June 01, 2010|By Vinod Thomas and Ronald S. Parker
The challenge of providing enough water safe for human consumption has grown drastically over the past two decades. Back in 1992, the Rio Earth Summit and the International Conference on Water and Environment in Dublin brought to the world's attention the scarcity of clean water and its vital link to environmental degradation. Countries responded mainly by building more infrastructure. Meanwhile, they continued to overlook the deteriorating state of the world's aquatic resources.
As a result, the nations of the world, including the United States, face a common menace that drives home the link between water and the environment. In December 2009, headlines reported that — in violation of existing legislation — some 50 million Americans had been provided with unsafe drinking water in the previous five years. Mundane as it might sound, improved data collection, better monitoring and public disclosure are what it takes to trigger action. Citizens are less willing to put up with water pollution if they can find out what toxins are making it through treatment plants into their water pipes.
Meanwhile, business and industry are creating new water-soluble pollutants faster than water authorities and under-resourced public utilities can improve treatment technology. Compounds in the reservoirs and the drinking water of many cities include soaps, deodorants, pharmaceuticals and pesticides. More effort is needed to keep these substances out of our water. We also need to give nature a chance — allowing water to flow through wetlands and marshes that can remove many pollutants. And better technologies need to be found for cleaning up waste water.
If the United States finds cleaning water and preserving aquatic environments a challenge, imagine how much more daunting they are for developing countries facing the same threats but with more limited resources.
In many developing countries, even where water is still plentiful, environmental destruction and pollution have made surface and ground water too expensive to use. In some others that enjoy a good supply of clean water, it is used inappropriately. Priorities can be so skewed that while cities remain desperate for water, farmers are irrigating fruits or cotton in the desert. Even less acceptable, in some places potable water is used to maintain gardens and golf courses for the wealthy while the urban poor are forced to pay dearly to buy drinking water by the bucket.
As the largest official financier of water investments, the World Bank has made numerous loans to developing countries for services ranging from irrigation and groundwater to hydropower and watershed management. Since 1992, the agency has worked to advance the Rio/Dublin agenda by bringing together water leaders to negotiate compromises that help ensure the availability of clean water for generations to come. Yet more needs to be done by the countries and external partners, especially in the water-stressed countries of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
There is always and everywhere a political issue to confront regarding water and the environment. When key players sit down to bargain about the allocation of water, no one is there to speak for the water needed to preserve the environment. More often than not, countries don't want to borrow to clean contaminated water or restore marshes and wetlands, even though these features protect the environment and represent the cheapest way to restore water quality. Politicians like ribbon-cutting opportunities; ceremonies for swamp preservation are rare.
The key is to raise the priority for the water-environment connection. Most countries need to address gaps in data and information that would allow them to see their water situation clearly. Pricing water in a way that reflects its cost also helps by promoting efficiency and reducing waste. Prices for water used in agriculture — by far the biggest user of water and a major consumer of chemicals that reach water sources — need to be set at levels that have a salutary effect on the water situation.
Improving the aquatic environment is a continuing challenge in the effort to address water stress all across the globe. To be successful, we must raise the priority for restoring degraded water resources, and in the meantime find better ways to cleanse dirty water, so that fish do not have to swim through Prozac (and worse) on their way to the dinner table.
Vinod Thomas is director general of the Independent Evaluation Group at The World Bank. Ronald S. Parker is a consultant with the Independent Evaluation Group. They may be contacted at ieg@worldbank.org.
