Don’t put irrigation above drinking water

Joe Turner in SciDev.net: Water policies and technologies aiming to help meet sustainable development goals (SDGs) must rebalance the attention given to agriculture over drinking water, a UN report issued last week (15 May) has found.

The Water for Food Security and Nutrition report comes from the Committee for World Food Security, a UN body based in Rome. It makes eight recommendations, saying that better access to technologies could make water use in farming more efficient, as well as improving access to drinking water for disadvantaged people.

The report warns that population growth and climate change will put more strain on freshwater supplies, particularly in low-rainfall areas like Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Much of the available groundwater in these regions has already been extracted, with 80–90 per cent being used for irrigation in agriculture, leaving lakes and groundwater at historically low levels.  Using techniques such as rain-fed agriculture, and introducing better technologies to harvest and store water, and reduce losses through evaporation, could go some way towards ensuring enough drinking water remains, the report says.

Toby Bruce, a crop scientist at Rothamsted Research, an agricultural research institute in the United Kingdom, says water-efficient crop varieties and agricultural systems will form part of the solution. “Agriculture uses 70 per cent of the world's freshwater extraction, which means improvements in efficiency could make a big difference,” Bruce says.

However, conflict between using water for agriculture or for drinking would remain, according to Raul Pacheco-Vega, a geographer at the Centre for Economic Research and Education in Mexico. He says that the concept of water for food security and nutrition needs to be extended beyond agriculture, as the existing focus on farming could leave urban communities without enough....

China's struggle for water security

Business Standard via AFP: Way back in 1999, before he became China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao warned that water scarcity posed one of the greatest threats to the "survival of the nation".  Sixteen years later, that threat looms ever larger, casting a forbidding shadow over China's energy and food security and demanding urgent solutions with significant regional, and even global, consequences.

The mounting pressure on China's scarce, unequally distributed and often highly polluted water supply was highlighted in a report released at the World Water Forum this week in Daegu, South Korea.

Published by the Hong Kong-based NGO, China Water Risk (CWR), it underlined the complexity of the challenge facing China as it seeks to juggle inextricably linked and often competing concerns over water, energy supply and climate change.  "There are no one-size-fits-all solutions to China's water-energy-climate nexus," the report said.

"More importantly, China's energy choices do not only impact global climate change, but affect water availability for Asia," it said, warning of the danger of future "water wars" given China's upstream control over Asia's mightiest rivers.

The Qinghai-Tibetan plateau is essentially the world's largest water tank and the origin of some of Asia's most extensive river systems including the Indus, Brahmaputra and Mekong.  The most significant link in the nexus the report describes is the fact that 93 percent of China's power generation is water-reliant....

In Yunnan, on the Tibetan Plateau, shot by Popolon, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Global water use may outstrip supply by mid-century

Space Daily: Population growth could cause global demand for water to outpace supply by mid-century if current levels of consumption continue. But it wouldn't be the first time this has happened, a Duke University study finds.

Using a delayed-feedback mathematical model that analyzes historic data to help project future trends, the researchers identified a regularly recurring pattern of global water use in recent centuries. Periods of increased demand for water - often coinciding with population growth or other major demographic and social changes - were followed by periods of rapid innovation of new water technologies that helped end or ease any shortages.

Based on this recurring pattern, the model predicts a similar period of innovation could occur in coming decades. "Researchers in other fields have previously used this model to predict earthquakes and other complex processes, including events like the boom and bust of the stock market during financial crises, but this is the first time it's been applied to water use," said Anthony Parolari, postdoctoral research associate in civil and environmental engineering at Duke, who led the new study.

"What the model shows us is that there will likely be a new phase of change in the global water supply system by the mid-21st century," Parolari said...

Chand Baori, the famous step well in Rajasthan, shot by chetan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Water crises seen as a top threat in next decade

Lou Del Bello in SciDev.net: Pressure on fresh water resources may be the main global threat in the next decade, but the world is failing to mitigate the risk and avoid a crisis, according to a survey of leaders from business, government, universities, international organisations and NGOs by non-profit foundation the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Published in its Global Risks 2015 report released ahead of the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this week (21-24 January), the survey reveals a belief that water crises pose the greatest risk in terms of global impact. This places it ahead of hazards such as the spread of infectious diseases, the failure to adapt to climate change and interstate conflict, prompted by the rise of the Islamic State.

The WEF defines water crises as a significant decline in freshwater quality and quantity, resulting in damage to human health or economic activity or both. The report points to a study projecting that, by 2030, the global demand for water will exceed sustainable supplies by 40 per cent. Most of the world’s water supply is currently used in agriculture, according to the UN, with the World Bank predicting that food demand will rise by fifty per cent in the next two decades, as population grows and dietary habits change.

The looming shortages may be aggravated by an 85 per cent increase in water demand from the energy sector by 2035, the International Energy Agency anticipates....

Lake Vianden in the Netherlands, shot by Vincent de Groot - http://www.videgro.net, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license 

Sierra Nevada snowpack levels are greater than a year ago

Matt Stevens in the Los Angeles Times: Measurements of Sierra Nevada snowpack on Tuesday showed more snow than surveyors recorded a year ago. But state water officials said it was far from enough to signal a potential end to California's continuing drought.

"Although this year's survey shows a deeper snowpack than last year, California needs much more rain and snow than we've experienced over the past two years to end the drought," Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin said.

Snowpack accounts for about a third of the state's water supply when it melts in the late spring and summer and replenishes reservoirs. Another year of reduced snowpack levels leaves water officials worried that agricultural areas could face another difficult, dry year in 2015.

At Phillips Station snow course, about 90 miles east of Sacramento, surveys on Tuesday found about 21.3 inches of snow. If melted, the amount of snow in that area would contain about 4 inches of water, the Department of Water Resources said. Last year, only 9.3 inches of snow covered the ground, or about 2.3 inches of water, according to state data. On average, though, Jan. 1 snowpack water content there is about triple Tuesday's reading.

The snowpack is constantly monitored by electronic sensors at about 100 points across the Sierra. Manual checks like Tuesday's will be conducted once a month through the beginning of May to supplement and verify the electronic readings, DWR officials said.

Tuesday's manual readings of about 33% of average were less than electronic readings had generated. Electronic readings estimated that snowpack statewide was as much as 50% of normal.

An 1868 photo by Andrew J. Russell of Donner Lake in the snow

‘Monster’ fracking wells guzzle water in drought-stricken regions

Anastasia Pantsios in EcoWatch: The fracking industry likes to minimize the sector’s bottomless thirst for often-scarce water resources, saying it takes about 2-4 million gallons of water to frack the average well, an amount the American Petroleum Institute describes as “the equivalent of three to six Olympic swimming pools.” That’s close to the figure cited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well.

But a new report released by Environmental Working Group (EWG) located 261 “monster” wells that consumed between 10 and 25 million gallons of water to drill each well. Among the conclusions EWG teased out of data reported by the industry itself and posted at fracfocus.org is that between April 2010 and December 2013, these 261 wells consumed 3.3 billions of water between them, a average of 12.7 million gallons each. And 14 of the wells topped 20 million gallons each.

“It’s far more relevant to compare those figures to basic human needs for water, rather than to swimming pools or golf courses,” said EWG’s report. “The 3.3 billion gallons consumed by the monster wells was almost twice as much water as is needed each year by the people of Atascosa County, Texas, in the heart of the Eagle Ford shale formation, one of the most intensively drilled gas and oil fields in the country.”

And proving that everything really is bigger in Texas, that’s where most of these monster wells were located, hosting 149 of them. Between them they consumed 1.8 billion gallons of water. The largest was located in Harrison County on the east Texas border, where in March 2013, Sabine Oil & Gas LLC drilled a well using more than 24.8 million gallons of water. Irion County in west central Texas had the most monster wells with 19 averaging water use of 12.9 each. And Texas also had what EWG described as the “dubious distinction” of using more fresh water in fracking, consuming 21 million gallons in 2011 alone….

The Jonah Gasfield in Wyoming, shot by Peter Aergst of the Wilderness Society, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 4.0 license

Florida water demand shrinks even as state, US grow

Andy Reid and Kevin Spear in the Sun-Sentinel (Florida): Aross the country and in Florida, Americans are only using as much water as almost 45 years ago, even though the population has grown by more than 100 million people, the U.S. Geological Survey reported this week. Environmentalists point to efficient toilets, low-flow showers and limits on lawn sprinkling, saying water conservation is the way to go.

"We have hardly scratched the surface of what can be achieved by really effective efforts toward water conservation," Audubon Florida's Charles Lee said in a comment on facebook.com/envirospear.

In Florida, increased water demand has been anticipated for years but has failed in nearly spectacular fashion to materialize. Earlier this year, a USGS report for Florida stated that freshwater use in the state decreased 22 percent from 2000 to 2010, while the state's population increased 18 percent. In South Florida, the amount of water used is about the same as it was in 1995, even with 1.1 million more people in the region, according to the South Florida Water Management District.

As a result, per capita water use in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties also dropped about 22 percent from 1995 to 2010, according to the district. In 1995, the average person in southeast Florida used 184 gallons of water per day. That dropped to 142 gallons per day by 2010.

Conservation efforts take much of the credit, district officials said. "Our freshwater is a limited resource," said Mark Elsner, the district's water supply administrator. "The conservation initiative is hitting. … We are definitely more efficient than we were 20 years ago."...

Aerial view of Jim Woodruff Lock and Dam, impounding Lake Seminole on the Chattahoochee River and Flint River confluence. The Apalachicola River flows out of the dam. The dam spans the Florida–Georgia border. US Army Corps of Engineers photo

Lake Erie increasingly susceptible to large cyanobacteria blooms

A press release from the University of Michigan: Lake Erie has become increasingly susceptible to large blooms of toxin-producing cyanobacteria since 2002, potentially complicating efforts to rein in the problem in the wake of this year's Toledo drinking water crisis, according to a new study led by University of Michigan researchers.

Since the detection of the toxin microcystin left nearly half a million Ohio and Michigan residents without drinking water for several days in early August, discussions of ways to prevent a recurrence have largely focused on the need to reduce the amount of phosphorus fertilizer that washes off croplands and flows into western Lake Erie to trigger harmful cyanobacteria blooms.

In a study published online Oct. 8 in the journal Water Resources Research, scientists from U-M and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration conclude that microcystin-producing cyanobacteria in Lake Erie are becoming more sensitive to phosphorus and that reductions may have to cut far deeper than recently proposed targets.

"Our results suggest that current phosphorus loading targets will be insufficient for reducing the intensity of cyanobacteria blooms to desired levels, so long as the lake remains in a heightened state of bloom susceptibility," said lead author Daniel Obenour, formerly of the U-M Water Center and now at North Carolina State University. Other authors are Don Scavia of U-M and Andrew Gronewold and Craig Stow of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

...Though the total amount of phosphorus entering the lake seems to be the best predictor of bloom size, that variable alone doesn't fully explain the observed size increase during the study period examined by the team, 2002 to 2013....

NASA image of a toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie

Reducing water scarcity possible by 2050

A press release from McGill University: Water scarcity is not a problem just for the developing world. In California, legislators are currently proposing a $7.5 billion emergency water plan to their voters; and U.S. federal officials last year warned residents of Arizona and Nevada that they could face cuts in Colorado River water deliveries in 2016.

Irrigation techniques, industrial and residential habits combined with climate change lie at the root of the problem. But despite what appears to be an insurmountable problem, according to researchers from McGill and Utrecht University it is possible to turn the situation around and significantly reduce water scarcity in just over 35 years.

In a new paper published in Nature Geoscience, the researchers outline strategies in six key areas that they believe can be combined in different ways in different parts of the
world in order to effectively reduce water stress. (Water stress occurs in an area where more than 40 percent of the available water from rivers is unavailable because it is already being used – a situation that currently affects about a third of the global population, and may affect as many as half the people in the world by the end of the century if the current pattern of water use continues).

The researchers separate six key strategy areas for reducing water stress into “hard path” measures, involving building more reservoirs and increasing desalination efforts of sea water, and “soft path” measures that focus on reducing water demand rather than increasing water supply thanks to community-scale efforts and decision-making, combining efficient technology and environmental protection. The researchers believe that while there are some economic, cultural and social factors that may make certain of the “soft path” measures such as population control difficult, the “soft path” measures offer the more realistic path forward in terms of reducing water stress.

“There is no single silver bullet to deal with the problem around the world,” says Prof. Tom Gleeson, of McGill’s Department of Civil Engineering and one of the authors of the paper. “But, by looking at the problem on a global scale, we have calculated that if four of these strategies are applied at the same time we could actually stabilize the number of people in the world who are facing water stress rather than continue to allow their numbers to grow, which is what will happen if we continue with business as usual.”...

Concerned scientists tell the UN: hunger will never be eradicated without better rainwater management

Worldwaterweek.org: The world is missing a chance to eradicate hunger and poverty for billions of people living in regions with variable and scarce rainfall. Without improved management of rainwater, the future development goals currently being discussed are unrealistic, say leading scientists.

Some of the world’s leading water, environment and resilience scientists and experts today publish a call to the UN, saying that rain, and the way it is managed, is what will determine whether hunger and poverty can be eradicated in the world.

The call was made at the onset of World Water Week in Stockholm – the leading annual meeting place for water and development issues.

The scientists, including Professor Malin Falkenmark of Stockholm International Water Institute/Stockholm Resilience Centre andProfessorJohan Rockström of Stockholm Resilience Centre, are “deeply concerned that sustainable management of rainfall in water scarce regions of the world is missing in the goals and targets proposed by the UN Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on Poverty (Goal 1), Hunger (Goal 2) and Freshwater (Goal 6).

More than two billion people live in some of the driest and poorest areas of the world, also home to the fastest growing populations. These regions depend on highly variable, unreliable and unpredictable rainfall. When it rains, it pours, making agriculture extremely challenging. However, over time these areas do receive enough rain, and with better methods of using the rainwater, food production could be drastically improved.

Attempting to eradicate global poverty and hunger without addressing the productivity of rain “is a serious and unacceptable omission”, and the Sustainable Development Goals as currently proposed “cannot be achieved without a strong focus on sustainable and resilient management of rainfall for resilient food production” the scientists say.

The signatories call upon the United Nations to add a target on rainwater management to any Hunger Goal in the Sustainable Development Goals, which are to be agreed on in 2015....

Lebanon skeptical of 'save water' effort

Sophie Cousins in Al-Jazeera.com:  Plastered across billboards, flashing across television screens, and splashed on pamphlets and stickers, a new message is suddenly everywhere you look in Lebanon: "If you love me, save me some water."

This year, in an attempt to mitigate a growing water crisis, the Ministry of Energy and Water has encouraged people to turn off their taps and conserve precious drops. But according to Lebanon’s National Water Sector Strategy (NWSS), which was adopted by the government in 2012, only approximately 10 percent of water connections in Lebanon are metered, meaning that the overwhelming majority of people pay the same rate, regardless of how much water they use.

So as people in Beirut continue to hose down sidewalks, wash their cars, take long showers, and flush their stairwells instead of mopping, the awareness campaign has left many wondering: What’s the incentive?

"A lot of the time we don’t have any water at my [vegetable] shop anyway, so why would I save water when I pay the same rate per year?" said Fadi Hammoud, a shopkeeper in the affluent neighbourhood of Achrafieh in east Beirut. "This all comes down to government mismanagement and, really, without a proper government, what are we meant to do? Water and electricity issues have long been a problem for us."

The lack of metering also gives no incentive for "water establishments to increase water supply or spend more on operation and maintenance... as water deliveries generate no extra revenue", according to the Water Sector Assistance Strategy for 2012-2016, published by the World Bank...

Qaraoun Lake in Lebanon, public domain photo by Fouad Awada

Water crisis threatens thirsty Sao Paulo

Space Daily via AFP: Sao Paulo is thirsty. A severe drought is hitting Brazil's largest city and thriving economic capital with no end in sight, threatening the municipal water supply to millions of people.

The water at the Cantareira reservoirs, which supply about nine million of the 20 million people in the metropolitan area, is at its lowest level ever amid the region's worst drought in 45 years. Other reservoirs are also in distress after 15 months of overstretching. And more dry weather is forecast.

Prosecutors have threatened to sue the state government to make it begin rationing water, warning that Sao Paulo is facing "the worst water crisis ever to hit the region and the collapse of its entire reservoir system." But with Governor Geraldo Alckmin up for reelection in October, his administration has vowed to handle the crisis without rationing the city's water.

State water company Sabesp has encouraged consumers to reduce their usage but also downplayed the shortage, saying it will transfer water from other dams and use emergency reserves if necessary. It says it has enough supplies to last until March 2015 and has vowed not to implement rationing.

But many Sabesp customers suspect their supplies are already being rationed. "Last week we went four whole days without water," said Adilson Becerra, a 36-year-old salesman who lives in the southern suburbs....

Sao Paulo skyline, shot by Jeff Belmonte, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

German water supply threatened as climate change boosts droughts

Stefan Nicola in Bloomberg News: German water supplies will become increasingly threatened this century as climate change raises the risk of droughts and water shortages in the country.

While Germany is considered water-rich, more water evaporates than falls as rain in the eastern part of the country, according to a report by a German parliamentary committee. Average temperatures may rise 3.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, resulting in more precipitation in the winter and less in the summer, the authors wrote.

“This will worsen the already unfavorable water balance in eastern Germany, which will further increase
the risk for droughts and a generally worse water availability,” they wrote. Temperature increases in southern Germany will also threaten water supplies and as a result “biodiversity, and availability of snow in ski resorts.”....

Feed of river power plant Speichersee, Aschheim near Munich, Germany, shot by Richard Bartz, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

Drought-stricken California could save up to 14 million acre-feet of water; enough to supply all the state's cities annually

Water Online: California could be saving up to 14 million acre-feet of untapped water – providing more than the amount of water used in all of California’s cities in one year – with an aggressive statewide effort to use water-saving practices, reuse water, and capture lost stormwater, according to a new analysis released today by the Pacific Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Our current approach to water use is unsustainable, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t enough water to meet our needs,” said Kate Poole, NRDC senior attorney with the water program. “At a time when every drop counts, we need to employ sensible and cost-effective 21st century solutions that will help us reduce uses today while promising new, resilient supplies for cities and farms tomorrow.”

“As climate change brings more extreme weather, including droughts, ramping up forward-thinking solutions now will help us be more resilient,” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. “With widespread adoption of available water conservation and efficiency improvements, demand can be met more readily, less expensively, and with less pressure on our tapped-out rivers and groundwater basins. Moreover, water reuse and stormwater capture can help boost local supplies.”

NRDC and the Pacific Institute’s issue brief, The Untapped Potential of California’s Water Supply, is a first-of-its-kind statewide analysis examining the significant potential contributions achievable from a combination of improved efficiency in agricultural and urban water use, water reuse and recycling, and increased capturing of local rainwater.

The research also examines the large and growing gap between water use in California and the available water supply. The state suffers from a water deficit in excess of 6 million acre-feet. That amount is unsustainably drawn from the state’s two primary water resources – groundwater and surface waters – each year. On average, the state diverts approximately 5 million acre-feet per year more from the Sacramento-San Joaquin watershed than can be sustained by the estuary, and it overdrafts groundwater by at least 1 to 2 million acre-feet annually. The water deficit is even higher during a drought. Excessive water diversions from the state’s drying rivers and chronic groundwater overdraft have in turn led to shortages for some users, degraded ecosystems, and compromised water quality.

Robert Wilkinson of UC Santa Barbara, report co-author noted, “We have an unprecedented opportunity to do more with less – and we need to take every possible step to do so. By rethinking water management strategies so we work in harmony with the environment and our economy, we’ll be rewarded with dramatic water savings that will offer us local and more sustainable supply for decades to come....

From the National Archives, a 1972 Tomas Sennett photo of a railroad water tank in California

Water in Gaza - what the analysts are saying

IRIN:  A dry winter in the Middle East is being studied particularly closely in Gaza, where the area’s 1.9 million residents already face a number of largely man-made threats to water security. The following round-up of recent publications by think tanks, analysts and human rights organizations highlights the close link between water security and electricity supplies, and the near exhaustion of Gaza’s coastal aquifer.

A power crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) has reduced the availability of running water in most households, according to a factsheet produced by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), with more than 30 percent of homes in Gaza receiving running water for just 6-8 hours every four days.

In March, a petition signed by nearly 13,000 people and organised by the Emergency Water and Sanitation-Hygiene Group (EWASH), a coalition which includes national and international NGOs and UN agencies, was handed to the European Parliament to urge action to end the water crisis in Gaza.

“The scale and severity of the water crisis facing the Gaza Strip is enormous, and unless immediate action is taken, the damage to Gaza’s natural water resources will be irreversible,” says a factsheet produced by the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA).

At least 90 percent of the water supply in Gaza is contaminated with a combination of nitrate (NO3) or chloride (Cl), according to PWA, which says water quantity is also an issue, with average consumption of 90 litres per person per day, below recommended guidelines for minimum health requirements say EWASH....

NASA image of the Gaza Strip from space

African Development Bank meeting calls for equity in water use

AllAfrica.com via the New Times (Rwanda): Experts from the just concluded African Development Bank (AfDB) annual meetings have said that even with declining rainfall and unpredictable climate, African governments can still effectively manage and provide clean water.

The observation was made during a session dubbed 'Building Water Resilience,' where experts and government officials reflected on water-related challenges that Africa faces today and how they can be dealt with. Key issues ranged from cooperation between countries that share same water bodies to water security.

"We can't ignore the fact that water contributes highly to national economy. There are many public goods embedded in water, but the question here is how effective can it be allocated? The answer to this is devising a way in which the public sector can work with the private sector in water resource management and exploitation," said Prof Mike Muller, the Infrastructure Advisor, Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Muller cited the construction of Rusumo hydro power plant as one of the few examples where the private sector has been involved in water management through involvement of local people in the construction of the plant.

The high rate of urbanization is another challenge. Latest reports indicate that over 400 million Africans live in urban areas - close to 40% of Africa's population. In 50 years, about 65% of Africans will be living in urban areas...

Lake Mhindi in Rwanda, shot by Abhishek Singh, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons 2.0 license 

As mountain snow fails and glaciers melt, Pakistan faces water threats

Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio at the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Farmers in the valleys of northern Pakistan fear for the survival of their summer crops after a short winter of low snowfall altered the flow patterns of mountain streams, potentially robbing the farmers of water they rely on to irrigate their fields.

Experts at the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) and senior weather observers posted at stations in Pakistan's Upper Indus Basin (UIB) say last winter's snowfall in most of the valleys of the Gilgit-Balistan province was as much as 70 percent below that of previous years.

"Not only was snowfall abysmally low, but it also started late by over two months," said Mohammad Amin, meteorologist at PMD's observatory station in Skardu district, where the Shigar River joins the Indus River in the shadow of the Karakoram mountain range. "And it started to melt in March instead of late April in most of the valleys of Skardu."

The early thaw meant the swelling of mountain streams months earlier than usual, said Musa Khan, head of the weather observatory station in Gupis in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan province. That could be devastating for farmers, who usually only start readying their lands for summer crops in May.

"The farmers prepare for cultivating summer crops from late May to the end of June, when rising temperatures usually cause the glacial-fed channels and streams to start flowing and irrigate the ploughed terraced fields," Khan told Thomson Reuters Foundation....

A glacier in Pakistan's Swat Valley, shot by Isruma, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons 3.0 license

Caracas to begin four months of water rationing

Space Daily via AFP: Water use in Caracas will be rationed for at least four months due to drought, authorities said Tuesday, as Venezuela grapples with shortages of basic goods which have spurred massive anti-government protests.

"We made a special water supply plan that will be released so that our people know the days they will have continuous service, night service and no service," Environment Minister Miguel Leonardo Rodriguez told reporters.

One in every four goods including basic food, hygiene products, medicine and auto parts, however, have already become difficult to find, resulting in long, lengthy lines. The shortages, rampant crime, inflation and other economic woes have resulted in more than two months of anti-government unrest which has left 41 people dead and more than 700 injured.

Rodriguez said that one of the three reservoirs that supply the Caracas valley with water was below minimum capacity and was closed. The water supply to the capital and its suburbs, home to five million people, has fallen by 13 percent from 19,500 liters per second to 17,000.

"We hope that (the rationing) will end at the end of August or mid-September" Rodriguez said, placing its termination at an undefined date that depends on how the country's upcoming rainy season goes....

A panoramic view of Caracas at night, shot by Wilfredor, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Managing the monsoon

M. S. Swaminathan in the Hindu: Aberrations in monsoon behaviour are not uncommon. What is new is the difficulty in forecasting caused by factors coming under the generic title, ‘Climate change.’

Forecasts by the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum and the India Meteorological Department indicate that the south-west monsoon rainfall may be deficient. Also, there is a possibility of the evolution of an El Niño event during June to September. There is a 45 per cent probability that central, west, north-west and south India will receive below normal rainfall. There is also a 40 per cent chance that eastern States like Odisha, West Bengal, the north-east, and most of Jammu and Kashmir may get normal rains during the south-west monsoon period. Paddy arrivals in the market are also sluggish, indicating that actual production is either lower than the estimated production of 107 million tonnes of rice, or that some of the stocks is being held back in the anticipation of a higher price.

In the current scenario of climate change, predictions of extreme weather events are becoming difficult. In March-April this year, we had unexpected hailstorms and heavy rainfall in parts of central and north-west India. ... In India, unlike in the United States and Australia, agriculture is not just a food producing enterprise but also the backbone of the livelihood security of nearly 60 per cent of the population. Therefore, there is no time to relax in the area of taking anticipatory steps to safeguard food, water, energy and livelihood security in rural India, in the event of an erratic monsoon. We should initiate proactive steps immediately to ensure food and drinking water security for not only people but also for the over one billion farm animal population. Aberrations in monsoon behaviour are not uncommon, having been with us throughout our agricultural history. What is new is the difficulty in forecasting caused by factors coming under the generic title, “Climate change.”

...Right now, the government has enough stock to fulfil the legal obligation of providing 5 kg of wheat, rice or millets per month to nearly 75 per cent of our population. With one widespread drought, the current food stocks may disappear. Even this year, market arrivals of paddy have been as low as 42 per cent in West Bengal, 34 per cent in Bihar and 23 per cent in Odisha. Hence, there is no time to relax in the areas of food production and safe storage...

Monsoon flood, shot by Harsh Mangal, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

India's worsening water crisis

Ram Mashru in the Diplomat: In northern India, groundwater supplies are being depleted faster than natural processes can replenish them. According to The World Bank, India is the largest user of ground water in the world, after China. If something is not done soon, an estimated 114 million Indians will soon face desperate domestic, agricultural and industrial shortages.

What is causing this? “Human activities”: primarily wasteful water use (mainly agricultural over-exploitation), a lack of sustainable water-management policies and insufficient public investment. These failings have each been exacerbated by rapid population growth, increasing population density and climate change.

South Asia is a desperately water-insecure region, and India’s shortages are part of a wider continental crisis. According to a recent report authored by UN climate scientists, coastal areas in Asia will be among the worst affected by climate change. Hundreds of millions of people across East, Southeast and South Asia, the report concluded, will be affected by flooding, droughts, famine, increases in the costs of food and energy, and rising sea levels.

Groundwater serves as a vital buffer against the volatility of monsoon rains, and India’s falling water table therefore threatens catastrophe. 60 percent of north India’s irrigated agriculture is dependent on ground water, as is 85 percent of the region’s drinking water. The World Bank predicts that India only has 20 years before its aquifers will reach “critical condition” – when demand for water will outstrip supply – an eventuality that will devastate the region’s food security, economic growth and livelihoods....

Detail of Chand Baori, a step well in Abhaneri, Rajasthan, India, shot by rajkumar1220, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license