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Questioning the 'water crisis'

Sara Wolcott | Thursday 19th February 2009

This week, a division of the World Bank gave WaterHealth International (a California based company) $15 million to install water purification and disinfection systems in India. This will quadruple the number of decentralized units in Indian communities, touching over 600 villages. Of course, of a possible 600,000 villages that might use the technology, this is a small project.

This presents an excellent opportunity to think about that most precious and most vital, resource: water. Water has gone from Aristotle's most valuable and least expensive resource to a hotly debated, much contested subject that is alternatively sacred, considered a basic human right or an important economic asset, depending upon your perspective. There's a substantial global market for it - try $450 billion for purification, desalination and conservation - and enough literature on it to span countless PhD dissertations. The World Bank estimates that over the next 20 - 25 years, spending on infrastructure in emerging markets is expected to reach approximately $180 billion.

Frequently, there's talk that the next 'global war' will be about water, not oil, and there is much hype about a global water crisis. But I'd like to question the hype - and turn your attention to a fabulous article at the BBC called 'Peace in the Pipeline'. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7886646.stm) It points out that more often than not, water creates peace between nations - and disputes (occaisionly violent) within nations.

Ignoring indigenous water systems in favor of modern technical ones can not only be insulting to thousands of years of carefully created, sustainable techniques but disastrous for the local environment. Which is not to say all water systems should be indigenous water systems - often, they are caught up in unfair caste or gender dynamics, not to mention ineffective for growing, migrating populations. For a highly readable and enjoyable tour of India's indigenous water systems and the people that live with them, try Nitya Jacob's, 'Jalyatra'.

And water 'scarcity', while an important point, should be looked at carefully before jumping to conclusions. In Kutch, India, a region known around the world for its water scarcity issues, some excellent in depth work has shown that while water scarcity is an issue, it is not as much as an issue as the headlines - or the people themselves - often say it is; indeed, sometimes the story of scarcity is just that - a story hiding other motives (like getting more money or attention from the government). To read more about Kutch and scarcity, try Lyla Mehta's book, 'the Politics and Poetics of Water.'

We should be careful about hype about crises - especially these days. Which is not a comment on WaterHealth International. But it does raise larger questions about why the Indian government, which has the technical know-how to put rockets into space and centuries of indigenous traditional knowledge about local water management techniques can't supply its people with enough water to go beyond scarcity and poor sanitation.

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Barbara Stribling 16 March 2009

Obviously wherever possible multinational firms will endeavor to make profits. Unfortunately govt bureaucrats, often educated abroad, have little appreciation for the indigenous systems of their own countries and are easily persuaded to bow to Western technology.