Posted on 08/30/2004 7:04:51 AM PDT by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
LONDON — Asian farmers drilling millions of pump-operated wells in an ever-deeper search for water are threatening to suck the continent's underground reserves dry, a science magazine warned Wednesday.
"This little-heralded crisis is repeating itself across Asia and could cause widespread famine in the decades to come," London-based New Scientist said in a report on scientists' findings at a recent water conference in Sweden.
The worst affected country is India. There, small farmers have abandoned traditional shallow wells where bullocks draw water in leather buckets to drill 21 million tube wells hundreds of yards below the surface using technology adapted from the oil industry, the magazine said.
Another million wells a year are coming into operation in India to irrigate rice, sugar cane, and alfalfa round-the-clock.
While the $600 pumps have brought short-term prosperity to many and helped make India a major rice exporter in less than a generation, future implications are dire, New Scientist said.
"So much water is being drawn from underground reserves that they, and the pumps they feed, are running dry, turning fields that have been fecund for generations into desert," it said.
Tushaar Shah, head of the International Water Management Institute's groundwater station in Gujarat, said there was no control over the expansion of pumps and wells.
"When the balloon bursts, untold anarchy will be the lot of rural India," he said at the annual Stockholm Water Symposium. Shah said Indian farmers were taking 200 cubic kilometres of water out of the earth per year, with only a fraction of that replaced by the monsoon rains.
Suicides and Power-Cuts
"The same revolution is being replicated across Asia, with millions of tube wells pumping up precious underground water reserves in water-stressed countries like Pakistan, Vietnam, and in northern China," the New Scientist report said.
In China's breadbasket, the northern plain, 30 cubic kilometres more water is pumped to the surface each year than is replaced by rain, it said. Officials have said water shortages will soon make China dependent on grain imports.
Vietnam has quadrupled its number of tube wells in the past decade to 1 million, while water tables are plunging in the Pakistani state of Punjab, which produces 90 percent of the country's food, New Scientist added.
In India, "farmers have invested some $12 billion in the new pumps, but they constantly have to drill deeper to keep pace with falling water tables," it said.
Meanwhile, half of India's traditional hand-dug wells and millions of shallower tube wells have already dried up, "bringing a spate of suicides among those who rely on them."
Another consequence is electricity blackouts, reaching "epidemic proportions" in some Indian states, where half of the power is used to pump water from up to a kilometer down.
To counter the water crisis, some states are placing small dams across river beds in a bid to replenish groundwater by infiltration, and Hindu priests are organizing farmers to capture monsoon rains in ponds, the report said.
But the Indian government has gone cool on a proposed $200 billion River Interlinking Project to redistribute water round the country.
"In any case, the water supplied would probably come too late," New Scientist said.
Are you saying that calculating that more water is being taken out of the ground than returned is junk science?<<<<
Yes, I am. KEY WORD: CALCULATING!
Mere man can run all the calculations he wants to, but the truth is, the earth will take care of itself. It's been turning for billions of years, through billions of changes.
Usually, I can see the politics behind these scare tactics, they are very transparent. We will always have a water source, even if we are reduced to catching rain in barrells (like that will happen - LOL!)
Oil for instance, COMES FROM THE GROUND! It is a natural (if smelly) product that man has found a use for, but that other countries and enviros with their own agenda are demonizing. Yeah, birds and other widdle helpless animals get covered in oil spills, but nature is a hard mistress, and animals do get hurt on occassion, in more natural ways like starvation and getting hunted down.
That's BS in this case. We have to use a well because no county water is available in the rural area where I live. The well has never gone dry on us except the year we landscaped the house with new shrubbery and had the water the new plants on a regular basis and bingo it went dry that year due to overuse.<<<<<<<<<
You are right for the rural area where you live. I guess city water is not available? I guess the WHOLE COUNTRY must be in crisis whenever a well goes dry. . .
This will be headed towards resolution when China brings their vastly expanded atomic energy capacity online over the next several years, along with Three Gorges, providing power for desalination.
ping
They already do here in the US. Bought any bottled water at the supermarket recently? -- it's, what, about 3 times the cost of gasoline, never mind crude oil.
No, but wars are fought over things like this, and we should be concerned over the possibility of an exchange between two nuclear nations (India,China) when both believe their survival depends on control over this scarce resource.
" Bought any bottled water at the supermarket recently? -- it's, what, about 3 times the cost of gasoline, never mind crude oil."
I can get distilled water for 49 cents a gallon in plastic containers where I live. Reverse osmosis water is only 15 cents a gallon, if you have your own container. Gasoline costs $1.75 a gallon here. Of course gasoline would be closer to 40 cents a gallon if taxes were subtracted from the cost.
You should also add that every species that has ever existed on the planet (with the obvious exception of those currently here) has gone extinct. I guess life in general is better at adapting than specific species.
But, it should be kept in mind that adopting and prospering don't necessarily go hand in hand.
You should also add that every species that has ever existed on the planet (with the obvious exception of those currently here) has gone extinct. I guess life in general is better at adapting than specific species.
But, it should be kept in mind that adapting and prospering don't necessarily go hand in hand.
In NM we had a very far-seeing water policy in place-I think even before we became a state. In our area so many farmers have gone broke that about 50% of the farmland is lying fallow while our city buys up every available water right they don't NEED it now but they are looking to the future.
You should also add that every species that has ever existed on the planet (with the obvious exception of those currently here) has gone extinct<<<<
So what? WHO is to say what species is supposed to survive for how long and for what purpose? What if we still had dinosaurs? It just would not work, you know?
I bet the Dinosaur would drink one heck of a lot of water - what an OUTRAGE! Outrage I say! SUre glad they are gone, we'd all get really thirsty.
I mean, What if it stopped RAINING? then what? Guess we'd all die, and guess it would just be TIME for our extinction.
BTTT!!!!!!
...which like our own Sierra's and Rocky Mtns, is a valuable fresh water resource from melt-off. BTW, I never said I knew what single source of water they would fight over, just that they have burgeoning populations that their current supply won't satisfy.
I won't try to be the earth science expert on this. That is who strategy and policy experts rely upon to distill the science into trends. They then look at what the impact of those trends could be. Its only prediction, but its what we all do to avoid being caught off gaurd in a crisis.
These fresh water availability analysis and trends are publicly available, and much of the analysis on the political, economic, and military implications of the trends in water usage vs availability are also in open literature.
I'll simply report again that among many, many other things, military and political strategists are concerned about a crisis in the 10-25 years out period over fresh water shortages in Asia.
Regards,
Rural water has created a dependency on water for rural people and in many cases, the water costs considerably more that comparable urban water rates. What happens when urban areas start reducing water access to rural residents to satisfy the urban need? The water crisis is very real in America as well and I predict water needs will outstrip the demand for oil and gas.
As for wells, I heard there will be a new government regulation next year on new deep wells FORCING a well owner to provide water to neighbors as well as other intrusions into the property rights of the well owner.
Be advised that the government deems underground water as government property and not your property, even though you have assumed the expense of drilling and maintaining the well.
And if with many other wells drilled in your area, the year you ran out of water tells you that there is very little left to share in your water table.
I can tap into the county water main but it is 3.8 miles from my house and I would have to pay the installation cost. Big bucks!!!There are several neighbors in between but they don't want to do it or do not have the money.
If I pay the whole cost, the neighbors could later tap into it with only tap fee after I've paid all the money. My dad did not raise me to be a sucker.
The year the well went dry was a dry year and I did use it alot but I'm still concerned.
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