Freshwater Shortages, Engineering
of River Flows, Pollution and Overfishing Highlighted
in Final Global International Waters Assessment
21 March 2006 - Freshwater shortages are likely
to trigger increased environmental damage over the
next 15 years, according to an international report
of the world’s waters.
Falls in river flows, rising saltiness of estuaries,
loss of fish and aquatic plant species and reductions
in sediments to the coast are expected to rise in
many areas of the globe by 2020.
These in turn will intensify farmland losses, food
insecurity and damage to fisheries along with rises
in malnutrition and disease.
Overall agriculture ranks highest as the key concern
on the freshwater front among the 1,500 experts
involved in the final report of the Global International
Waters Assessment (GIWA).
“Globally, there has been an increased demand for
agricultural products and a trend towards more water-intensive
food such as meat rather than vegetables and fruits
rather than cereals”.
Knowledge gaps are also to blame, with many developing
countries operating in the dark on the size of their
water resource, and the precise patterns of supply
and demand.
“Aquifers represent the largest information gap,
which is an increasingly significant hindrance for
effective water management given the growing dependence
on groundwater," says the report released in
advance of World Water Day 22 March.
Market failures are also highlighted as important
contributors to damage in both freshwaters and coastal
zones.
“Most production inputs are under-priced compared
with their full social and environmental costs”,
says the report, citing the under-pricing of water,
subsidies for pesticides and fishing and incentives
for infrastructure, like dams and water transfer
schemes.
The damage to international waters from overfishing
and destructive fishing methods is also underlined.
The report points to the excessive catches fueled
by $20 billion a year fishing subsidies, poor enforcement
of fishing laws and destructive practices like blast
fishing on coral reefs.
“The investment of one dollar (in blast fishing)
can generate an immediate 200-fold return for local
fishermen but leaves a devastated reef that takes
50 years to recover,” says the report.
The report recommends ecosystem service payments
as one way of better valuing the goods and services
provided by natural features like coral reefs and
wetlands.
For example, it argues that wetlands in Mexico would
be less vulnerable if landowners are paid for the
waste water treatment provided by these natural
pollution filters.
Climate change is viewed as the overarching issue
in the report, with specific concerns for fisheries
and marine organisms.
It estimates that climate variability is the key
controlling factor in fishing yields for about half
of the world’s large marine ecosystems.
These include the East and West Greenland shelfs;
the Benguela Current off Southwest Africa, the Canary
Current off Northwest Africa and the Humboldt Current
off the West coast of South America.
Thus climate change may have important impacts on
yields in these sensitive regions.
These are among the findings from the GIWA implemented
by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
with funding from the Global Environment Facility
(GEF) and national governments, especially Nordic
ones.
The assessment, a unique endeavour, brought together
not only scientists but experts from social and
economic backgrounds.
They have been evaluating current and future trends
in the freshwater and coastal waters of some 66
transboundary water areas, mainly linked with developing
countries.
Their final report, Challenges to International
Waters: Regional Assessments in a Global Perspective,
is formally launched today, complete with a string
of forward looking recommendations to reverse the
damage and declines.
Klaus Toepfer, UNEP’s Executive Director, said:
“There are many important messages emerging from
this pioneering study. One that rings loud and clear
is the economic one -- that our collective failure
to value the goods and services provided by international
waters, and to narrowly price the benefits in terms
of the few rather than the many, is impoverishing
us all”.
“I sincerely believe that overcoming poverty and
meeting the internationally agreed Millennium Development
Goals requires us to look harder at the way we manage
the natural world. Demands that we give greater
value to the natural capital of forests and grasslands
up to our freshwaters and coastal habitats,” he
added.
Mr Toepfer thanked Gotthilf Hempel, Professor Emeritus
for Biological Oceanography at the University of
Kiel, and Science Advisor to the Senate of Bremen,
Germany, for his great contribution.
"Professor Hempel, our GIWA Ambassador, played
an important role in the preparation of the final
report. We are indebted to him for his wisdom, experience
and knowledge in guiding the final chapter of this
seminal work," he added.
GIWA has been looking at five priority areas including
freshwater shortages, pollution and overfishing.
The report concludes that there is cause for serious
concern in all areas and that many of the problems
are expected to “increase in severity by 2020”.
Among the positive findings is an expectation that
the overfishing problem will improve “in over 20
per cent of the GIWA regions/sub-systems” over the
next two decades as a result of more sustainable
management practices.
Freshwater Shortages
The GIWA experts predict that the environmental
impacts of freshwater shortages will mostly increase
or remain the same over the next 15 years.
Only around six of the areas studied, including
the Murray Darling Basin in Australia, the Mekong
River region and the Russian Arctic region, are
expected to see impacts decline.
The report notes that rising demand by irrigated
agriculture now accounts for 70 per cent of freshwater
withdrawls with only 30 per cent of this returned
to the environment.
This compares with industry and households which
return up to 90 per cent of the water used.
Almost a third of the regional teams pointed to
modification of water flows as a severe consequence
of shortages.
Modifications include the building of dams, river
diversions, water transfers, and other structures
designed to supply water and energy.
Such engineering works can obstruct migration routes
and reduce spawning habitats. The report cites the
impact of dams on the Volga River which have reduced
the spawning habitat of Caspian sturgeon.
They can also be highly inefficient. More than 90
per cent of the water in Namibia’s Eastern National
Water Carrier canal is lost through evaporation.
The loss and change in water flow as a result of
engineering works can have important knock-on effects.
The report cites the loss of ecosystems in the Aral
and Dead seas and impacts on the Volta River Basin
and in Lake Chad.
The Berg River estuary in South Africa has suffered
high salinity levels which are affecting birds,
fish and bottom living invertebrates, as a result
of upstream water withdrawls.
Similar problems have been experienced in the Ganges-Brahmaputra
River system where more than 30 dams, barrages and
river diversions upstream have reduced dry season
river flows in Bangladesh by up to 60 per cent.
The construction of the Akosombo Dam on the Volta
River in Ghana has increased the proportion of children
infected with the parasitic disease schistosomiasis
from five per cent to 90 per cent.
Pollution
Transboundary pollution ranks as the top issue in
a quarter of all the international waters studied
and a further third classed it as their second most
serious concern.
By 2020, the environmental impacts of pollution
“are predicted to increase in severity in over three
quarters of the GIWA regions/sub-regions, making
this the most negative future outlook for any of
the GIWA concerns,” says the report.
Suspended solids, increasing mainly as a result
of deforestation and agriculture, severely affect
coral reefs, seagrasses and river habitats in an
estimated one fifth of the areas studied.
These include the Caribbean Sea, the Brazil Current,
East African Rift Valley lakes and all regions of
Southeast Asia.
Eutrophication – triggering oxygen deficiencies
as a result of fertilized agricultural run-off,
sewage discharges and air pollution – is present
in lakes, rivers and many semi-enclosed seas in
Europe and Central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
It is on the rise in Northeast Asia and the Gulf
of Mexico.
Dumping of solid wastes is a priority issue in many
rivers and coastal areas of sub-Saharan Africa,
in Small Island Developing States globally, parts
of the Indonesian seas and stretches of the Rio
Grande in the Gulf of Mexico.
Chemical pollution is an issue as hot spots including
Central America, West Africa, South and Southeast
Asia as well as on the River Jordan, Aral Sea and
the Arctic rim.
Impact of oil spills was assessed as severe in the
Caribbean Sea, Niger Basin and the Benguela Current
in Southwest Africa.
Overfishing and Other
threats
Overfishing and other threats to aquatic living
resources is ranked as the top priority in over
a fifth of the GIWA areas studied with 60 per cent
of the teams citing over exploitation as severe.
Three quarters of the regions say destructive fishing
practices are harming habitats and fish dependent
communities.
Destructive fishing includes bottom trawling, blast
or bomb fishing, fishing with poisons such as cyanide,
muro-ami nets, and other locally employed techniques.
Blast fishing in Indonesia is expected to cost that
country at least USD three billion over the next
20 years. A sustainable hook and line fishery could
generate net benefits of $320 million over the same
period.
Many farmed fish operations are unsustainable. Outbreaks
of disease at shrimp farms in the Humboldt Current,
West coast of South America, have cost $600 million
annually, not including economic damage to wild
stocks.
The report is optimistic that at least in some areas
new policies and management actions are beginning
to be introduced that promise to improve the situation.
Community management of fisheries, certification
of fish and the extension of marine parks also promise
improvements.
For example, catches near the Bamburi Marine Park
in Kenya have increased more than twofold since
it came into existence.
Habitat Modification
Climate change, alteration of river flows, coastal
developments, pollution and other factors are adding
to habitat modification and changes in freshwater
and coastal living communities.
In the Guinea current region, the expansion of Accra,
Ghana, has led to the clearing of over half of the
mangroves and significant areas of marshland.
In the Philippines, 60 per cent to 80 per cent of
mangroves have been cleared for port developments.
Land reclamation projects in the Pacific Islands
has led to more than half of the region’s mangroves
being lost or severely degraded.
In the Volta River Basin, degradation of mangroves
has changed the fish species composition by 70 per
cent since 1969. It has led to the collapse of the
shrimp and Jack mackerel fishery and a down turn
in the freshwater clam industry.
Notes Editors
GIWA, was a United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP)-led and Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded
programme, with Kalmar University, Sweden as the
main executing agency that hosted the GIWA Core
Team and Co-ordination Office. All GIWA reports
are available in print and at www.unep.org/dewa
or www.giwa.net/publications
The embargoed press release will be available in
French and Spanish later this week.
