Water - A New Crude Oil :: Weekly Blitz

Life is another name of water. It's not just a proverb that water is compared to life itself. This tasteless, odorless and transparent liquid is the key reason why life has thrived here on Earth in the first place and still continues to survive. Even though it is believed that water may exist in abundance in planets in other galaxies too, mainly due to its components, hydrogen and oxygen, which are among the most abundant elements in the universe, this planet is privileged to have 71%of her surface covered with water. Even though many experts believe that by 2025, more than half of the global population will be facing water- based vulnerability to such an extent that it already has been referred to as 'Water Crisis' by the USA. But probably the worst part of the global politics that is involved in scheming on who gets access the clean water and who doesn't. Water is constantly viewed as economic goods rather than man's universal right which is why the situation is likely to war. When people talk about water wars, the implication is that water is like oil.

Water Demand in Power Sector

Fuel field (gas, coal, oil etc) are not discovered significantly in the 21st century. There is a demand of 2000 mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) gas in Bangladesh. A reserve of 13 tcf (trillion cubic feet) gas prevails which can meet the demand of 25 years. As a result power production is proceeding towards the renewable energy sources and nuclear energy. Thermoelectric-power shares 48 percent of total water use, 39 percent of total freshwater withdrawals for all categories and 52 percent of fresh surface-water withdrawals.

Top 10 Producers of Hydroelectricity:

Water Demand in Domestic Use:

Domestic water use is the use of water for indoor and outdoor household purposes— all the things you do at home: drinking, preparing food, bathing, washing clothes and dishes, watering the yard and garden, and even washing the dog. It is estimated that 15% of world-wide water use is for household purposes. Basic household water requirements have been estimated at around 50 liters per person per day, excluding water for gardens.

Water Demand in Irrigation

As global populations grow, and as demand for food increases in the world, the demand of water supply also increases. Food and agriculture are the largest sectors of water use, requiring one hundred times we use for personal needs. Up to 70 % of the water we take from rivers and groundwater goes into irrigation, about 10% is used in domestic applications and 20% in industry. It is estimated that 69% of world-wide water use is for irrigation, with 15-35% of irrigation withdrawals being unsustainable.

Water Demand in Industries

It is estimated that 22% of world-wide water use is industrial. Major industrial users include power plants, which use water for cooling or as a power source (i.e. hydroelectric plants), ore and oil refineries, which use water in chemical processes, and manufacturing plants, which use water as a solvent, steel, chemical, paper industries. High-income countries use 59% and low-income countries use 8% of total water use. The annual water volume used by industry will rise from 752 km³/year in 1995 to an estimated 1,170 km³/year in 2025.

Water Demand in Commercial Purpose

The commercial water-use category is important. It includes restaurants, pizza houses, ice-cream parlors, military institutions, and fish hatcheries. In 1995, the last year when commercial water-use data was compiled, about 2.9 of the 340 billion gallons per day (Bgal/d) of fresh water used was withdrawn by the commercial sector in USA.

Water Demand for Livestock

Water is needed to raise livestock, be it cows, chickens, horses, or rabbits. Livestock water use is water associated with livestock watering, feedlots, dairy operations, and other on-farm needs. An elephant drinks 50 gallons water in a day. In 2000, livestock water use for the 22 States in USA reporting was about 1,760 Mgal/d.

Water Demand in Public-supply

Public Supply water use refers to water withdrawn by public and private water suppliers, such as county and municipal water works, and delivered to users for domestic, commercial, and industrial purposes. In 1995, the majority of the nation's population, about 225 million, or 84 percent, used water delivered from public water suppliers. About 42 million people supplied their own water, with about 99 percent of that water being groundwater, usually from a local well.

Cost for Safe Drinking Water

Earth is privileged to have 71%of her surface covered with water. But unfortunately salt water oceans hold 97% of surface water and glaciers and polar ice caps account for 2.4% while only 0.6%of surface water is stored in rivers, lakes and ponds which have been the key sources for human survival for generations .But it seems that with time the equal access to this supply of"safe" water before the global population is shrinking. According to UN report, 2.4 billion people worldwide lack access to basic sanitation. They account for 40 percent of the world's population. Asia had the worst sanitation, with 1.77 billion people short of adequate facilities. Safe water and sanitation could cut one-third of the number of diarrhea cases every year -- currently 4 billion worldwide resulting in 2.2 million deaths. Bringing water and sanitation to all would cost $10 billion a year, Mr. Jolly, chairman of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, sponsored by the W.H.O. said. Each of us, on average, uses over 100 gallons of water per day for everything from drinking and bathing to watering our gardens. This equates to an average annual water bill of about $300 per household, though costs vary considerably across the country.

Trillion-dollar business by 2020

According to the Lux Research water-related businesses will rise from $522 billion in 2007 to nearly $1 trillion by 2020. It also predicts in its report that a world faced by water shortages will need a new "water cultivation" approach characterized by efficiency, reuse and source diversification. Water-related businesses will occur in a few key areas: next-generation desalination, waste management, energy mitigation, infrastructure integrity, advanced oxidation, and water sourcing and transport. The report also mentions that investors have been "flocking" to water. Of the $1.12 billion in venture capital funding of water businesses since 1998, 59 percent has been invested in just the past two years.

Water and conflict

The only known example of an actual inter-state conflict over water took place between 2500 and 2350 BC between the Sumerian states of Lagash and Umma. Over 260 rivers basins of the world are shared by two or more countries and dozens of such rivers that cross boundaries in the regions of South Asia to the Middle- East and South- Western US are considered as 'regional water bubbles' where tensions over the control and distribution of water exist which, many fear could lead to severe hostility. Some 200 treaties on water sharing have been signed and in the last few decades 37 cross border disputes over water has lead to some form of violence.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas accused Israel of violating the International laws over the latter's policy of drawing water from Jordan River and coastal aquifers which is causing Palestinians to have four times less water per capita than Israelis, a consumption level that falls below the WHO guideline for minimum daily access to water.

Singapore's water story dates back to a dispute with its neighbor Malaysia from whom it imports water. Two long standing supply agreements are set to expire 2011 and 2061, leaving Singapore to worry about the future of its water. In 2001, Malaysia began to press Singapore for a higher price for the water agreements, leading to strained relation between the two countries. After hard negotiations, they couldn't agree on a suitable price.

As far as Bangladesh is concerned, the risk factor associated with water availability is one of the ominous significance. Despite being a riverine country, 57 trans- boundary rivers of this country originated from different points in India while the rest are from Myanmar. Bangladesh already suffers a great deal of water related problems like arsenic poisoning, flooding, water level in the ground goes down, draught and river bank erosion most of which is due to man made intervention like that of Farakka Dam along with constantly suffering from the effects of unequal distribution of Ganges's water which branches the water distribution accord that was made with India in 1975. The delegates from Bangladesh in the recent WWF meeting in Istanbul earnestly addressed many of these issues. But the greatest threat lies on India's ambition to construct the River Linking Project (RLP) which plans to interlink Himalayan Rivers and divert their flows to the western and southern sates of India which experts believe that in effect will put Bangladesh into the brink of serious environmental, economical and social disasters by drastically decreasing the water flow of sub-rivers of the countries north-western regions, south-western regions, north-central regions and south-central regions.

The New Oil - Water

Andrew Benedek is a pioneer in low-pressure membrane technology, used to filter water (p.82). As a chemical engineer and scientist, the Canadian has studied, thought about and worked with water for the past 40 years. At the recent Singapore International Water Week, where he won the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize, he shared his thoughts on the future of water:

"When people talk about water wars, the implication is that water is like oil – we dig it out of the ground and then it's gone. But water doesn't necessarily disappear. Water goes around in a circle. So what we dig up, stays. Of course it becomes salty and if it goes into the sea, then we have to recover it.

"The problem is that water is, in fact, like oil in one sense: water that's being used today – in many countries as much as 50 percent of their consumption - is "fossil" water. In other words this water, like oil, will never be replaced because the rain and infiltration are not sufficient. And it's being pumped out from deeper and deeper levels to use for agriculture.

"When you're near the ocean, it's easy to get water to people through desalination, but when you talk about agriculture, you've got costs that are pretty much unaffordable to pay for pumping water to areas that have now run out of water because of over-pumping over the years.

In fine, we can pass comment considering the above-stated scenerio that on the wake of rising demand for water in each sector and acute shortage of safe water across the country, water will be considered more valuable than crude oil and we may face a water-war if we can't rein in the unequal distribution of water and shun the geo-politics centering water.

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Water - A New Crude Oil

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