ahead, even if impoverished Ethiopia has to pay the tab itself.

“We are so convinced of the justice of our cause, so sure of the strength of our arguments, so convinced of the role of our hydropower projects in eliminating poverty in our country that we will use every ounce of our strength, every dime of money that we can save to complete our program,” Meles said. ”

Read more: Voanews

Billion-plus people to lack water in 2050: study

Last modified on 2011-03-30 03:56:18 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“More than one billion urban residents will face serious water shortages by 2050 as climate change worsens effects of urbanization, with Indian cities among the worst hit, a study said Monday.

“The shortage threatens sanitation in some of the world’s fastest-growing cities but also poses risks for wildlife if cities pump in water from outside, said the article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The study found that under current urbanization trends, by mid-century some 993 million city dwellers will live with less than 100 liters (26 gallons) each day of water each — roughly the amount that fills a personal bathtub — which authors considered the daily minimum.

“Adding on the impact of climate change, an additional 100 million people will lack what they need for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing and toilet use.

“”Don’t take the numbers as destiny. They’re a sign of a challenge,” said lead author Rob McDonald of The Nature Conservancy, a private environmental group based near Washington.

“”There are solutions to getting those billion people water. It’s just a sign that a lot more investment is going to be needed, either in infrastructure or in water use efficiency,” he said.”

Read more: Brisbane Times

Libya: Oil and Water Mix?

Last modified on 2011-03-28 16:50:26 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Oil, of course, remains a key element in the fight for control of Libya. Via pipeline and tanker distribution, Libya’s oil resources supply a substantial part of the consumption in the United States and the European Union and are the major source of financial support for the Gadhafi regime. This primary aspect of the present and future national economy is vulnerable to the ongoing military battle for political control, war damage to lines, pumps, and port facilities, economic sanctions and naval blockades, and even vindictive sabotage by whoever plays the losing hand and wishes to leave behind a nation without any financial viability.

“But what about water? One of the less well known projects undertaken by Gadhafi is “The Great Man Made River Scheme,” a huge technological plan to shift fresh water from ancient underground aquifers in the Hamada, Murzuq, and Kufra basins in the Sahara Desert to irrigate new remote agricultural harvest and provide ample supply to Tripoli, Benghazi, and the concentrated population along the Mediterranean coast. The project involves drilling hundreds of deep wells and 5000 kilometers of 4-meter diameter concrete piping that is designed eventually to convey north over six million cubic meters of water a day. This construction in the most stressful physical conditions has been performed by thousands of “foreign” workers, many of whom presumably are among the refugees now fleeing the country.

“This exceptional underground reservoir is part of an ancient connected system that covers two million square kilometers, overlapping parts of Libya, Egypt, Chad, and Sudan — the so-called Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System. This is “fossil” water, accumulated over millions of years, finite, marginally rechargeable, thus non-renewable, and not an active part of the surrounding hydrological cycle that has provided limited groundwater for expanding use and demand by growing population.”

Read more: Huffington Post

 

Droughts to Worsen in East Africa, With Implications for U.S. Food Aid

Last modified on 2011-03-24 18:28:48 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The researchers, who reported their conclusions in the journal Climate Dynamics, used data spanning six decades to show that rising sea surface temperatures from emissions of human origin have created an intensification of air circulation in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, also known as the “Walker cell.”

This strengthening has caused the circulation to swell westward toward the African coast, boosting heat transfer in the atmosphere and triggering greater rainfall and cloud cover over the Indian Ocean over the past 30 years.

For East Africa, this has spelled trouble — perhaps counterintuitively.

The study finds that warm and dry winds have moved west toward Africa’s coast, inhibiting rainfall, particularly in parts of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia from March to June, one of the main growing seasons.”

Read more: Reuters

 

“Hydro-diplomacy” needed to avert Arab water wars

Last modified on 2011-03-20 20:08:12 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The United Nations should promote “hydro-diplomacy” to defuse any tensions over water in regions like the Middle East and North Africa where scarce supplies have the potential to spark future conflicts, experts said on Sunday.

“They said the U.N. Security Council should work out ways to bolster cooperation over water in shared lakes or rivers, from the Mekong to the Nile, that are likely to come under pressure from a rising world population and climate change.

“The Middle East and North Africa are the regions most at risk of conflict over scarce water supplies, they said, but history shows “water wars” are very rare.

“”We think that water is an issue that would be a appropriate for the U.N. Security Council,” Zafar Adeel, chair of UN-Water, told Reuters ahead of a meeting of experts in Canada this week to discuss water and security.

“U.N. studies project that 30 nations will be “water scarce” in 2025, up from 20 in 1990. Eighteen of them are in the Middle East and North Africa, with Libya and Egypt among those added to the 1990 list that includes Israel and Somalia.”

Read more: Reuters Africa

Uganda’s Karuma dam costs escalate to $2.2 bln

Last modified on 2011-03-17 01:09:02 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – The cost of Uganda’s new 700 megawatt Karuma hydropower project has more than doubled to $2.2 billion and the government may tap foreign bond markets to fund the plant, an industry official said on Monday.

“In September Energy Minister Hilary Onek told Reuters the cost of the plant, situated on the Nile River, was estimated at $900 million.

“We have just completed a feasibility study and it says $2.2 billion,” John Mugyenzi, managing director of Uganda Electricity Generation Company, told reporters on the sidelines of an African power conference.

“We expect construction to start late this year, early next year with first power within five years,” Mugyenzi said.

“He said the government may consider tapping international foreign bond markets to help fund construction costs.”

read more: Reuters; Africa

Avoiding Water Wars

Last modified on 2011-03-08 01:37:31 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“With the climate change and as a consequence shrinking water availability across the Middle East, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, violent conflict between states is increasingly likely. This matter was on the agenda of annul World Water Week forum in Stockholm held in 2006, but it could not answer the question raised in the meeting whether we are heading for an era of “hydrological warfare” in which rivers, lakes and aquifers become national security assets to be fought over, or controlled through proxy armies and client states? Or can water act as a force for peace and cooperation? It has been estimated by the experts that by 2025, more than two billion people are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize the water resources needed to meet the needs of agriculture, industry and households. Population growth, urbanization and the rapid development of manufacturing industries are relentlessly increasing demand for finite water resources. Symptoms of the resulting water stress are increasingly visible. In northern China, rivers now run dry in their lower reaches for much of the year. In parts of Pakistan and India, groundwater levels are falling so rapidly that from 10 percent to 20 percent of agricultural production is under threat.

In the past, there have been wars between the countries over religions, usurpation of territories and control of resources including oil, but in view of acute shortages of water in Africa, Middle East, Asia and elsewhere, the future wars could be fought over water.

In addition to Kashmir dispute, the Indus River Basin has been an area of conflict between India and Pakistan for about four decades. Spanning 1,800 miles, the river and its tributaries together make up one of the largest irrigation canals in the world. Dams and canals built in order to provide hydropower and irrigation have dried up stretches of the Indus River. The division of the river basin water has created friction among the countries of South Asia, and among their states and provinces. Accusations of overdrawing of share of water made by each province have resulted in the lack of water supplies to coastal regions of Pakistan. India and Bangladesh have also dispute over Ganges River water and India is resorting to water theft there as well. Nepal and Bangladesh are also victims of India’s water thievery. India had dispute with Bangladesh over Farrakha Barrage, with Nepal over Mahakali River and with Pakistan over 1960 Indus Water Treaty.”

Read more: Pakistan Observer

Ethiopia’s Controversial Dam Project

Last modified on 2011-03-07 18:46:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“There is particular concern over the Gibe III dam being built on the Omo river, the largest infrastructure project in Ethiopian history. Campaigners say it threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in the South Omo region and around Lake Turkana in Kenya. The Lower Omo Valley, a Unesco World Heritage Site, is home to agro-pastoralists from eight distinct indigenous groups who depend on the Omo river’s annual flood to support riverbank cultivation and grazing lands for livestock.

Launching a new five-year development plan in August last year, the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, vowed to complete the dam “at any cost” and lashed out at Survival International and other critics, saying, “They don’t want to see developed Africa; they want us to remain undeveloped and backward to serve their tourists as a museum … These people talk about the hazard of building dams after they have already completed building dams in their country.”

However, Peter Bosshard, policy director for International Rivers, one of the groups involved in the campaign against Gibe III(pdf), says that international groups had to speak out because local campaigners had effectively been silenced. He said members of affected communities were not consulted; anybody even suspected of opposing the dam risks suffering serious consequences.

“Accountable governments and public participation in decision-making are key elements of social and economic development,” said Bosshard. “The Ethiopian government makes a mockery of these concepts. In the Gibe III dam, the biggest infrastructure project in Ethiopia’s history, any participation by the affected people has been suppressed, and any dissenters risk arrest or worse.”

Read more: Guardian

Forest Loss Threatens Sierra Leone Water Supplies

Last modified on 2011-03-07 18:25:01 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Sierra Leone is one of a number of African countries where deforestation is impacting water supply.

“WATER LOST”

Although the house building on Leicester Peak is outside the main water catchment area of Freetown’s main dam, officials worry it sets a precedent that protected forest can be cut.

“Our efforts have not yielded much fruit,” said Samuel Serry, Sierra Leone forests and agriculture ministry spokesman.

“There is a serious problem enforcing the regulations.”

In Moseh, a village on a peninsula south of Freetown, village chief Foday Koroma said water supplies were getting more irregular and local people were carrying water in jerrycans.

On a continent where rain often buckets down then dries up, trees help moderate the cycle, by slowing run-off and soaking up precipitation to be released later.

“When you take forest off, all (the water) comes off in the wet season,” said Richard Harding, of the UK-based Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. “It will all be lost … out to sea.”

Only 40 percent of a protected forest of 17,482 hectares (43,199 acres) on a peninsula south of Freetown is left, yet a fifth of the nation’s six million people depend on it for water.”

Read more: Reuters

Sudan Shrugs Off Burundi’s Signing Of New Nile Water Deal

Last modified on 2011-03-03 16:21:26 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Sudan and Egypt in particular have ardently opposed an agreement signed in May last year by four of the Nile’s upstream countries – Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda – to alter shares of the Nile water as defined in a colonial-era accord which gives Egypt the lion’s share of the water and the right to veto Nile projects proposed by other countries.

The new agreement was signed after 13 years of failure in talks between the Nile basin countries to reach an agreement guaranteeing an equitable use of Nile water.

Under the old accords, Egypt receives 55.5 billion square meters of water annually, out of the estimated total 84 billion square meters, whereas Sudan receives the second largest share, 18 billion cubic meters per year.

Burundi on Monday signed up to the new pact known as the Nile Basin Initiative, rendering it ready to go into effect pending ratification by local parliaments in the countries that signed it.

Sudan’s minister of irrigation and water resources, Kamal Ali Mohamed, said in statements carried on Wednesday by the country’s official news agency SUNA that Burundi’s joining of the agreement was “expected.”

The minister went on to say that Sudan’s stance towards the new deal remains unchanged because it ignores the existing rights and does not enjoy consensus by all Nile basin countries.”

Read more: Sudan Tribune

Water, electricity cut to half of Ivory Coast

Last modified on 2011-03-02 20:55:06 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Water and electricity have been cut in Ivory Coast’s north, the electric company and the rebels who control the area said Wednesday, a move that deprives millions of people and further deepens an increasingly violent political crisis.

“Armed men entered the electricity company and ordered that the electricity for the entire northern half of the country be cut on late Monday, “even though no operational need existed and the network was healthy,” said a statement signed by the management of the national electric company.

“The company has been operating under the supervision of incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, who nationalized the key state asset in January, more than a month after he lost a presidential election according the results certified by the United Nations. He refuses to cede power to the man the U.N. recognized as the poll’s winner, Alassane Ouattara.

“Millions of people across the north are without water or electricity,” said Issia Doumbia, a spokesman for the New Forces rebels, which control the north and are loyal to Ouattara.

“During the entire war, Gbagbo never cut the people off,” he said, referring to a war 8 years ago that divided the country into a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south. “But now, things are turning bad — fast.”

“Fighting in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital reached a new level of intensity last week, when gunmen loyal to Ouattara began fighting back and ambushing police officers after weeks of violent repression.

“Last week, the U.N. said more than 300 people had died since the country’s disputed November election, but that total does not include casualties from the most intense fighting which could easily reach 100.”

Read more: Fox

Dar on Brink of Darkness as Power Crisis Deepens

Last modified on 2011-03-02 16:06:56 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The energy crisis engulfing Tanzania deepened last week, as it emerged that East Africa’s second biggest economy is operating on a depleted electricity reserve that could throw it into darkness in case of an outage.

In coming weeks, authorities plan to shut down major hydro plants, the main source of power due to falling water levels.

The country’s power generation system encompasses the use of hydro, thermal and gas power.

The interconnected grid has an installed capacity of 773MW, of which 71 per cent is hydropower.

The largest hydropower complexes are the Mtera and Kidatu Dams situated on the Great Ruaha River.

Currently, the area (Ruaha and Ihefu) has been hit by a severe drought, which has greatly affected the generation of hydropower.

Manufacturers are already staring at major revenue losses that could in turn pile pressure on prices of key commodities.

Tanzania Meteorological Agency acting director general Agnes Kijazi told The EastAfrican last week that there were no foreseeable rains in the coming months, especially in the central and southeastern zone of the country where the major hydropower generation plants are based.”

Read more: The East African

Ethiopia: Kenyan protests could compromise mega electric project?

Last modified on 2011-02-24 01:44:34 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Azeb Asnake, Engineer and manager of the project, appeared on Ethiopian state television last Monday to give details on the completion of the 243-meter high dam. Its 211 km2 reservoir is expected to be the first in Africa in terms of capacity.

“A group of International and Kenyan NGOs, since the inauguration of the project three years ago, have been lobbying international financial institutions and donors to hold their financial support of the hydropower dam arguing that it will significantly impact the water level of Lake Turkana. The activists say the outcome will negatively affect the livelihoods of herdsmen in the region.”

Read more: Afrik-News

África: La Guerra Por El Agua

Last modified on 2011-02-21 17:24:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“El avance de la desertificación se suma al aumento poblacional y a la contaminación de los ríos, lo que produce que el agua potable sea un bien escaso en África. Aunque el continente disponga de un gran caudal hídrico, las privatizaciones sin control, los desvíos de los cursos y las amenazas de guerra entre países que comparten un mismo río vuelven impredecible el futuro del abastecimiento del agua tanto sea para la agricultura, como para la generación de electricidad y hasta para el consumo humano.

Los caudalosos ríos africanos comienzan a perder fuerza por la evaporación provocada por el aumento de la temperatura del planeta. Además, la presencia de tres importantes desiertos -Sahara, Kalahari y Namib-, que se expanden, producen que las zonas fértiles y las reservas de agua potable disminuyan.

La potencia de las usinas hidroeléctricas, la capacidad de riego para las cosechas, la utilización en la ganadería y el uso humano como recurso primario y vital se ven afectados seriamente por la evaporación y además por la contaminación derivada de la actividad industrial.”

Leer más: Observador Global

Kenyans to Protest Chinese Involvement in Ethiopia’s Gibe III Dam

Last modified on 2011-02-17 18:24:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The mammoth $1.7 billion Gibe 3 Dam project to be constructed on the Omo River, some 300 kilometres south-west of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, is the largest project to ever be implemented in Ethiopia. Once completed, it will stand at 240 metres high – to become the tallest dam in Africa – and hold a 211 km2 reservoir behind it. Construction begun in 2006 and the first power production was scheduled for 2011, while the dam would be completed in 2012. Ethiopia hopes to produce 1,870 megawatt, more than double the country’s current installed capacity and make $ 400 million from power export to Kenya, Sudan and Djibouti.

Communities living within the Omo River-Lake Turkana basin are opposed to this project that will inflict permanent damage to their way of life and peace in the region. Damming the Omo River will permanently change the river’s flood patterns which the Ethiopian communities living in the lower Omo basin have depended on for centuries. It will also reduce or completely cut out inflow of water into Lake Turkana – which depends on the river for 90% of its water – especially during the period of filling up the reservoir. “These drastic changes will irreparably destroy the lives of some 700,000 already disadvantaged people in both Kenya and Ethiopia”, said Ikal Angelei, Director of Friends of Lake Turkana.

Due to the project’s unpopularity and its potential social and environmental injustices, various prospective donors – including the World Bank and the European Investment Bank (US$341 million loan) – have withdrawn their support. The African Development Bank was also considering funding the project.”

Read more: African Press Agency

Lake Chad’s Disappearance Leaves A Famine In Its Wake

Last modified on 2011-02-17 03:14:27 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The drying out of Lake Chad in Africa has caused a flood of climate change refugees and misery.

The lake remains living proof of the impact of climate change in Africa, particularly significant this year as the continent hosts the United Nations’ annual climate conference in Durban, South Africa.

“The lake has dried up and the trees have died. Our camels no longer produce milk — they have no grass to eat,” said Halime Djime, a resident of the region. “We see animal carcasses everywhere. It is very dry.”

In Chad, the average rainfall since 2007 has been half of what farmers need to grow crops and graze animals.

Lake Chad has shrunk from 9,600 square miles in 1963 to its current size of about 502 square miles. On top of rising temperatures drying the lake, people are draining the lake to make up for the lack of rain. Most of the fish are gone, exarcebating the famine.”

“It’s a severe and silent problem,” said UNICEF Chad’s nutrition chief, Roger Sodjinou. “Our latest figures show that 225,000 children are dying every year from malnutrition in Africa’s Sahel belt”

Read more: Climatewire

Water crisis by 2020: Experts tell conference that action to avert shortages is needed now

Last modified on 2011-02-15 01:11:54 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“South Africa faces a water crisis and could start having critical shortages as early as 2020, experts told the inaugural South African Water and Energy Forum in Johannesburg.

“The forum’s two-day conference is being held at the Sandton Sun for local and international experts to deliberate on water and energy supply issues in South Africa and globally.

“Former Water Affairs director- general and visiting professor at the Wits University Graduate School of Public and Development Management Mike Muller told delegates that “a crisis is looming … If we don’t panic now and take action now, we will be in a crisis by 2020.”"

Read more: Times Live

Kenya-Power Production: Cost of Power To Shoot Up

Last modified on 2011-02-10 16:39:35 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Power production-Kenya – Falling water levels in the dams and rising international crude oil prices are pushing up the cost of power, setting the stage for another round of commodity price increases. Meteorological Department officials say the country will experience dry weather in the first six months of this year. Power producer KenGen has also warned consumers to expect higher electricity bills as it shifts to thermal generation, cutting down on hydro-power to preserve water in its dams.

“We are now increasing thermal power generation to preserve water,” KenGen managing director Eddy Njoroge said. “This is a balancing act that we have to do to ensure we don’t end up with emergencies. We have ensured that there will no power rationing.”

Consequently, he added, power costs might be slightly higher as fuel cost is factored in. The higher price will be driven by escalating global oil prices and the power mix the company will be putting in terms of thermal generation.

The political turmoil in the Arab world is not helping the situation as supply disruptions are likely to cause jitters in the market.

Kenya is heavily dependent on hydro-power, which supplies half of the electricity in the national grid. The dams are mostly concentrated along the Tana River Seven Forks cascade.

Rising power costs are a fresh challenge to consumers and manufacturers, who had experienced a period of relatively low prices due to high rainfall received last year.”

Read more: Afrique en ligne

Africa’s Flourishing Niger Delta Is Threatened by a Libyan Water Grab

Last modified on 2011-02-04 18:13:34 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The floods in what geographers call the inner Niger delta nurture abundant fish for the Bozo people, who lay their nets in every waterway and across the lakes. As the waters recede, they leave wet soils in which the Bambara people plant millet and rice, and they expose vast aquatic pastures of bourgou (or hippo grass) that sustain cattle and goats brought by nomadic Fulani herders from as far away as Mauritania and Burkina Faso. This inland delta is Africa’s second-largest floodplain and one of its most unique wetlands. Seen from space, it is an immense smudge of green and blue on the edge of the Sahara.

But this rare and magnificently productive ecosystem is now facing an unprecedented threat, as a Libyan-backed enterprise has begun construction of a project inside Mali that will divert large amounts of Niger River water for extensive irrigation upstream.

This is all part of a grand plan by Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to make his desert nation self-sufficient in food through long-term deals with nearby countries to grow food for Libya. Mali’s president has agreed to the scheme, which numerous experts say will enhance Libyan food security at the expense of Malian food security by sucking dry the river that feeds the inland delta, diminishing the seasonal floods that support rich biodiversity — and thriving agriculture and fisheries vital to a million of Mali’s poorest citizens — on the edge of the Sahara desert.”

Read more: AlterNet

Zimbabwe: Filtering Fact From Fiction About D.I.Y. Water Treatment

Last modified on 2011-02-04 04:50:40 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The southern Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo has not been spared the heavy rains that have fallen across Southern Africa; the water is welcome in this semi-arid part of the country, but the coming of the rainy season has provoked fresh memories of the 2008 cholera epidemic.

“Sikhulekile Banda, who lives in Tshabalala, a crowded low-income township, uses makeshift sand filters for both the rainwater she harvests and the brown water she gets sporadically from her kitchen tap.

“”This is what we used when we were growing up in the rural areas, way before independence [in 1980],” she says as she filled a bucket with a perforated bottom with sand.

“She then pours water into the bucket, where it will slowly drip through the night into another container set below. The previously muddy water emerges sparkling clean, but Banda is not sure whether this is enough to protect her family’s health.”

Read More: All Africa

Botswana Appeals Court allows Kalahari’s indigenous Bushmen water rights in their homeland

Last modified on 2011-01-28 15:57:43 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“GABORONE, Botswana (AP) — An appeals court in Botswana ruled Thursday that indigenous dwellers in one of the driest parts of the world can now drill wells for water, overturning an earlier decision that denied them access.

“The Botswana Court of Appeals said the Bushmen people were entitled to use a well already established on their traditional land in the Kalahari Game Reserve and allowed to excavate new ones. The court’s decision reverses a July ruling that took away drilling rights from the Bushmen, also known as the Basarwa.

“The government has argued that their presence in the reserve is not compatible with preserving wildlife, though new wells have been drilled for wildlife and luxury tourist lodges have been built in the disputed territory. Botswana’s government also approved a $3 billion diamond mine at one of the Bushmen communities.”

read more: LA Times

Water in the Desert: Kalahari Bushmen in ‘remarkable’ legal victory

Last modified on 2011-01-27 19:34:42 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The Appeal Court judgement is a remarkable victory for the Bushmen.

“Not only has the court upheld their right to water in the Kalahari Desert, but it has criticised the government’s treatment of the bushmen as “degrading”.

“Supporters of the Basarwa Bushmen inside and outside Botswana are greeting the court of appeal’s judgement as a victory for the rule of law.

“Survival International, the London-based organisation which campaigns for the rights of indigenous peoples and has strongly backed the Bushmen’s legal battle, described the appeal court’s decision as “momentous”.”

Read more: BBC News

Botswana project poses threat to Victoria Falls

Last modified on 2011-01-27 02:06:25 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“FRANCISTOWN: Botswana government’s planned irrigation scheme in the Pandamatenga area is likely to fail, The Gazette has learnt.

“Botswana has apparently notified other Southern African countries of its intentions to extract some 30 cubic metres from the Chobe River where it meets the Zambezi River for a planned irrigation scheme in the Pandamatenga area for domestic water supply, according to the Standard newspaper in Zimbabwe.

“The Zimbabwean Minister of Water Resources Development and Management, Samuel Sipepa-Nkomo is quoted as saying the attractiveness of the mighty Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world, is under threat if Botswana goes ahead with its planned extraction of large volumes of water from Chobe River for the Pandamatenga area.”

read more: The Botswana Gazette

New Chinese Dam Project Fuels Ethnic Conflict in Sudan

Last modified on 2011-01-21 20:03:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The Sudanese government has contracted Sinohydro to build the Kajbar Dam on the third cataract of the Nile. The project would flood lands of ancient Nubia and displace an estimated 10,000 people. With support from International Rivers, the affected communities are calling on the Chinese company to withdraw from the contract. They warn that if built, the dam could unleash a second Darfur conflict.

Proposed to be built near Kajbar village in Northern Sudan, the new dam would generate electricity at a capacity of 360 megawatts. It would also create a reservoir of 110 square kilometers, submerge some 90 villages, and destroy an estimated 500 archeological sites. Much of Nubia’s territory had already been lost to the reservoir of the Aswan Dam. Yet another project, the Dal Dam, has been proposed to be built on the Nile’s second cataract. The construction of the Kajbar and Dal dams would bring the Nubian culture, which dates back over more than 5,000 years, closer to extinction.

The affected people are strongly opposed to the construction of the Kajbar and Dal dams. A statement of the committee of affected villages declares: “We will never allow any force on the earth to destroy our heritage and nation. Nubians will not sacrifice for the second time to repeat the tragedy of the Aswan Dam.”

The government never officially informed or consulted the affected people about the project. In April and June 2007, security forces brutally cracked down on peaceful protests against the planned project, killing four and wounding more than 20 people. The UN Special Rapporteur on Sudan deplored the “excessive force” and “arbitrary arrests and prosecutions to stifle community protest against the Kajbar dam” in a report in 2008.”

Read more: International Rivers

Vision: 8 Reasons Global Capitalism Makes Our Lives Worse — And How We Can Create a New Kind of Economy

Last modified on 2011-01-18 16:00:35 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Globalization wastes natural resources. Consumerism is threatening the planet, natural resources are stretched to the breaking point and yet we have an economic system that encourages us to consume more and more, says Norberg-Hodge. Consumer culture is increasingly urban and when rural people move to the city the food they used to grow themselves is now grown on industrial-sized chemical-intensive farms. Food must be trucked to cities, waste must be trucked out. Large dams are needed to provide water and huge centralized power plants must be fueled by coal and uranium mines.

4. Globalization accelerates climate change. Globalization’s “success” is often attributed to efficiencies of scale, but mostly it is fueled by deregulation and hidden subsidies that make food from around the globe cost less than food from down the street. With efficiencies of scale, it’s really the opposite, says British MP Zac Goldsmith, “Tuna caught off the east coast of America is flown to Japan, processed and flown back to America to be sold to consumers; English apples are flown to South Africa to be waxed, flown back to England to be sold.”

Read more: AlterNet

Agriculture Becomes Our Top Environment Issue

Last modified on 2011-01-16 16:25:04 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Worldwatch Institute released its annual State of the World report this week, with a clear message that the state of agriculture–both small- and large-scale, domestic and local–is a mirror from which we can gauge the health of the planet and the fate of our species.

Traditional views toward hunger alleviation, for the more than 1 billion people around the world who do not have enough to eat, have emphasized increased agricultural production without clearly thinking through distribution roadblocks or environmental consequences. As a result, the planet is growing more food than ever, but hunger is more pervasive than ever, according to Worldwatch.

Many existing agricultural methods have stripped soils of nutrients, sucked aquifers dry, and polluted water with pesticides and fertilizers. And now, working with depleted and degraded resources, we must face climate change, which is already starting to express itself in changing rainfall patterns, more intense floods and droughts, and changing global temperatures that interfere with traditional growing seasons.”

Read more: National Geographic

Call for BHP Billiton to Halt Congo Smelter, Inga 3

Last modified on 2010-12-18 00:46:08 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Aluminum smelters create some of the most energy-intensive jobs in the world. BHP Billiton suggests that the new smelter would create 1,200 permanent jobs and require 1,600 sub-contractors, representing an astounding 4,286 MWh of consumed electricity per job/sub-contract.  While these jobs and local sub-contracts are important, they come at the opportunity cost of similar investments which could create more jobs and local development. Attracting a variety of manufacturing and processing industries to the region could create far more jobs, spurring the local economy while consuming the same amount of, or even less, electricity.

Aluminum smelters also pay some of the world’s lowest electricity tariffs. Other electricity consumers, especially Congolese households, are at risk of paying higher power tariffs to offset the disproportionately low tariffs BHP Billiton is expected to negotiate.

In order to justify low power tariffs and energy-intensive job creation in a country with such low energy access rates and high unemployment, other economic and financial benefits are expected to offset the opportunity cost. However, investment contracts commonly reduce tax burdens and royalty rates paid to the state. Indirect economic benefits, such as indirect job creation, can also be misleading as they would likely accompany investments in other new industries as well.”

Read more: International Rivers

Assessment of Groundwater Investigations and Borehole Drilling Capacity in Uganda

Last modified on 2010-12-14 18:23:03 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The report describes the legislative and institutional framework of the sector. The Directorate of Water Resources Management regulates the water drilling in Uganda. The Directorate licenses the drilling contractors and issues permits for drilling and water abstraction, and collects data for the national groundwater database. Every year, between 1,000 and 1,500 boreholes are drilled in Uganda. Currently applied siting as well as drilling contract formats are mostly no-water-no-pay contracts rather than Bills of Quantities contracts, which ultimately leads to lesser quality boreholes. Borehole drilling contracts by District Local Governments, constituting the largest fraction are procured after prequalification, whereas other actors also apply selected bidding or open bidding. The Sector Investment Plan (SIP) has studied various targeted service levels (access to safe water) based on selected combinations of water supply options. Combining the SIP information, current borehole costs and combined GoU / NGO funding capacity, it follows that there will be an increasing funding gap for borehole drilling.

The questionnaires, interviews and workshop revealed the following:

1. The current implementation environment for borehole drilling in Uganda is not conducive for a cost efficient and cost effective implementation of borehole drilling projects nor for a sustainable development of the sector.

2. The prices for boreholes depend on the costs for boreholes made by the drillers. Lower prices can only be attained if drillers can drill more boreholes per rig and/or per year.

3. Quality of works can only be ensured by a regulated environment where qualified and professional consultants, drillers and implementing agency staff work hand in hand aiming at high quality end products.”

Read more: Rural Water Supply Network

Global Warming Burning Lakes?

Last modified on 2010-12-09 21:19:14 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“A loss of oxygen and the deterioration of food chains have transformed Africa’s Lake Tanganyika and Russia’s Lake Baikal. Scientists have pointed to global warming, and now a new study finds that a similar fate may be in store for many of the world’s freshwater bodies.

In the last 25 years, the world’s largest lakes have been steadily warming, confirms the new study, some by as much as 4°F (2.2°C). In some cases that is seven times faster than air temperatures have risen over the same period.

It’s an important find, scientists say, because lake ecology can be extremely temperature-sensitive. “A small change in temperature can have quite a dramatic effect,”

says study author Simon Hook, a geologist and remote sensing expert atNASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

In many lakes, warming waters could kill native fish, clog pristine waters with algae, and expose fish and other aquatic species to more toxic pollution.”

Read more: National Geographic

EuroSibEnergo, China Yangtze Power to Construct Hydro Power Plants in Russia

Last modified on 2010-12-03 00:14:06 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Electricity firm EuroSibEnergo, the power unit of Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska’s business empire, and China Yangtze Power Co, the country’s largest listed hydropower corporation and operator of the Three Gorges Dam, have signed an agreement on the establishment of a joint venture for construction of hydro-electric power plants in Russia.

“The joint venture will be established on a parity basis. In the next three years the company will study a list of six projects aimed at constructing hydro and thermal power plants in Siberia and the Russian Far East with an overall planned installed capacity amounting to 10,000 megawatts and will also prepare the project’s feasibility study. After the study is ready, China Yangtze will seek to arrange financing from Chinese lenders,” EuroSibEnergo said in a statement.

It is expected that a portion of the energy produced at power plants in Russia will be exported to China’s northern and north-eastern territories, which suffer from power shortages.

In October 2010, China Yangtze Power and EuroSibEnergo signed a hydro-power cooperation agreement.”

Read more: Rionovosti

Little Drops… Re-enacting Women’s Plight in The Niger Delta on Stage

Last modified on 2010-12-02 17:05:42 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The pain of the Niger Delta inhabitants unfold right before our eyes and we are more than just spectators; we are partakers and sharers of their fears and grief, their frustration and sense of impotence.

One should picture a lump forming in one’s throat as the queen laments the death of her young prince, the chorus of hidden voices heightening and drawing out the evocative quotient of the scene. The question on everyone’s lips as they walked out of the play was ‘what can we do to fix this?’

The play ends on a note of hope; all the characters save Memekize chose to leave the war-ridden state to seek a new life in Port Harcourt. Whilst this is a hopeful solution for the individual characters, it also serves as a warning to both the government and the militants of what will happen if the conflict does not end soon… The state will be stripped of its bright young minds and left desolate as surely as the rivers have been stripped of life by the environmental pollution.

It is often said that art mirrors life. Yerima’s Little Drops… has captured the complexity of the Niger Delta conflict and portrays it in a very personal way from the point of view of the real victims; the women and children who have lost so much.”

Read more: The Guardian Nigeria

Egypt says “amazed” by Ethiopia’s Nile remarks

Last modified on 2010-11-23 19:51:08 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Ethiopia has built five huge dams on the Nile in the last decade and has begun work on a $1.4 billion hydropower facility.

Under the original pact Egypt is entitled to 55.5 billion cubic meters of water a year, the lion’s share of the Nile’s total flow of around 84 billion cubic meters, despite the fact that some 85 percent of the water originates in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya signed a new deal to share the waters in May.

In the statement that was e-mailed to Reuters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said it was “regrettable” that Ethiopia and other states had sought a new agreement.

“Egypt is firmly behind its legal and political positions on the issue of the Nile water,” Zaki said, adding that Egypt had pursued dialogue and cooperation on the use of the Nile’s water.

The five signatories of the new deal have given the other Nile Basin countries one year to join the pact before putting it into action. Sudan has backed Egypt while Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi have so far refused to sign.”

Read more: Reuters

Clean Water At No Cost? Just Add Carbon Credits

Last modified on 2010-11-16 17:40:35 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The villages of Africa and South Asia are littered with the ghosts of water projects past. A traveler winding through the dirt roads and trails of rural India or Ethiopia will find wells, pumps and springs with taps ─ but most of the wells will be contaminated, the pumps broken, the taps rusted away. When the British group WaterAid began its work in the Konso district of southwestern Ethiopia in 2007, the first thing it did was look at what had come before. It found that of 35 water projects built in the area, only nine were functioning.

People who work on providing clean water in poor countries estimate that about half the projects fall into disrepair soon after their builders move on. Sometimes someone loots the pump. Or it breaks and no one knows how to fix it. Or perhaps spare parts are available only in major cities. Or the needed part costs too much for the village to afford ─ even if it is just a few dollars.

Unlike one-shot vaccines, water systems need to function all day, every day, forever. So sustainability ─ the issue we find so important that it started off the Fixes series ─ is particularly crucial. It’s important to donors, who don’t want to see their money wasted. It’s important to the groups that do the work: no project is successful unless it’s taken over by local people to run. And it’s most crucial to villagers themselves, who grow cynical about promises after they see project after project inaugurated only to fail.”

Read more: New York Times

Watch Out: The World Bank Is Quietly Funding A Massive Corporate Water Grab

Last modified on 2010-11-02 23:34:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Billions have been spent allowing corporations to profit from public water sources even though water privatization has been an epic failure in Latin America, Southeast Asia, North America, Africa and everywhere else it’s been tried. But don’t tell that to controversial loan-sharks at the World Bank. Last month, its private-sector funding arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) quietly dropped a cool 100 million euros ($139 million US) onVeolia Voda, the Eastern European subsidiary of Veolia, the world’s largest private water corporation. Its latest target? Privatization of Eastern Europe’s water resources.

“Veolia has made it clear that their business model is based on maximizing profits, not long-term investment,” Joby Gelbspan, senior program coordinator for private-sector watchdog Corporate Accountability International, told AlterNet. “Both the World Bank and the transnational water companies like Veolia have clearly acknowledged they don’t want to invest in the infrastructure necessary to improve water access in Eastern Europe. That’s why this 100 million euro investment in Veolia Voda by the World Bank’s private investment arm over the summer is so alarming. It’s further evidence that the World Bank remains committed to water privatization, despite all evidence that this approach will not solve the world’s water crisis.”

Read more: AlterNet

Texting Program Helps African Farmers Fight Drought

Last modified on 2010-10-29 19:06:24 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The African micro-insurance provider, UAP, sent Gathoni a U.S. $29 payment for loss of her harvest due to drought that year. (See flood, drought, and climate change pictures.)

Gathoni is one of the more than 9,500 Kenyan farmers who have “micro-insured” themselves under a new program that assesses crop loss—and subsequent payments—based on climatic data from solar-powered weather stations.

Launched in 2009, Kilimo Salama—a Swahili phrase that means “safe farming”—gives small-scale farmers in Kenya “pay as you plant” insurance, so that if they lose their harvest they can still afford to farm the next season.

(Read how a “great green wall” may help African farmers displaced by drought.)

Gathoni, a mother of one and caretaker of two orphans, has farmed for the past 11 years on 2 acres (0.8 hectare) of land and joined the program soon after its launch. She used her insurance money to buy new seeds.”

Read more: National Geographic

The New Oil: Should private companies control our most precious natural resource?

Last modified on 2010-10-19 20:48:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Sitka, Alaska, is home to one of the world’s most spectacular lakes. Nestled into a U-shaped valley of dense forests and majestic peaks, and fed by snowpack and glaciers, the reservoir, named Blue Lake for its deep blue hues, holds trillions of gallons of water so pure it requires no treatment. The city’s tiny population—fewer than 10,000 people spread across 5,000 square miles—makes this an embarrassment of riches. Every year, as countries around the world struggle to meet the water needs of their citizens, 6.2 billion gallons of Sitka’s reserves go unused. That could soon change. In a few months, if all goes according to plan, 80 million gallons of Blue Lake water will be siphoned into the kind of tankers normally reserved for oil—and shipped to a bulk bottling facility near Mumbai. From there it will be dispersed among several drought-plagued cities throughout the Middle East. The project is the brainchild of two American companies. One, True Alaska Bottling, has purchased the rights to transfer 3 billion gallons of water a year from Sitka’s bountiful reserves. The other, S2C Global, is building the water-processing facility in India. If the companies succeed, they will have brought what Sitka hopes will be a $90 million industry to their city, not to mention a solution to one of the world’s most pressing climate conundrums. They will also have turned life’s most essential molecule into a global commodity.”

Read more: Newsweek

Preparing For A Water-Limited World

Last modified on 2010-10-14 16:50:30 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The data and statistical tools used to plan $500 billion worth of annual global investments in dams, flood-control structures, diversion projects, and other big pieces of water infrastructure are no longer trustworthy,” she writes. “In other words, when it comes to water, the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future.”

The uncertainty of future water supplies and flow patterns is not limited to concerns over dams and diversions. Food security, public health, and life as we know it are also at risk.

Postel describes a “day of reckoning on the horizon” in the U.S. Southwest, for instance. Some scientists predict there is a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead, which stores Colorado River water for tens of millions of people and one million acres of irrigated land, will dry up by 2021.

And she notes that as much as 10 percent of the world’s food is produced through tapping too deep into residual and unreplenished groundwater resources. “This creates a bubble in the food economy far more serious than the recent housing, credit, or dot-com bubbles, for we are meeting some of today’s food needs with tomorrow’s water.”

The Solutions

“The water challenges confronting us locally, regionally, and globally are unprecedented,” Postel writes. The good news, she says, is that we have the economic and technological capacity to make sure global water needs are met. We just have to start using it.

The smarter path to water sustainability also requires us to work with nature and assign it a value for flood protection, water filtration, and other beneficial services it provides, according to Postel. And smarter water users-individuals, cities, utilities, businesses, and farmers-will be more aware of their water footprints and how to reduce them.”

Read more: National Geographic

Government In Denial On Water Crisis – Union

Last modified on 2010-10-09 19:26:08 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The union, which is affiliated to the Federation of Unions of SA, said it was “extremely disappointed” with the Department of Water Affairs’ reaction following Fedusa’s section 77 application to the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac).

In August, Fedusa filed a section 77 notice – in terms of the Labour Relations Act – with Nedlac, warning of possible protest action by the union if the government did not take firmer and faster steps to tackle the country’s massive water pollution problems.

“We are sitting on a time bomb which will affect each and every person in the country,” Fedusa warned at the time.

At a subsequent Nedlac meeting last week, the parties agreed that a sub-committee be formed to examine the problem, and the government granted 30 days to consult on the matter.”

Read more: Pretoria News

World’s Rivers in Crisis: U.S. And Europe Face Highest Threat Levels

Last modified on 2010-10-08 16:54:29 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“Rivers are the arteries of the planet, linking continents through coastal zones to the ocean. More than 120,000 species of plants and animals make up the world’s riverine ecosystems that provide the multi-trillion dollar services humanity relies upon – however up to 20,000 are at risk of extinction Vörösmarty says.

An international team examined data sets on 23 factors that impact rivers around the world and created state-of-the-art computer models to integrate all of the information to paint the first ever global picture of the health of river systems. More than 65 percent of the world’s rivers are in trouble and this finding is very “conservative” since there was not enough data to assess impacts of climate change, pharmaceutical compounds, mining wastes and massive inter-basin water transfers like the Colorado River in the western U.S.

Where rivers are least at risk are where human populations are smallest. Rivers in arctic regions and relatively inaccessible areas of the tropics appear to be in the best health, according to the findings.

In an unrelated study more than 80 percent of male bass fish exhibited female traits such as egg production because of a “toxic stew” of pollutants in the Potomac River that flows through Washington, DC scientists reported last week. Similar findings have been made in many U.S. rivers.”

Read more: AlterNet

Thirsty Egypt Clings Tight To The Nile

Last modified on 2010-10-04 02:19:59 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The Nile follows an unusual course, flowing northward from the interior of Africa to the Mediterranean Sea.  For as long as anyone can remember, Egypt has dominated the basin from its position at the end of the line.

But being at the end of any line has its worries. There’s always a chance that the supply will run out before it gets to you. No nation is more keenly aware of that risk than Egypt.

Ayman Habou Hadid, who runs a research center at Egypt’s Agriculture Ministry, says desert people have only one fixation: “Water availability. That’s it.”

“But it is a challenge to improve the awareness of our people that we have to use the water at the maximum efficiency,” he says. “This is a major concern. The best utilization of water.”

Masoud Shomon, a folklorist in Cairo, says it takes an Egyptian to understand the Nile.

“I consider the Nile like a person,” Shomon says. “In the source countries, the Nile remains like a child. And it is here where this child grows older and is able to make a civilization. Why have the Egyptians built such a great civilization along the banks of the Nile? It is because Egyptians understand the Nile.”

But there are just as many non-Egyptians in the river basin who say they, too, understand the Nile just fine. They chafe at what they perceive as arrogance on the part of Egypt.”

Read more: NPR

Ethiopia Claims High Ground In Right-To-Nile Debate

Last modified on 2010-09-28 16:48:15 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The Nile River is almost always associated with Egypt. Think back to Herodotus, who called Egypt the “gift of the Nile.” Or to baby Moses, whose river-borne bassinet made it all the way to Pharaoh’s inner circle.

Egypt still draws more water from the Nile than any other country. But it doesn’t contribute any water to the Nile.

Egypt is mostly desert, so rivers and rain from eight or nine other countries make the Nile flow. And those other countries want some of their water back.

Ethiopians say they could use some of the Nile’s headwaters to become a hydropower superpower in Africa. And they’re claiming the geographical and moral high ground.

Ethiopia is home to the Blue Nile, a major tributary of the river. But Ethiopians have had little access to the Nile.

From its humble beginnings in the western highlands, the Blue Nile, known locally as theAbay, (pronounced ah-BYE) quickly cuts through deep gorges — too deep for most people to reach. Then, it’s off to Sudan, where it merges with the White Nile and proceeds northward to the Mediterranean Sea.”

Read more: NPR

Villagers drink from Shashe River in water crisis

Last modified on 2010-09-24 18:11:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Chadibe, Shashemooke and Borolong residents have been forced to drink the murky waters of Shashe River after the taps in their villages ran dry on Tuesday.

“Chadibe village headman Aaron Nyambe said in the past two days people have been forced to fetch water from the river for their needs.

“”Our village has dried up, neither do we drink water or bath. We only see Water Utilities vehicles driving around the village leaving clouds of dust behind them but I cannot tell you what they are doing here since they never communicate with us,” the unhappy chief fumed. He said since the water crisis residents have had to make do as best as they can under very difficult circumstances. “Most people in the village have water connections into their homes, they use indoor toilets but without water the toilets are useless. You can imagine what the situation would be like,” Nyambe said.

“Lillian Nyambe, the chief’s wife said that the water condition is making them suffer. “It is a disaster, we sometimes fetch water at around 2am, which also gets cut off at any moment,” she said.”

Read more: Mmegi Online

Cholera death toll rises to 352

Last modified on 2010-08-27 06:38:19 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“CHOLERA death toll in Nigeria has climbed to 352, according to an update from the Federal Ministry of Health.

“The death toll, as confirmed on Wednesday in Abuja by the Director of Public Health, Dr Mike Anibueze, emanated from Jigawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, FCT, Cross River, Kaduna, and Rivers.

““As of today, a total of 352 deaths out of 6,497 suspected cases of cholera have been recorded in 11 states,’’ he said.

“According to him, most of the outbreaks occurred in the North-West and North-East zones but epidemiological evidence indicated that the entire country was at risk.

““The disease is endemic in most parts of Nigeria but often occurs in epidemic proportion at the onset of the dry season.

““This is because people scramble for drinking water from doubtful sources and during rainy season when contaminants are washed into surface and underground water sources,’’ Anibueze said.”

Read more: The Nigerian Tribune

Kalahari Bushmen to appeal against court ban on well in game reserve

Last modified on 2010-07-22 22:29:10 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Africa’s oldest inhabitants pitched against autocratic Botswana government are forced to truck water 300 miles across desert.

“The Kalahari Bushmen are to appeal against a decision by the Botswana high court forbidding them to use a well in the central Kalahari game reserve, one of the driest regions in the world, a spokesman announced today.

“The Bushmen, Africa’s oldest inhabitants, won a ruling in 2006 against eviction from the game park, hailed as a victory for indigenous peoples around the world. Hundreds returned to their home villages but they have been prevented from reopening the well or drilling a new one.

“The government argued that the Bushmen’s presence in the reserve was not compatible with preserving wildlife and that living in such harsh conditions offered few prospects. The Bushmen took their case to the high court, and the judge this week ruled against them.

“The decision doesn’t make any sense,” said a community spokesman, Jumanda Gakelebone. “We are going to appeal.”

“For now, the 500 Bushmen have to truck in water from the nearest settlement with a public borehole, 300 miles away.”

Read more: The Guardian

Ask The U.S. Ambassador to Support the Human Right to Water

Last modified on 2010-07-22 17:26:41 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“For the first time since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted 60 years ago, the UN General Assembly is finally poised to recognize the Human Right to Water and Sanitation. Billions of people are suffering because the world is not focused on providing water and sanitation for all. A strong UN General Assembly resolution will signal that water and sanitation is a key priority for the international community.”

Take action by signing the UN General Assembly resolution recognizing the Human Right to Water and Sanitation at: Food and Water Watch

Everything You Need to Know About Groundwater

Last modified on 2010-07-13 15:22:56 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“Groundwater is fresh water located underground in porous soil or fractures in rock formations. Collections of groundwater are called aquifers, and we draw from aquifers for drinking water and water for use in everything form irrigation to agriculture to manufacturing.

“Groundwater pumping is when we pull water from the aquifer for our own use. When we pull more water than is naturally replenished, this is called groundwater mining because we have to drill deeper and deeper into the earth to get at the remaining water.

“Groundwater is a very important source of water for civilizations worldwide, making up about 20% of the world’s fresh water supply. Many cities have gotten used to mining groundwater to sustain its residents. However, as we overuse the resource, pull water faster than aquifers can naturally refill, and continue to pollute groundwater supplies, we’re beginning to face a whole new set of serious problems with this vital resource.

“The more we pump from aquifers, the farther the available water is from the surface of the earth. That means more energy has to go in to mining the water, and the costs begin to outweigh benefits, and our capabilities. When aquifers are mismanaged and too much water is extracted, it can mean the aquifer is no longer a viable source of water and a new source needs to be found. Depending on the available options, it can mean anything from a city moving to energy intensive and environmentally problematic solutions, such as desalination plants, to the community being unable to survive.”

read more: AlterNet

World Rivers Review: Focus on Dam Standards

Last modified on 2010-07-10 03:50:01 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Since the World Commission on Dams (WCD) issued its groundbreaking report in 2000, governments, institutions and civil society around the world have taken up the challenge of adapting its recommendations to their local context. This issue on dam standards examines where these efforts have been successful, and where more work needs to be done. As our senior policy analyst, Shannon Lawrence, notes in the commentary, “We know how to do it: the WCD framework provides the road map. What we’re lacking are the political will and the long-term vision to make it happen.”Read the full commentary on what the road towards better dams, healthier environments, and stronger communities looks like.

This special issue also looks at China’s budding efforts to adhere to standards, the dam industry’s proposed scorecard system for rating dams, and specific cases where the WCD recommendations are being put into practice.

Read More:  International Rivers

The threat of a water war; Egypt and Sudan draw battle lines with upstream nations over access to the Nile

Last modified on 2010-07-03 20:34:47 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Protecting Rivers and Rights: The World Commission on Dams Recommendations in Action

Last modified on 2010-07-02 15:40:46 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The most comprehensive guidelines for large dams that protect the rights of river-dependent communities were outlined by the World Commission on Dams (WCD) in 2000.

“Ten years later, International Rivers is happy to announce a new briefing kit for activists and allies, “Protecting Rivers and Rights: The World Commission on Dams Recommendations in Action,” as part of our WCD+10 activities to move the dams debate forward. The purpose of this publication is to provide activists with concrete examples of where and how the WCD principles have been (or in some cases, failed to be) applied.

• Download the briefing kit (ENG)
  

“The briefing kit explores six broad principles covered by the WCD, which encompass basic values of human rights and sustainable development that are essential to minimizing the negative impacts of large dams on people and the planet.”

read more: International Rivers

Call to defuse toxic mining water time bomb

Last modified on 2010-07-01 14:59:55 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

JOHANNESBURG – “THE government still does not have a comprehensive strategy to deal with toxic mining water, months after describing the situation as urgent and a serious threat to the environment.

“And so far treatment subsidised by the state has been inadequate, according to Mariette Liefferink, CEO of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, which campaigns for the effective treatment of this water, known as acid mine drainage (AMD).

“AMD, widely regarded as one of SA’s most serious pollution problems, is highly acidic and contains high levels of sulphates and heavy metals. Treatment is costly, and pumping this water is expensive for mining companies.

“The polluted water is seen as a particular problem in the gold fields of the Witwatersrand, where disused and derelict mine shafts have been allowed to flood and where existing mines have had to pump water from their works in order to continue mining.

“Mike Muller, a registered engineer and professor of public and development management, warns that the focus on AMD risks distracting the country from dealing with water pollution from inadequately maintained sew age works, which he says pose an immediate risk to downstream users .

“Chris Herold, a council member of the South African Institute of Civil Engineers, agrees that there is a more serious problem facing the water sector than AMD: water supply itself.”

read more: BusinessDay

Report lists top ten countries at risk of water shortages

Last modified on 2010-06-29 15:18:34 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“Depleting water supplies are increasing the risk of both internal and cross-border conflict as competition between industry, agriculture and consumers increases, according to an assessment of world most vulnerable countries.

“The report from the analysts at Maplecroft, says that the ten countries most at risk are: Somalia (1), Mauritania (2), Sudan (3), Niger (4), Iraq (5), Uzbekistan (6), Pakistan (7), Egypt (8), Turkmenistan (9) and Syria (10).
“The ranking was based on an assessment of access to water, water demands and the reliance on external supplies with countries like Mauritania and Niger more than 90 per cent reliant on external water supplies.

“In addition to natural depletion, the report also pointed out the increasing scarcity of water resources due to pollution. The Yellow River Conservancy Committee estimates 34 per cent of the river is unfit for drinking, aquaculture, and agriculture. An estimated 30 per cent of the tributaries of Yangtze River are extremely polluted and in India, 50 per cent of the Yamuna River, the main tributary of the Ganges is extremely polluted.”

read more: TheEcologist

E African nations firm on Nile deal

Last modified on 2010-06-28 20:41:40 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Five East African countries have announced their refusal to go back on a deal they signed last month to share the waters of the Nile, despite fierce criticism from Egypt and Sudan.

“The stand was adopted as the latest meeting of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, ended with open disagreements on Sunday.

“After more than a decade of talks driven by anger over the perceived injustice of a previous Nile water treaty signed in 1929, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya signed the agreement in May without their northern neighbours.

“”The signed [agreement] can’t be unsigned,” Asfaw Dingamo, the Ethiopian minister for water resources, said, referring to the pact signed in May.

“”But we hope to reach a consensus and I hope to do it very soon.”

“The five signatories have given the other Nile Basin countries – Egypt, Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – one year to join the pact.

“The new deal would need at least six signatories to come into force.

“Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have not signed the deal yet and have so far been tight-lipped about whether they plan to or not.”

Read More: Al Jazeera

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Special Report- All The Facts Behind The World’s Water Crisis

Last modified on 2010-06-28 19:16:26 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“1. By 2025, more than 2.8 billion people will live in 48 countries facing water stress or water scarcity, a recently revised United Nations medium population projected. Of these 48 countries, 40 are either in the Near East and North Africa or in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the next two decades population increase alone—not to mention growing demand per capita—is projected to push all of the Near East into water scarcity. By 2050 the number of countries facing water stress or scarcity will rise to 54, and their combined population to 4 billion people—40% of the projected global population of 9.4 billion

“2. The 20 countries of the Near East and North Africa face the worst prospects. The Near East is the most water-short region in the world. In fact, the entire Near East “ran out of water” in 1972, when the region’s total population was 122 million, according to Tony Allan, a University of London expert on water resources. Since then, the region has withdrawn more water from its rivers and aquifers every year than is being replenished. Currently, for example, Jordan and Yemen withdraw 30% more water from groundwater aquifers every year than is replenished. Also, Israel’s annual water use already exceeds its renewable supply by 15%.

“3. Saudi Arabia presents one of the worst cases of unsustainable water use in the world. This extremely arid country now must mine fossil groundwater for three-quarters of its water needs. Fossil groundwater depletion in Saudi Arabia has been averaging around 5.2 billion cubic meters a year

“4. Of 14 countries in the Near East, 11 are already facing water scarcity. In five of these countries the populations are projected to double within the next two decades. Water is one of the major political issues confronting the region’s leaders. Since virtually all rivers in the Near East are shared by several nations, current tensions over water rights could escalate into outright conflicts, driven by population growth and rising demand for an increasingly scarce resource.

“5. In many countries, the water problem is the primary reason people are unable to rise out of poverty. Women and children bear the burdens disproportionately, often spending six hours or more each day fetching water for their families and communities.

“6. 1.1 billion people in the world…

100…”

read more: BeforeItsNews.com

Chlorine’s importance in water treatment set to grow

Last modified on 2010-06-24 14:55:55 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“AS THE world becomes more populous, water is becoming more scarce. There is strong growth potential for all types of water treatment technologies, but some could do better as countries bid to quench their thirst in a cheap and environmentally friendly way.

“The UN’s estimates (see map below, which shows projected global water withdrawal as a percentage of total water available) are based on its medium-population projections made in 1998. According to these, more than 2.8bn people in 48 countries will face water stress, or scarce conditions, by 2025. Of these, 40 are in West Asia (also known as the Middle East), North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa.

“Over the next two decades, population increases and growing demands are projected to push all the West Asian countries into water scarcity conditions.

“By 2050, the number of countries facing water stress or scarcity could rise to 54, with a combined population of 4bn – about 40% of the projected global population of 9.4bn. It is striking to note that even some developed nations, such as the US and many European countries will see more serious water scarcity by 2025. This could be one reason that some are already calling water the “new oil.”

“In order to arrive at the different qualities of water required for its various applications, and for the world to meet its goals, it must be treated. There are several different ways to do this, which are either combined or taken in isolation, according to each instance. Essentially, the aim is to remove, or in some cases reduce, the contaminants present in the water to bring it to an acceptable level for its required end use.”

read more: icis.com

Water Pressure

Last modified on 2010-06-14 01:57:50 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Among the environmental specters confronting humanity in the 21st century—global warming, the destruction of rain forests, overfishing of the oceans—a shortage of fresh water is at the top of the list, particularly in the developing world. Hardly a month passes without a new study making another alarming prediction, further deepening concern over what a World Bank expert calls the “grim arithmetic of water.” Recently the United Nations said that 2.7 billion people would face severe water shortages by 2025 if consumption continues at current rates. Fears about a parched future arise from a projected growth of world population from more than six billion today to an estimated nine billion in 2050. Yet the amount of fresh water on Earth is not increasing. Nearly 97 percent of the planet’s water is salt water in seas and oceans. Close to 2 percent of Earth’s water is frozen in polar ice sheets and glaciers, and a fraction of one percent is available for drinking, irrigation, and industrial use.”

“Gloomy water news, however, is not just a thing of the future: Today an estimated 1.2 billion people drink unclean water, and about 2.5 billion lack proper toilets or sewerage systems. More than five million people die each year from water-related diseases such as cholera and dysentery. All over the globe farmers and municipalities are pumping water out of the ground faster than it can be replenished.”

“Still, as I discovered on a two-month trip to Africa, India, and Spain, a host of individuals, organizations, and businesses are working to solve water’s dismal arithmetic. Some are reviving ancient techniques such as rainwater harvesting, and others are using 21st-century technology. But all have two things in common: a desire to obtain maximum efficiency from every drop of water and a belief in using local solutions and free market incentives in their conservation campaigns.”

Read More: National Geographic

Passing the Point of “Peak Water” Means Paying More for H2O

Last modified on 2010-06-02 00:17:13 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“We have passed the point of “peak water”–or the end of cheap, easy-to-access water–in several places around the globe, experts say.

“Those places include the Great Plains in the southern and central U.S., California’s Central Valley, northern China, the Nile River Basin in northern Africa, the Jordan River Basin in the Middle East, India, and more.

“The term “peak water” has been sprinkled throughout recent media accounts of droughts and groundwater depletion, but a May 20 article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science finally provides a clear definition.

“It means that every new sources we tap is going to be farther afield, harder to access, and more expensive. We are at the end of the era of cheap, easy-to-access water,” said study co-author Meena Palaniappan, director of the International Water and Communities Initiative at the Pacific Institute.”

read more: National Geographic

The killing season

Last modified on 2010-05-30 04:22:45 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Malaria is a global problem. As much as half the world’s population is at risk of catching the mosquito-born disease; it infects more than 500 million people a year and kills more than one million.

“Uganda has one of the highest malaria mortality rates in the world, with around 120,000 people dying every year, almost all of them needlessly.

“Why are so many people still dying despite all the apparent efforts of governments, NGOs and public health experts to distribute nets and drugs?

“Filmmaker Mark Honigsbaum went to Uganda looking for answers and uncovered a troubling story of corruption and neglect that may undermine Africa’s – and the world’s – best defence against the disease.”

Read More: Al Jazeera

Ethiopia rejects Egypt Nile claims

Last modified on 2010-05-22 19:28:06 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Ethiopia’s prime minister has rejected a threat by Egypt to prevent the building of dams and other water projects upstream on the Nile river.

“Meles Zenawi told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that Egypt will not be able to stop his country from building dams on the river.

“His comments came nearly a week after Ethiopia joined Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania in signing a new treaty on the equitable sharing of the Nile, despite strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan who have the major share of the river waters.”

read more: Al Jazeera

China’s Biggest Bank to Support Africa’s Most Destructive Dam

Last modified on 2010-05-18 04:47:03 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Ethiopia’s Gibe 3 Dam is one of the most destructive hydropower projects being built today. If completed, it would destroy fragile ecosystems on which 500,000 poor indigenous people depend for their survival. A worldwide civil society campaign has held international financial institutions at bay for several years. Yesterday, however, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) offered to step in with a $500 million loan. If the loan is confirmed, China’s biggest bank will become responsible for a massive social and environmental disaster.

“The Gibe 3 Dam on the Omo River threatens the livelihoods of 500,000 indigenous people in Southern Ethiopia and Northern Kenya. By ending the river’s natural flood cycle, it would destroy harvests and grazing lands along the river banks and fisheries in Lake Turkana, the world’s largest desert lake. The dam will devastate the unique culture and ecosystems of the Lower Omo Valley and Lake Turkana, both recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.”

read more: International Rivers

Underground “Fossil Water” Running Out

Last modified on 2010-05-08 18:21:29 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“This story is part of a special series that explores the global water crisis. For more clean water news, photos, and information, visit National Geographic’s Freshwater website.

“In the world’s driest places, “fossil water” is becoming as valuable as fossil fuel, experts say.

“This ancient freshwater was created eons ago and trapped underground in huge reservoirs, or aquifers. And like oil, no one knows how much there is—but experts do know that when it’s gone, it’s gone. (See a map of the world’s freshwater in National Geographic magazine.)

“You can apply the economics of mining because you are depleting a finite resource,” said Mike Edmunds, a hydrogeologist at Oxford University in the Great Britain.

“In the meantime, though, paleowater is the only option in many water-strapped nations. For instance, Libya is habitable because of aquifers—some of them 75,000 years old—discovered under the Sahara’s sands during 1950s oil explorations.

“The North African country receives little rain, and its population is concentrated on the coasts, where groundwater reserves are becoming increasingly brackish and nearing depletion.

“Since Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi launched his Great Man-Made River Project in the 1980s, an epic system of pipes, reservoirs, and engineering infrastructure is being built. It will be able to pump from some 1,300 paleowater wells and move 230 million cubic feet (6.5 million cubic meters) of H2O every day.

“But while fossil water can fill critical needs, experts warn, it’s ultimately just a temporary measure until conservation measures and technologies become status quo.

[...]

Radioactive Worries

“But the project has encountered an unexpected stumbling block. The Disi’s fossil water was recently found to contain 20 times the radiation levels considered safe for drinking. The water is contaminated naturally by sandstone, which has slowly leached radioactive contaminants over the eons.

“Geochemist and water-quality expert Avner Vengosh of Duke University, one of the scientists who first discovered the problem, said the Disi’s situation is not unusual.

“Radiation contamination has been found in Israel, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, and Libya, Vengosh said.

“Fortunately, radiation contamination can be fixed through a simple water-softening process, though it does cost money and creates radioactive waste that must be disposed of properly, he noted.”

read more: National Geographic

Water pollution expert derides UN sanitation claims

Last modified on 2010-04-25 19:47:45 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“In its latest report on the progress of the UN Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people lacking access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, the World Health Organisation said that since 1990 1.3 billion people had gained access to improved drinking water and 500 million better sanitation. The world was on course to “meet or exceed” the water target, it said, but was likely to miss the sanitation goal by nearly 1 billion people.

“However, Prof Asit Biswas, who has advised national governments, six UN agencies and Nato, said official figures showing that many cities and countries had met their targets were “baloney”, and predicted that by the UN deadline of 2015 more people in the world would suffer from these problems than when the goals were first adopted.

“If somebody has a well in a town or village in the developing world and we put concrete around the well – nothing else – it becomes an ‘improved source of water’; the quality is the same but you have ‘improved’ the physical structure, which has no impact,” said Biswas. “They are not only underestimating the problem, they are giving the impression the problem is being solved. What I’m trying to say is that’s a bunch of baloney.”

“Barbara Frost, chief executive of the UK-based global charity WaterAid, said: “Here is a global catastrophe which kills more children than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined and which is holding back all development efforts including health and education.”

read more: The Guardian

Water: World Bank Report Recommends Ways to Improve Access to Clean Water

Last modified on 2010-04-06 15:01:25 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Ethiopia, Haiti and Niger are facing the world’s worst water shortages, but 700 million people in 43 countries are under “water stress,” according to a new report released by the World Bank last month.

“Almost a third of all the bank’s projects in recent history have been water-related, and a total of $54 billion was spent financing them, the report said. Some, of course, have been controversial, since dams, irrigation projects, flood prevention and watershed-management projects often benefit one group at the expense of others. Also, many projects fail, once built, because the host country is not wealthy or sophisticated enough to maintain them.”

read more: New York Times

Ethiopia’s rush to build mega dams sparks protests

Last modified on 2010-04-02 16:39:12 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“At the foot of a towering gorge slicing through southern Ethiopia the Omo river suddenly disappears into a tunnel bored into the rockface. Excavators claw at the soil and stone in the exposed riverbed beyond, where a giant concrete wall will soon appear in the ravine.

“At 243 metres the Gibe III dam will be the highest on the continent, a controversial centrepiece of Ethiopia’s extraordinary multibillion-pound hydroelectric boom.

“This week a coalition of campaign groups, including International Rivers, based in California, and Survival International, launched an online petition with the aim of stopping the dam, warning of potentially disastrous social and economic effects for tribes downstream.

“It’s an unnecessary, highly destructive project,” said Terri Hathaway, Africa campaigner for International Rivers.”

read more: Guardian

Murder in the bush: Wildlife film-maker Joan Root threw herself into protecting the African lake she called home…but her passion cost her her life

Last modified on 2010-04-01 15:34:15 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“For Joan, everything that mattered most to her was centred on the lake but, even there, life was changing – Naivasha’s fertile soil and warm climate were ripe for exploitation. Joan’s neighbours realised that roses would thrive in the area, and demand for the blooms was high.

“New technology, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and good air transportation meant they could be sold anywhere in the world, but this booming new industry brought economic and ecological problems in its wake.

“Joan decided to take action. She went on daily poacher patrols and wrote of her increasing frustration, intensified by the ineptitude of the police and government agencies in coming up with any solution. Every poacher on the lake soon knew that she was the key player in stopping them from feeding their families.”

“The night of 12 January, 2006 was clear and moonlit. At 1.30am, two men, one carrying an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle, crept into the compound. Awakened by the men demanding in Swahili that she open the door, Joan used her mobile phone to call her security consultant, John Sutton, who was on an assignment in Tanzania. ‘John, they’re back,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Turn off your light,’ Sutton said. ‘Get on the floor and into the bathroom.’ Previously, at Mr Sutton’s suggestion, steel doors had been put up in the bathroom for this very purpose.

“Sutton called the police. Then his phone rang again. Joan’s voice was frantic and trembling. He heard gunshots. ‘John, help, John, help’. Screaming in Swahili that they would fill her with so many holes she’d ‘look like a sieve’, the two men pumped bullets through the glass and the bars of her bedroom window. Then the phone went dead. Joan, who had been shot several times, died from massive bleeding. Too much in love with the lake to leave it and too stubborn to surrender, she had made a last stand on her land. What she left behind would tell the story of what she had tried to accomplish.”

read more: daily mail

Analysis: World Water Day Promises Much, but We’ve Been Here Before

Last modified on 2010-03-29 14:34:05 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The economics of improving water quality was a major theme during the program at World Water Day last week, so an economic maxim is appropriate to summarize the day: talk is cheap. Rather, more specifically, scripted talk is cheap.

“The key remark, as is often the case, was brief and direct, without the padding used in government-speak to hide meaning. Panel moderator Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, was posing a question about wastewater management.

“This is a simple problem,” Steiner said. “You either filter water before it is consumed, or treat it before discharging it.”

read more: Circle of Blue

Water harvested from clouds in rural South Africa

Last modified on 2010-03-24 17:32:06 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“The life-giving liquid is the purest you could hope to taste–and it’s also free and environmentally friendly,” said Doreen Gough, media affairs manager for the University of South Africa (UNISA).

“UNISA is launching another of its fog-harvesting systems in South Africa today, this one in the country’s Eastern Cape Province.

“The university “has been engaged with a largescale research and development project on fog harvesting as an alternative source of potable water for many isolated rural communities struggling to access pure and clean water. Many of the communities where the research projects have been conducted experience scarce water supply and the villagers travel long distances to fetch it,” Gough said in an e-mail to Nat Geo News Watch.”

read more: The Palestine Telegraph

Giant Ethiopian dam to make 200,000 go hungry – NGO

Last modified on 2010-03-24 16:51:43 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“More than 200,000 Ethiopians who rely on fishing and farming could become reliant on aid to survive if the government goes ahead with building Africa’s biggest hydropower dam, an advocacy group said.

“These tribes are self-sufficient but this dam will ruin their economies,” a Survival International representative, who did not wish to be named, said.

“It will end the annual flooding some rely on to make the land they farm fertile, and for tribes who rely on fishing, it will deplete stocks. They will need aid.”

read more: Reuters

World Water Day – The Big Picture

Last modified on 2010-03-23 22:02:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Today, March 22nd, is recognized by the United Nations Water Group as “World Water Day”, this year’s theme being “Clean Water for a Healthy World”. Although we live on a water-covered planet, only 1% of the world’s water is available for human use, the rest locked away in oceans, ice, and the atmosphere. The National Geographic Society feels so strongly about the issues around fresh water that they are distributing an interactive version of their April, 2010 magazine for download – free until April 2nd – and will be exhibiting images from the series at theAnnenberg Space for photography. National Geographic was also kind enough to share 15 of their images below, in a collection with other photos from news agencies and NASA – all of water, here at home – Earth. (43 photos total)”

read more: boston.com

Unsafe water kills more people than war, Ban says on World Day

Last modified on 2010-03-23 21:24:42 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“Every day around the world, 2 million tons of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste are poured in the earth’s waters, while one child under the age of five dies every 20 seconds from water-related diseases, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Human activity over the past 50 years is responsible for unprecedented pollution, and the quality of the world’s water resources is increasingly challenged,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

“It may seem like an overwhelming challenge but there are enough solutions where human ingenuity allied to technology and investments in nature’s purification systems – such as wetlands, forests and mangroves – can deliver clean water for a healthy world.”

read more: UN

Rising waters threaten Nile Delta

Last modified on 2010-03-21 14:25:15 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“As the sea on Egypt’s coastline rises, (Hamza says by 20cm during the last century, a statistic that leading Egyptian government scientists concur with) salt-water infiltrates the Delta’s soil from below, and destroys the farming land.

“The consequences of this are very serious for Egypt, which relies on the Delta for food production.

“In truth, there are any number of factors now damaging the ecology of the Delta. Ever since the completion of the Aswan High Dam, 40 years ago, soil fertility levels in the Delta have been falling, as large quantities of sediment are no longer washed downstream.”

read more: Al Jazeera

Scarce water the root cause of Darfur conflict?

Last modified on 2010-03-10 01:56:56 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“If one looks to the Council on Foreign Relations to define the tragedy that has been Darfur you initially get: “Farmers and Arabic nomads have long competed for limited resources in western Sudan’s Darfur region, particularly following a prolonged drought in 1983.”

“Taking a closer look at this position suggests, “the crises in Darfur stems in part from disputes over water.”

“In fact, according to a report dating back to 1999 and sponsored by the UN Development Program, fighting over limited resources as the scarcity of water, over the next 25 years, will possibly be the leading reason for major conflicts in Africa, not oil.”

read more: The Final Call

15 die in Somali rival clan feuds over water

Last modified on 2010-03-05 23:03:18 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Violent clan feuds over livestock and access to water are common in the Horn of Africa country, where weapons are readily available and often used to resolve land disputes.”

read more: news

Lords of Water; Finding Our Way Out of the World’s Water Crisis

Last modified on 2010-03-05 18:33:46 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“The WWC knows about big money: It is led by two of the world’s largest private water corporations, Suez Environnement and Veolia Water. Fauchon, president of the Council, is also the president of Groupe des Eaux de Marseille, a company owned jointly by Veolia and a subsidiary of Suez. Critics such as Maude Barlow, director of Canada’s Blue Planet Project and recent appointee as senior advisor on water to the U.N. General Assembly, contend that the Council’s links to private water operators and to AquaFed, the industry lobby group strategically headquartered across from the European Union Parliament in Brussels, compromise its legitimacy.“I call them the Lords of Water,” says Barlow.”

“The next World Water Forum is planned for South Africa in 2012, and it can be expected that that nation’s social movements led by the militant South African Anti-privatization Forum, will be ready for a fight.”

read more: emagazine

Desalination could comprise 10% of South Africa’s urban water supply mix by 2030

Last modified on 2010-04-01 02:15:40 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Turton explains that desalination needs a large amount of energy and feedstock and produces perfectly clean water and brine. The downside, therefore, is twofold: the carbon emissions generated in the energy phase and the brine.”

“The ocean is an ecosystem – it is not just a body of water that is not living. By extracting water directly from the ocean, plants are disrupting the functioning of the system. There is also effluent that must go back into the ocean, which may cause a brine build-up,” says Amis.”

read more: engineeringnews

Africa’s potential water wars

Last modified on 2010-03-03 22:32:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Worldwatch says that already the water needed to produce the annual combined imports of grain by the Middle East and North Africa is equivalent to the annual flow of the Nile.

Importing grain is much easier than importing water, but for poorer countries in Africa it may not be an option.

For this reason the UN proposes monitoring worldwide reserves of drinking water and establishing agreements for the use of water.”

read more: BBC News

Adapting to Climate in Africa

Last modified on 2010-03-02 23:59:15 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Throughout history, African African societies have experienced various climate-related events and pressures. But over the last 30 years both drought and floods have increased in frequency and severity. The continent is now burdened with nearly one-third of all water-related disaster that occur worldwide every year.”

read more: jotoafrika

Dams, Rivers, and Stolen Millions in the Congo

Last modified on 2010-02-28 23:00:15 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“The relatively modest rehabilitation of the Inga dams and transmission lines has already run into serious problems. Around 2002, $110 million that the World Bank supposedly spent on Congo’s electricity sector went missing.”


Read More: Huffington Post