World Water Day 2009

Hello Everyone!

Today is World Water Day and the theme for 2009 is Transboundary Water. No this is not some sort of New Age theory on water but a very common global situation.

So what is transboundary water? Any body of water who's drainage basin expands into more than one country.

And basically virtually all of the earth's land is on a drainage basin of some kind or another. Any time more water falls on land than will be absorbed into the soil, groundwater, or living things the land will act as a drainage basin for some river, creek, tributary, lake, pond, sea, inland sea, or ocean. Mostly this is of course driven by rainfall, but it could also be released from a sewage facility, crop irrigation, or a septic tank.

So most people know it or not, are living on a drainage basin somewhere.

And as it turns out the UN estimates that the 263 transboundary (transnational) river basin in the world cover 45 percent of the earth's land surface and are home to 40 of the world's people. And that doesn't include the amount of groundwater that connects at least two countries.

Why is this important? Several reasons.

First of all there can be problems where two countries who share a river basin or ground aquifer have drastically different environmental laws, use patterns, or worse other reasons for conflict. In the past few decades it was widely predicted that water could become a major cause of war in the 21st century. But the reality isn't automatically so gloomy. In the past 60 years there have been over 200 international water agreements and only 37 cases of violence (not necessarily full blown war) over water between nations.

Also if water shortages increase globally more and more nations might not be able to deal with the problem entirely on their own. For example, one overlooked aspect of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians involves the fact that the Palestinians have a lower amount of water available to them per capita than the population of almost any country in the world. And Israel is also living on one of the more modest water supplies for a developed nation.

In the United States it is predicted that 36 states will face water shortages in the next four years (by 2013), and that includes every state that touches the Mexican border, as well as some that share a border or a Great Lake with Canada.

Across the world China is also a nation at risk for major water shortages.

Yet China also shares its borders with Korea, Southeast Asia (towards which it has a long history of aggression), and parts of Central Asia. The famous Mekong River flows from China into Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma.

Furthermore if a transboundary river basin or aquifer doesn't present much potential for conflict it can result in one nation getting all the water if the wealthier nation can simply afford more powerful pumps and deeper wells. The poorer of the two nations might end up with little recourse.

In absence of an international framework to deal with water issues one nation's behavior could become another nation's problems. And of course, worse case scenarios could involve war, famines, or massive refugee crisises around the world.

See you next post! And

Say Goodnight readers!