Water-Blue,Green,Grey.And colorless?

Colorless Water : It is  Needed for Ecosystems. 

 A familiar dismaying phrase that we come across while describing the global water scarcity reads, “Even after global efforts to meet the targets under the Millennium Development Goals, more than 600 million people will still lack access to safe drinking water in 2015”. Another one that comes with more positive and resounding effect is: “Improved water supply in adequate quantity and quality is probably the single most cost-effective means of reducing water-related death and disease globally.” 

These phrases do reflect the state and trends related to human needs for water and impact of its scarcity. The unfortunate part of such trends is that the world has been keeping account of the consumptive use of humans for agriculture, industry and domestic use. But we still do not have accounts for the water needed for the environment i.e.for sustaining the ecosystem on which our life on the earth depends, -directly and indirectly.

As a consequence, we do not have common denominator and base line to understand what is the water scarcity and what is needed to address the water scarcity.

There are at least 18 international agreements over last 40 years, which recommend, encourage and urge the nations to take specific policy decisions and actions on fresh and marine water related issues. With such massive international theatricals we still seem to treat the symptoms and not understanding the roots. We are overlooking the important user of water called ‘ Nature’.

About 80 million people took part in the world’s largest ‘water -summit’ that ended in the middle of March 2013! Yes, 80 million. At one place. There is no conference center that can accommodate that number. It was not United Nations gathering. It took place in open, on the bank of a river.  I would call it as  ‘general assembly’ of United People in its real sense. What more, the participants shared understanding of the faith at this summit. There are no positions, no political blocks of North and South, no groups of G8 or BRICS, no negotiations, not even an agenda.

The assembly is called  “Kumbh Mela” –literal translation is: festival of a water-pot. It is festival of common faith that draws the participation every 12 years or even more frequently. I thought the similar faith is needed to draw the actions on the water scarcity and water footprints. But present actions are based on estimates centered on humans.

The water management concept contains the management of  ‘blue water’ (rivers, lakes and the ground water),   ‘green water’ (water retained in the soil) and ‘grey water’ (water required to assimilate pollution from all sources). We need to add the forgotten fourth dimension- ‘colorless-water’, water required to maintain the ecosystems whose services humans receive almost free and hence not yet estimated. Indeed, have not we learned in our primary chemistry class that water is colorless?

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2012 has published a global mapping of the “blue water scarcity’ indicator based on the study published by Hoekstra and Mekonnen in 2011. This indicator is defined as the proportion of groundwater and surface water consumed relative to the sustainable water available for human use. Most of India, as per the mapping, faces extremely severe blue water scarcity.  Globally it is a significant factor in human security, with a fifth of the global population living in areas with physical water scarcity. But there is yet not meaningful mapping of the water needed of the environment. We need a mapping of ‘colorless water’

The experts, fortunately, have made beginning in understanding the need for the ‘colorless water’. It is estimated the water required to maintain ecosystem goods and services as 75 per cent of the global water use, while direct human water use –blue, green and grey together represented only 25 per cent. So we seem to attempt to manage only 25% of the problem. In management study I have learnt that if problem is not defined in its entirety, solution to that problem will address only part of the problem. How true.

The human consumption (agriculture, industry and domestic) itself is overdrawn in many places on the earth particularly in the rich countries, leaving insufficient resources not only for human consumption in the developing countries but also for sustaining ecosystems globally. While a global study of 424 of the world’s major river basins, surrounded by the population of 3.9 billion people, it was found that environmental flow requirements were violated in 223 basins, surrounded by 2.67 billion people facing severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year. As per FAO study, the proportion of renewable water withdrawn in African and Middle East regions exceeds 50–75 per cent, leaving little environmental flow required to sustain ecosystems.

There is less and less recognition of water needs to support ecosystems, which are themselves legitimate water users. The importance of formally recognizing the environment as a legitimate water user remains on a relatively small scale in minds of the humans who are preoccupied with so called developmental practices. Mankind is taking giant steps to explore universe to find the planets that show signs of water. However we have not fully explored the signs of scarcity of water needed for the ecosystems here on the Earth.

We need something like Kumbha Melas scale global gathering of common faith in recognizing the ecosystems as ‘consumers’. A holy dip in Ganges transform the sins committed by humans. Would a deep dip in would also transform our past sins of looking only at selfish needs and make us understand the integrated ‘water needs’ and ‘water foot print’ for a life on the earth? END