As the Syrian capital Damascus braces itself for another exceptionally cold winter week, severe water shortages as a result of climate change is leaping to the top of the government’s priorities. UN and Syrian government officials warn that that the water crisis coupled with environmental degradation is likely to worsen over the coming years. Torrential rains in Damascus that have overwhelmed drainage systems and turned the desultory trickle of the Barada river into a torrent are just one indicator of the mounting crisis.
Increased rainfall is doing nothing, however, to alleviate the country’s water shortage. “A study of rainfall over the past 25 years in Syria shows that the intensity is increasing, but the actual levels are either constant or, in some cases, decreasing,” The National quotes Faris Asfari, an agricultural engineer involved in compiling a detailed report on climate change in Syria, who consults for the UN as saying. “Increasingly the rain is torrential and that actually causes severe damage, especially to soil. It has a severe impact on the sustainability and productivity of the land it adds to desertification problems.”
Similarly, Jordan recently reported to the the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC that its water resources will be depleted by climate change even if the kingdom witnesses an increase in precipitation. The report warned that climate change will severely impact the quantity of monthly surface water runoff. It that if current rainfall levels increased by 20 per cent, it would not compensate for the water lost due to the expected rise in temperatures.
A Syrian government report compiled for last month’s environment summit in Copenhagen concluded that most Syrian cities were suffering from shortage of water as a result of reduced rainfall, severe drought and more frequent dust storms. As a result, some 300,000 people in the eastern region, once a thriving farming area have been forced off their land to mostly become internal refugees in Damascus. The government report warns that such dislocations are prompting a decline in standards of health and education. Residents in the central governorate of Hama say drought has dried up the Al Assi River whose water serviced the Al Qantara Hydrostation. They now depend on local wells available only at depths of 600 meters where it contains contaminants that make it unsafe for drinking.
Syrian officials say the situation is further aggravated by the absence of agreements, primarily with Israel, on how to equitably share inadequate water resources. Israel draws some 15 percent of its water supply from the Golan Heights conquered from Syria in 1967. The Heights run up to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s only freshwater lake, and include significant parts of the Jordan River’s catchment area. Control of water resources, and Israel’s insistence that it retain sovereignty over the Sea of Galilee, have been one of the main stumbling blocks in failed peace talks.
Nonetheless, environmental scientists say the Syrian government bears significant responsibility for water shortages and land degradation, with decades of mismanagement, corruption and inefficiency exacerbating existing problems. Land not fit for cultivation was widely farmed in the 1980s as part of a food security policy and although it was stopped in the 1990s, severe damage was done.
Syria uses 90 percent of its water for mostly inefficient irrigation. “Irrigation systems here are only 38 per cent efficient, which means we throw away 62 per cent of all of our national water supplies before it even reaches the crops,” Yousef Meslmani, the national environmental affairs project director with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Damascus told . The National. “We have irrigation channels built on soluble rock – which is the worst thing you can do – and the engineers told them it was bad idea, but they did it.”
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Islamists try to exploit Pakistani Water Woes
Islamic militants in Pakistan’s central Punjab province, responsible for various terrorist attacks in India, blaming the region’s water woes on their larger neighbor to garner support. Pakistan’s Roohi desert, a recruiting ground for militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, has seen its irrigation water decrease over the past five years
“There was ample water until 2005 – more than enough to grow our crops. Then, suddenly, the number of days that water was available to each village started to drop off and has now reached the point where it has become a serious concern,” The National quoted Ansar Rasheed Sindhu, a farmer from the village of Chak 205 on the Murad Canal 700km south-east of Islamabad as saying.
The dropping water supply has hit hardest subsistence farmers, who depend on the wheat and sugarcane harvests for much of their food and on the sale of cotton for cash. It is rolling back advances made by better quality seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, the paper quotes Mohammed Anwar, a father of three who lives off 1.2 hectares in Chak 205, as saying.
Farmers warn that the lack of water could mean that fertile land will be reclaimed by the desert. Militant groups like Jaish-i-Mohammed and Lashkar-i-Taiba (LiT) assert that Indian dam projects are to blame for the reduced water supply. . “India wants to destroy Pakistan by cutting off our water. Now it wants to build another dam on the Jhelum river to turn Pakistan into a desert and starve us all to death,” says Jamal Din, a former Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, who heads the local chapter of LiT charity Jama’at-ud-Dawah.
Pakistani government officials concede that the filling of the Baglihar dam has reduced water flows into Pakistan. India contends the dam does not violate its accord with Pakistan in 1962 over the use of water from the Indus River and its tributaries, which flow through both countries from the Himalayas. Under the accord, Pakistan had first right of dam construction on the Chenab, but failed to act within a stipulated time because of political indecision and a lack of funding. Pakistan has asked the World Bank to mediate.
Farmers in the region appear, however, not to be buying into either the government’s or the militants’ argument. “The shortages started before India built the dam, shortly after the last local government elections [in 2005]. After big landlords won and gained control, they started stealing water to fill reservoirs on their farms,” Mr Sindhu told The National . “Corruption within the irrigation department is now the issue that needs to be dealt with, but I can see how the poverty that it has caused could be twisted by the militants to meet their own agenda.”
“There was ample water until 2005 – more than enough to grow our crops. Then, suddenly, the number of days that water was available to each village started to drop off and has now reached the point where it has become a serious concern,” The National quoted Ansar Rasheed Sindhu, a farmer from the village of Chak 205 on the Murad Canal 700km south-east of Islamabad as saying.
The dropping water supply has hit hardest subsistence farmers, who depend on the wheat and sugarcane harvests for much of their food and on the sale of cotton for cash. It is rolling back advances made by better quality seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, the paper quotes Mohammed Anwar, a father of three who lives off 1.2 hectares in Chak 205, as saying.
Farmers warn that the lack of water could mean that fertile land will be reclaimed by the desert. Militant groups like Jaish-i-Mohammed and Lashkar-i-Taiba (LiT) assert that Indian dam projects are to blame for the reduced water supply. . “India wants to destroy Pakistan by cutting off our water. Now it wants to build another dam on the Jhelum river to turn Pakistan into a desert and starve us all to death,” says Jamal Din, a former Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, who heads the local chapter of LiT charity Jama’at-ud-Dawah.
Pakistani government officials concede that the filling of the Baglihar dam has reduced water flows into Pakistan. India contends the dam does not violate its accord with Pakistan in 1962 over the use of water from the Indus River and its tributaries, which flow through both countries from the Himalayas. Under the accord, Pakistan had first right of dam construction on the Chenab, but failed to act within a stipulated time because of political indecision and a lack of funding. Pakistan has asked the World Bank to mediate.
Farmers in the region appear, however, not to be buying into either the government’s or the militants’ argument. “The shortages started before India built the dam, shortly after the last local government elections [in 2005]. After big landlords won and gained control, they started stealing water to fill reservoirs on their farms,” Mr Sindhu told The National . “Corruption within the irrigation department is now the issue that needs to be dealt with, but I can see how the poverty that it has caused could be twisted by the militants to meet their own agenda.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)