Water, one of the most essential elements of life, has become a highly precious and controversial resource.
Pollution and mismanagement of its sources have created conditions for scarcity, deterioration of quality, disputes between states and the fear of nations going to war over water.
At one end of the water debate are the extremist hydrologists, environmentalists and politicians who believe that by the year 2050, water will be as expensive as oil.
On the other hand, Professor Asit K. Biswas, winner of this year's Stockholm Water Prize posits that the future is not bleak.
An eminent scientist and writer of over 64 books and publisher of more than 600 scientific and technical papers, Prof Biswas, in an exclusive e-mail interview with Weekend Review, asserts that water is a renewable resource and with proper management practices there will be no water shortage in the Gulf states.
Moreover, the riparian states of the Euphrates, Tigris and Jordan rivers are unlikely to cross swords with each other despite the complex nature of their disputes over sharing water from the common rivers running across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. Excerpts:
You have chaired the Middle East Water Commission from 1993 to 1997, what are the main problems of water scarcity in the Middle East and how are they going to affect the region?
The main water problem in the Middle East is not the scarcity of water per se, but the inefficient way water has been managed in the past. While there have been some improvements in recent years, water management practices still need to be improved very significantly in the future.
According to a UN study, by 2025 some 18 countries in the Middle East will suffer from water shortages, including most of the Gulf states which depend on desalinated water to meet their requirements. What steps can be taken to ensure sustainable access to safe water resources?
These studies make media headlines and many politicians use them extensively for speeches. However, they are for the most part, not only erroneous but also useless and even counterproductive. The analyses are fundamentally flawed and most of the underlying hypothesis cannot be justified.
The first fundamental error is the implicit assumption that water is like oil: once it is used, it is gone! This of course is pure rubbish. Water is a renewable resource, which can be used again and again with proper management practices.
For example, it has been estimated that each drop of Colorado River water is used seven times. This number can even be increased further if the management practices can be improved.
If the Gulf states, which many claim are already suffering from water stress, can improve their existing water management practices to the level of Singapore, their current and future water problems will simply disappear.
It does not need a rocket scientist to show how water management in the Gulf states can be made sustainable by using options like proper demand management practices, more efficient use of existing water through institutional strengthening, consumer education, extensive recycling and use of proper technology.
Desalineation costs for efficiently planned and managed plants have already come down to about 45 US cents per cubic metre. With efficient management practices, the Gulf states should be able to manage their existing and future domestic, commercial and industrial water demands.
The Gulf states do not face a water crisis in the future. However, some may face problems because water management practices are not the best.
It is often said that wars over water would be the next major conflicts in the Middle East. Is it a likely scenario or is just exaggerated by the media?
The claim that there will be wars between countries because of water scarcity is absolute rubbish! If there will be wars between countries in the future, the main cause will NOT be water: at best, it could be one of the many contributory causes. It is simply impossible to foresee any water war in the coming decades for any reason.
There is disagreement among countries sharing the Jordan River basin and the Euphrates and Tigris rivers basin. How can this affect inter-state relations between the countries?
Let me take the easier part of the question first. I have been working on the Euphrates-Tigris issues for about 15 years. The Euphrates-Tigris system has enough water to meet all the rational water needs of the three countries for the foreseeable future. If the issue is approached rationally and logically, there should be no problem.
The Jordan is a more complicated issue because the quantum of water in question is much smaller and there is a historical baggage of mistrust and ill-will between the countries concerned.
This will, therefore, be a much more difficult problem to solve because such mistrust covers all aspects of its interrelationships of which water is only a part.
What recommendations, if any, do you give to solve the above problems?
The main problem to resolve in the Euphrates-Tigris issue in the past decade has been the absence of Iraq in any serious discussion.
Considerable information on these two rivers is available from the Turkish side, much less from the Syrian side, but virtually nothing from the Iraqi side.
Until and unless Iraq starts to have a functional government and competent water institutions, no meaningful negotiation between the countries is possible.
Even after an Iraqi water institution becomes functional, they will first have to collect and analyse data, and develop their negotiating expertise and tactics.
Realistically, we should not expect to see a Turkey-Syria-Iraq treaty before 2020 at the very earliest.
Fortunately, there is enough water in the two rivers to cover the rational needs of all three countries for the foreseeable future.
Given a modicum of goodwill between the three countries, the people of the region should not suffer because of the absence of a treaty.
The problems of the Jordan River Basin are likely to be much more difficult to resolve because of the complex geopolitical situation of the region, of which water is only one component — a minor component. There are much larger issues that need to be resolved first, before water issues can be considered.
In contrast, Turkey-Syria-Iraq do not have to resolve similar larger and more complex issues first: they can make move straight to serious negotiations on the Euphrates-Tigris basin.
The UN is laying a lot of stress on water management. In March 2005, we entered the International Decade on Water and Development. Since you were one of the scientists who helped to formulate the policy, can you elaborate on what is it all about and how the UN plans to meet its target?
The records of most of the UN agencies during the past two decades in the area of water have left much to be desired. Except for very few UN agencies like WMO, I have not seen much technocratic, intellectual and forward-looking solutions coming out from the UN system.
I was NOT involved with the formulation of the current International Decade referred to. I was involved with the International Water Supply and Sanitation Decade of the 1980s, whose impacts, by all accounts, were very substantial. My expectations from the current UN Decade are somewhat modest because it does not have a focused mandate like the earlier decade.
What are the projects that you are working on and how will they help to better utilise water resources?
Our centre is now working on several projects in different parts of the world which we are confident will improve the water management practices in the future.
Among these are how to manage water and wastewater in major urban centres of the world, roles of national private sector companies to improve water management, impact of globalisation and free trade on the water sector, elimination of Northern bias to manage water in the South, and improving overall water governance, especially in the Middle East and the North African countries. We are also helping the Spanish authorities to establish a new international centre at Zaragoza.
Science-driven water advocate
Professor Biswas is an India-born Canadian citizen and president of the Mexico City-based Third World Centre for Water Management.
As a science-driven water advocate, he fostered a new "socio-economic and political climate" which enabled the effective translation of scientific (both natural and social) and technical advances into meaningful measures.
In his multi-faceted role as a scientist and educator, he has acted as an adviser and confidante to policymakers in water and environmental management in 17 countries, to six heads of the United Nations agencies and to other intergovernmental and international organisations.
The Third World Centre for Water Management,
a "think tank" initially set up by Professor Biswas to give independent and authoritative policy and knowledge support to developing countries, also regularly advises many industrialised nations.
Professor Biswas founded the International Journal of Water Resources Development and is the editor-in-chief for the last 21 years.
