FACING WATER SCARCITY
Chapter 2. Signs of Stress: Climate and Water
Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth
(W.W. Norton & Co., NY: 2001).
An estimated 70 percent of the water consumed
worldwide, including that diverted from rivers and pumped from underground,
is used for irrigation, while some 20 percent is used by industry
and 10 percent for residential purposes. In the increasingly intense
competition for water among these three sectors, the economics of
water do not favor agriculture. In China, 1,000 tons of water can
be used to produce 1 ton of wheat, worth perhaps $200, or to expand
industrial output by $14,00070
times as much. In a country that is desperately seeking economic
growth and the jobs it generates, the gain in diverting water from
agriculture to industry is obvious. The economics of water also
helps explain the increasingly common sale of irrigation water rights
by U.S. farmers in the West to cities.67
Urbanization, industrialization, and ecosystem maintenance also
expand the demand for water. As developing-country villagers, traditionally
reliant on the village well, move to urban high-rise apartment buildings
with indoor plumbing, their residential water use can easily triple.
Industrialization takes even more water than urbanization.
Rising affluence in itself generates additional demands for water.
For example, as people move up the food chain, consuming more beef,
pork, poultry, eggs, and dairy products, they use more grain. A
U.S. diet rich in livestock products requires four times as much
grain per person as a rice-based diet in a country like India. Using
four times as much grain means using four times as much water.68
Once a localized phenomenon, water scarcity is now crossing national
borders via the international grain trade. The world's fastest-growing
grain import market is North Africa and the Middle East, an area
that includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and the countries
eastward through Iran. Virtually every country in this region is
simultaneously experiencing water shortages and rapid population
growth.69
As the demand for water in the region's cities and industries rises,
it is typically satisfied by diverting water from irrigation. The
loss in food production capacity is then offset by importing grain
from abroad. Since 1 ton of grain represents 1,000 tons of water,
this is the most efficient way for water-deficit countries to import
water.
In 2000, Iran importe/Books/Eco/d_7_million_tons_of_wheat__eclipsing_Japan_b__font_color_.css"#31659C">for
decades the world's leading wheat importer. In 2001, Egypt is also
projected to move ahead of Japan. Iran and Egypt, each with nearly
70 million people and adding more than a million a year, are both
facing acute water scarcity.70
The water required to produce the grain and other foodstuffs imported
into North Africa and the Middle East in 2000 was roughly equal
to the annual flow of the Nile River. Stated otherwise, the fast-growing
water deficit of this region is equal to another Nile flowing into
the region in the form of imported grain.71
It is now often said that future wars in the region will more likely
be fought over water than oil. Perhaps, but given the difficulty
in winning a water war, the competition for water seems more likely
to take place in world grain markets. The countries that will "win"
in this competition will be those that are financially strongest,
not those that are militarily strongest.72
The world water deficit, as measured by the overpumping of aquifers,
grows larger each year, making it progressively more difficult to
manage. If countries everywhere decided this year to halt overpumping
and to stabilize water tables, the world grain harvest would fall
by some 160 million tons, or 8 percent, and grain prices would go
off the top of the chart. The longer countries delay in facing this
issue, the wider the water deficit becomes and the greater the eventual
adjustment will be.
Unless governments in water-short countries act quickly to stabilize
population and to raise water productivity, their water shortages
may soon become food shortages. The risk is that the fast-growing
ranks of water-short countries with rising grain import needs, including
potentially the population giants China and India, will overwhelm
the export capacity of the grain-surplus countriesthe
United States, France, Canada, and Australia. And this in turn will
destabilize world grain markets.
The water situation is deteriorating rapidly in many countries,
but it is the fast-growing water deficit in China that is likely
to affect the entire world. The combination of 12 million additional
people per year, urbanization, a projected economic growth rate
of 7 percent, and the continuing movement of Chinese consumers up
the food chain virtually ensures that the demand for water will
continue to outstrip the supply for years to come. These trends
also suggest that China's need for imported grain could soon start
to climb, much as its imports of soybeans have in recent years.
Between 1995 and 2000, China went from being self-sufficient in
soybeans to being the world's largest buyer, importing over 40 percent
of its supply.73
Water shortages can be ameliorated by raising water prices to reduce
wastage and thus increase the efficiency of water use, but in China
this is not always easy. An announcement in early 2001 that the
government was planning to raise water prices in stages over the
next five years was a welcome step in the right direction. But for
Beijing, this option is fraught with political risks because the
public response to increasing the price of water, which often has
been free in the past, is akin to that when gasoline prices go up
in the United States.74
Other recent announcements from Beijing indicate that the government
has officially abandoned its long-standing policy of grain self-sufficiency.
China has also announced that, in the intensifying competition for
water, cities and industry will get priorityleaving
agriculture as the residual claimant.75
As noted, China is not alone in facing water shortages. Other countries
where water scarcity is raising grain imports or threatening to
do so include India, Pakistan, Mexico, and dozens of smaller countries.
But only Chinawith
nearly 1.3 billion people and an $80 billion annual trade surplus
with the United Stateshas
the near-term potential to disrupt world grain markets. In short,
falling water tables in China could soon mean rising food prices
for the entire world.76
ENDNOTES:
67. Irrigation water information from WRI, op. cit. note 4, p. 64;
calculation based on 1,000 tons of water for 1 ton of grain from
FAO, op. cit. note 65, on global wheat prices from International
Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics (Washington, DC:
various years), and on industrial water intensity in Mark W. Rosegrant,
Claudia Ringler, and Roberta V. Gerpacio, "Water and Land Resources
and Global Food Supply," paper prepared for the 23rd International
Conference of Agricultural Economists on Food Security, Diversification,
and Resource Management: Refocusing the Role of Agriculture?, Sacramento,
CA, August 10-16, 1997.
68. Average grain consumption per person derived from USDA, op.
cit. note 12, and from United Nations, op. cit. note 4.
69. WRI, op. cit. note 4, p. 274.
70. USDA, op. cit. note 12.
71. Ibid.; this shows grain imports alone into the region of over
63 million tons, equivalent to 63 billion tons (63 billion cubic
meters) of water, nearly the 74 billion cubic meters of usable flow
of the Nile River reported in Postel, op. cit. note 15, p. 146.
72. Morris and Smyth, op. cit. note 52.
73. World Bank, op. cit. note 51; Chinese soy import history from
USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service, Oilseeds: World Markets and
Trade, July 2001, p. 22.
74. Liang Chao, "Officials: Water Price to Increase," China Daily,
21 February 2001.
75. While officially adhering to a grain self-sufficiency policy,
China has redefined "self-sufficiency" as importing up to 20 percent
of its grain supplies, in National Conditions and Analysis Research
Group, Agriculture and Development-A Study of China's Grain and
Agricultural Development Strategy in the 21st Century, National
Conditions Report No. 5 (Beijing: Chinese Academy of Sciences, March
1997); water preference to industry in Crook and Xinshen, op. cit.
note 55.
76. China's trade surplus from Geoff Hiscock, "Weighing Up the Impact
of Sino-U.S. Trade Sanctions," Cable News Network, 16 April 2001.
Copyright
© 2001 Earth Policy Institute
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