5.8

• The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) identifies three dimensions of water scarcity:

  Availability – physical scarcity of clean freshwater resources to meet demand

  Access – scarcity due to the failure of institutions to ensure a reliable water supply through water management

  Utilisation – scarcity arising from inadequate infrastructure to use water resources due to financial constraint.

  
  

  Water scarcity therefore consists of physical water scarcity due to lack of availability and economic water scarcity due to lack of access and poor resource management
• Price of Water

  To get a supply of clean drinking water requires the construction and maintenance of a robust infrastructure system that also disposes of and treats used dirty water. Such services are expensive and this is where the cost comes from.

  In developing nations, the expense of providing a clean water supply is too great so many rely on street vendors to supply clean water. This can be 100 times more expensive than a supply to the home.

  Unfortunately, as water scarcity increases the cost of water will rise and so even more people will not be able to afford the price.
• Water Poverty Index

  • Used to provide a better understanding of the relationship between the physical extent of water availability, its ease of abstraction, and the level of community welfare, there are five measures to indicate levels of water insecurity
• Water Poverty Index

  • Resources - physical availability of surface and groundwater, taking account of the variability and quality of the resource + the total amount of water.
  • Access - extent of access to water for human use. Includes the distance to a safe source + the time needed for domestic water collection.
  • Capacity - effectiveness of people’s ability to manage water. Capacity is interpreted in the sense of income to allow purchase of improved water, and education and health which interact with income
  • Use
  • Environment - an evaluation of environmental integrity
• Environmental sustainability – Freshwater ecosystems provide essential services for economic, social and environmental wellbeing (flood control, water store, fisheries and recreation).

  Degraded ecosystems may have difficulty regulating and restoring themselves, losing resilience, which then accelerates water quality degradation and reduces water availability for nature and people.
• Conflict between water users in Ethiopia

  • controversial + ambitious dam-building programme to fuel economic growth but this has cause internal + int'l conflict
  • has local negative environmental + social impacts e.g preventing seasonal floods to the indigenous population (rely on it for agriculture) and some ethnic groups already live in chronic hunger, so the dam threatens their survival
  • artificial floods can be released + irrigation projects will improve the likelihoods of the indigenous
  • UNESCO world heritage committee halted the programme as it could impact lake Turkana e.g reduced level
• River Nile Transboundary Water Conflicts

  • It provides water for domestic, economic growth + climate change.
  • Nile agreement between Egypt + UK granted significant water allocation to Egypt + Sudan, making no allowance for water need for other Nile countries - led to conflict
  • '99, Nile countries except Eritrea signed the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) to enhance cooperation over the Nile's water resources. The CFA raised strong opposition over fears that it would reduce their water rights + allocations
  • 2011, Grand Renaissance Dam on Blue Nile - angry response from Egyptian President