March 13, 2003-2
Copyright © 2003 Earth Policy Institute
World Creating Food Bubble Economy Based on Unsustainable Use of
Water
Lester R. Brown
On March 16, 2003, some 10,000 participants
will meet in Japan for the third World Water Forum to discuss the
world water prospect. Although they will be officially focusing
on water scarcity, they will indirectly be focusing on food scarcity
because 70 percent of the water we divert from rivers or pump from
underground is used for irrigation.
As world water demand has tripled over the last half-century, it
has exceeded the sustainable yield of aquifers in scores of countries,
leading to falling water tables. In effect, governments are satisfying
the growing demand for food by overpumping groundwater, a measure
that virtually assures a drop in food production when the aquifer
is depleted. Knowingly or not, governments are creating a "food
bubble" economy.
As water use climbs, the world is incurring a vast water deficit,
one that is largely invisible, historically recent, and growing
fast. Because the impending water crunch typically takes the form
of falling water tables, it is not visible. Falling water tables
are often discovered only when wells go dry.
Once the growing demand for water rises above the sustainable yield
of an aquifer, the gap between the two widens each year. The first
year after the line is crossed, the water table falls very little,
with the drop often being scarcely perceptible. Each year thereafter,
however, the annual drop is larger than the year before.
The diesel-driven or electrically powered pumps that make overpumping
possible have become available throughout the entire world at essentially
the same time. The near-simultaneous depletion of aquifers means
that cutbacks in grain harvests will be occurring in many countries
at more or less the same time. And they will be occurring at a time
when world population is growing by more than 70 million a year.
Aquifers are being depleted in scores of countries, including China,
India, and the United States, which collectively account for half
of the world grain harvest. Under the North China Plain, which produces
more than half of China's wheat and a third of its corn, the annual
drop in the water table has increased from an average of 1.5 meters
a decade ago to up to 3 meters today. Overpumping has largely depleted
the shallow aquifer, so the amount of water that can be pumped from
it each year is restricted to the annual recharge from precipitation.
This is forcing well drillers to go down to the region's deep aquifer,
which, unfortunately, is not replenishable.
He Quincheng, head of the Geological Environmental Monitoring Institute
in Beijing, notes that as the deep aquifer under the North China
Plain is depleted, the region is losing its last water reserveits
only safety cushion. His concerns are mirrored in a World Bank report:
"Anecdotal evidence suggest that deep wells [drilled] around Beijing
now have to reach 1,000 meters [more than half a mile] to tap fresh
water, adding dramatically to the cost of supply." In unusually
strong language for the Bank, the report forecasts "catastrophic
consequences for future generations" unless water use and supply
can quickly be brought back into balance.
India, which now has a billion people, is overdrawing aquifers in
several states, including the Punjab (the country's breadbasket),
Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. The
latest data indicate that under the Punjab and Haryana, water tables
are falling by up to 1 meter per year. David Seckler, former head
of the International Water Management Institute, estimates that
aquifer depletion could reduce India's grain harvest by one fifth.
In the United States, the underground water table has dropped by
more than 30 meters (100 feet) in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and
Kansasthree
key grain-producing states. As a result, wells have gone dry on
thousands of farms in the southern Great Plains.
Pakistan, a country with 140 million people and still growing by
4 million per year, is also overpumping its aquifers. In the Pakistani
part of the fertile Punjab plain, the drop in the water table appears
to be similar to that in India. In the province of Baluchistan,
a more arid region, the water table around the provincial capital
of Quetta is falling by 3.5 meters per year. Richard Garstang, a
water expert with the World Wildlife Fund, says that "within 15
years Quetta will run out of water if the current consumption rate
continues."
In Yemen, the water table is falling by roughly 2 meters a year.
In its search for relief, the Yemeni government has drilled test
wells in the Sana'a basin, where the capital is located, that are
2 kilometers (1.2 miles) deepdepths
normally associated with the oil industryyet
it has failed to find water. With a population of 19 million growing
at 3.3 percent a year, one of the highest rates in the world, and
with water tables falling everywhere, Yemen is fast becoming a hydrological
basket case. World Bank official Christopher Ward observes that
"groundwater is being mined at such a rate that parts of the rural
economy could disappear within a generation."
In Mexicohome
to a population of 104 million that is projected to reach 150 million
by 2050the
demand for water is outstripping supply. In the agricultural state
of Guanajuato, for example, the water table is falling by 2 meters
or more a year. At the national level, 52 percent of all the water
extracted from underground is coming from aquifers that are being
overpumped.
Water scarcity, once a local issue, is now crossing international
boundaries via the international grain trade. Because it takes a
thousand tons of water to produce a ton of grain, importing grain
is the most efficient way to import water. Countries that are pressing
against the limits of their water supply typically satisfy the growing
need of cities and industry by diverting irrigation water from agriculture,
and then they import grain to offset the loss of productive capacity.
As water shortages intensify, so too will the competition for grain
in world markets. In a sense, trading in grain futures is the same
as trading in water futures.
In China, a combination of aquifer depletion, the diversion of irrigation
water to cities, and lower grain support prices are shrinking the
grain harvest. After peaking at 392 million tons in 1998, the harvest
dropped to 346 million tons in 2002. China's food bubble may be
about to burst. It has covered its grain shortfall for three years
by drawing down its stocks, but it will soon have to turn to the
world market to fill this deficit. When it does, it could destabilize
world grain markets.
Although some countries have already made impressive gains in raising
irrigation efficiency and recycling urban wastewater, the general
response to water scarcity has been to build more dams or drill
more wells. But now expanding supply is becoming more difficult.
The only other option is to reduce demand by stabilizing population
and raising water productivity. With nearly all the 3 billion people
to be added by 2050 being born in developing countries where water
is already scarce, achieving an acceptable balance between water
and people may now depend more on stabilizing population than on
any other single action.
The second step in stabilizing the water situation is to raise water
productivity, not unlike the way we have raised land productivity.
After World War II, with population projected to double by 2000
and with little new land to bring under the plow, the world launched
a major effort to raise cropland productivity. As a result, land
productivity nearly tripled between 1950 and 2000. Now it is time
to see what we can do with water.
Copyright
© 2003 Earth Policy Institute
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FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From Earth Policy Institute
Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy:
Building an Economy for the Earth (New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, 2001).
Lester R. Brown, Janet Larsen, and Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts,
The Earth Policy Reader
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002).
Lester R. Brown, "Water Deficits Growing in Many
Countries," Eco-Economy Update,
6 August 2002.
Lester R. Brown, "World Grain Harvest Falling Short
by 54 Million Tons: Water Shortages Contributing to Shortfall,"
Eco-Economy Update, 21
November 2001.
Lester R. Brown, "Worsening Water Shortages Threaten
China's Food Security," Eco-Economy
Update, 4 October 2001.
From Other Sources
Peter Gleick, The World's Water (Washington,
DC: Island Press, various years).
Sandra Postel, Pillar of Sand (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company and Worldwatch Institute, 1999).
Sandra Postel, Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company and Worldwatch Institute, 1997).
LINKS
The 3rd World Water Forum
http:/www.world.water-forum3.com
AQUASTAT, global information system of water and
agriculture from the Land and Water Development Division of the
U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization
http:/www.fao.org/ag/agl/aglw
/aquastat/main/index.stm
International Water Management Institute
http:/www.cgiar.org/iwmi
Stockholm International Water Institute
http:/www.siwi.org
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) Water Portal
http:/www.unesco.org/water
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Freshwater
Site
http:/freshwater.unep.net
Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council
http:/www.wsscc.org
World Health Organization: Water, Sanitation, and
Health
http:/www.who.int/
water_sanitation_health/
World Water Council
http:/www.worldwatercouncil.org
The World's Water
http:/www.worldwater.org
Worldwatch Institute, Water Mini Site
http:/www.worldwatch.org/
topics/people/water
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