It's the water, stupid

[from Athens News, 23.1.09, page 18]

Perspective

* It’s the water, stupid! – Yannis Zabetakis on the importance of good water management

------------------------------------
It’s the water, stupid

Yannis Zabetakis

izabet@chem.uoa.gr

http://www.zabetakis.net/

The author is a senior lecturer of food chemistry and lead auditor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Athens
------------------------------------------------

In Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H.W. Bush, the phrase «It's the economy, stupid» was coined by Clinton campaign strategist James Carville. It referred to the notion that Clinton was a better choice because Bush had not adequately addressed the economy, which had recently undergone a recession. In 2009, world economies are facing yet again a huge crisis.

But, despite the enormity of the current global economic crisis, it is not the most crucial crisis facing us today, neither is it the food shortage crisis but is infact the shortage of clean water. Food at affordable prices is not enough for all the people on Earth but in order to produce food, we need water. In speaking to The Economist, chairman of Nestlé, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said: “the water shortage is an even more urgent problem than climate change”.

How you ever wondered what is the price of 1 m³ (or 1 tonne) of water? Have a look at your invoice of the water authorities in Athens (EYDAP), 1 m³ costs about €0.45. But, people sunbathing in Saint Tropez and using bottled water of Evian, have to pay several hundred euros for 1 m³ of water. In Palestine, the water is even more expensive, people have to cross the Egypt-Palestine borders to carry water back to their homes. So, water can in fact be priceless! We could thus coin the Carville’s phrase to «it’s the water, stupid».

Water availability has been a “casus belli” for many years. Six years ago, Israel warned of war over water (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2249599.stm). Lebanon had opened a pumping-station on the River Hasbani in the spring of 2001 to irrigate a drought-stricken village but denied that it planned to dam the river. Israel controlled the Hasbani during its occupation of southern Lebanon in 1978-2000. Today, the water of this river is completely controlled by Israel.

The problem of good water management is of pivotal importance in both food and agriculture industries and world geopolitics. According to the bank JP Morgan, five big food and beverage giants—Nestlé, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and Danone—consume almost 575 billion litres of water a year, enough to satisfy the daily water needs of every person on the planet (http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11966993)!

Not surprisingly leading environmental agencies are now using the concept of the “water footprint” to describe the direct and indirect water use. The water footprint is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services (http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/home). It is thus not only the amount of water that people and industry are consuming in a country that matters, but also the amount of water that is used for all food that is imported to this country from all over the world! Intriguingly, the production of one kilogram of beef requires 16.000 litres of water whereas we need 140 litres of water to produce one cup of coffee! Japan with a footprint of 1150 cubic meter per capita per year, has about 65% of its total water footprint outside the borders of the country and the US water footprint is 2500 cubic meter per capita per year.

In Greece, the concept of water management is simply non existent: the number of illegal wells is unkwown, estimates of boreholes in Greece range from 190,000 to 270,000. The best example that highlights this lack of water managenent is the lake Plastira in cental Greece: while the water level of this lake, is dangerously low, wasteful irrigation techniques in the plain of Thessaly and elsewhere continue unmonitored (http://www.athensnews.gr/athweb/nathens.print_unique?e=C&f=13302&m=A05&aa=1&eidos=S).

But it is not only this part of the world, where water management is poor. In Cyprus, all the water reservoirs of the island were full in 2004 but completely empty at the end of 2008. Cyprus had to import water from Greece last summer. Half of households in England and Wales are in areas where demand for fresh drinking water could soon outstrip supply. The crisis is greatest in the South East where at least 10million people have less water available per head than those living in Egypt and Morocco (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1102724/Less-water-head-Egypt-25million-live-areas-face-drought-rationing.html).

“Water is the oil of the 21st century,” declares Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow, a chemical company. Like oil, water is a critical lubricant of the global economy. And as with oil, supplies of water—at least, the clean, easily accessible sort—are coming under enormous strain. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, estimates that global water consumption is doubling every 20 years, which it calls an “unsustainable” rate of growth. Water, unlike oil, has no substitute! Untrammelled industrialisation, particularly in poor countries, is contaminating rivers and aquifers. America’s generous subsidies for biofuel have increased the harvest of water-intensive crops that are now used for energy as well as food. And heavy subsidies for water in most parts of the world mean it is often grossly underpriced—and hence squandered (

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11966993)

The link between food and water

It takes about one litre of water to produce one calorie from food crops. But the biggest variable is our diet. Europeans and Americans have for years had high proportions of meat in their diets, but now this trend is catching on in emerging markets as incomes rise. Meat requires ten times the water withdrawn per calorie by plants. So the average daily diet in California requires some 6,000 litres of water in agriculture, compared with 3,000 litres in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt. Compare these figures to the 3 or 4 litres we drink or the 300-600 litres of water needed for other purposes, such as hygiene and manufacturing. Unfortunately, politicians have added another drain—biofuels. It takes up to 9,100 litres of water to grow the soy for one litre of biodiesel, and up to 4,000 litres for the corn to be transformed into bioethanol. What is meant to alleviate a serious environmental problem (climate change) is making another, even more serious problem (water shortage) worse.

Urgent solutions are needed

Scientists do have solutions: better irrigation practices in farming may reduce freshwater withdrawals almost by half. Some crops are better grown in water-rich countries, others grow well with relatively little water. If water had a price, and if farm products could be traded freely and without subsidies across borders, a water-efficient allocation of production would follow. The political subsidies for biofuels must stop immediatelly until more water-efficient crops are established (i.e. the so called second and third generation plants). Leading food industries must start using water more efficiently: soft drink giants are using about 3 litres of water for every litre of soft drink it produces but one greek branch is using double this (i.e. six litres of water per litre of soft drink).

All in all, politicians and industry people must construct a “water new deal” as soon as possible. The climate change should stop being the first environmental priority.