Ahead of World Water Day on 22 March, 20,000 people have gathered in Istanbul to discuss the world’s water problems. Not all are government ministers, NGO activists and water professionals. A party of noisy school kids jostle for space with the suits, clutching umbrellas and scooping up the literature on display. Most of it will end in the bin, but those scanning the headlines will see the same two words again and again: climate change.
Climate change and adaptation is a central topic of the 5th World Water Forum (WWF) in Istanbul. It is the lead theme for the political and thematic processes, and the topic in a High-Level Panel session. Staff from the Water Policy Programme at ODI were invited to present in a major session on adaptation on the back of four ‘water and climate change’ Background Notes prepared in the run up to the forum. The notes deal with adaptation planning, the sustainability of rural water supplies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), flood risk and food security. These, in turn, follow a DFID-funded meeting series hosted by ODI, which focuses on water and climate change issues in the final event.
Is the overwhelming emphasis on water and climate change justified? Certainly water is predicted to be the primary medium through which early climate change impacts will be felt by people, ecosystems and economies. Both observational records and climate projections provide strong evidence that freshwater resources are vulnerable, and have the potential to be strongly affected. However, the recent IPCC Technical Report on climate change and water recognises impacts on water have yet to be adequately addressed in either scientific analyses or water policy - an issue that will be discussed at a forthcoming meeting hosted by ODI in Parliament on 30 March.
But nagging questions remain. How do we separate out the impacts of climate change from those related to socio-economic and demographic trends, and should we deal with adaptation as a separate development issue? Separating impacts and responses is not easy, but it is clear that climate change is one of a number of pressures on water and livelihoods.
Take demographic change in sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast to the lack of knowledge on the direction and magnitude of hydrological changes under different climate change scenarios, the prospects of demographic change in the 21st century are known with some certainty. The population there is expected to increase from 700 million in 2007 to 1100 million in 2030 and 1500 million by 2050, and populations will become increasingly urban. Overall water demand can therefore be expected to more than double in the first half of the 21st century, without considering rises in per capita demand for food and water. In Ethiopia, the figures are particularly alarming. The population is expected to increase from 77 million in 2007 to around 146 million by 2050, an increase of almost 90 per cent
What are the implications for development, and for adaptation? There are perhaps two main conclusions. Firstly, treating development and adaptation as separate issues is misguided. In Ethiopia, extending access to secure water and sanitation, and reducing dependence on unprotected water sources, is central to both poverty reduction and adaptation. This is simply ‘good development in a hostile climate’, in a context where access to water rather than its absolute availability will remain key.
Yet despite all the calls for adaptation ‘mainstreaming’ - in Istanbul it is treated as a separate subject; other sessions in different halls focus on water management, water supply and sanitation, irrigation and disaster management. Second, a sense of perspective is needed. There is a real danger that climate change is crowding out other, inter-related concerns around demographic shifts, urbanisation, water pollution and changing land use. There are multiple pressures on water. Climate change is one of them.
This blog post features the author's personal view and does not represent the view of ODI.
Comments
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re: Climate change: a scapegoat for the world’s water woes? @ Sunday, March 22, 2009 1:33 AM
Discussing the very concept of adaptation linked to the use of water is most welcome!
In fact, in my view, the adaptation concept has acquired almost an underlying biological idea. Meanwhile, social and economic adaptation have not being considered, not as part of the entire process of adaptation.
So far, I am aware of a few works on this field and I do think that a more encompassing idea of the adaptation process is necessary.
Specifically, I was informed about the World Bank research:
http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/0,,contentMDK:21793691~pagePK:64165401~piPK:64165026~theSitePK:469382,00.html
Congratulation for the initiave on this particular topic.
re: Climate change: a scapegoat for the world’s water woes? @ Monday, April 06, 2009 9:10 AM
Thanks to Roger Calow for raising this issue. It is now an euphoria among development agenies, research institutions and researchers to claim themselves to be an expert on climate change.
From my perspective this is partly due to three reasons:
(i) There is inadequate theories, methodological approach and analystical tools that can examine the water resources as a complex system, tehreby telling significant contributions of each drivers.
(ii) Many researchers (and even academic institutions)are more interested in the conventional disciplinary research (that draws a causal linkage) in pursuit of their academic career. Unfortunately academic evalution system, like RAE in UK, looks at publications, funding received and teaching, than any yardstick to assess the extent to which academics have controbuted towards addressing problems.
(iii) Many development agencies are interested in 'one solutions for complex problems', like 'water supply and sanitation to address water-related diseases', and participatory development to address natural resources problem.
Moving beyond this requires significant development in the mindset of the research communities, the acadmeic system and development agencies.
Saravanan.V.S
Water adaptation: a cross-curring issue @ Monday, April 06, 2009 10:12 AM
Adaptation of water to climatic change should certainly be mainstreamed, and treated as a cross-cutting issue for policy setting and project appraisal.
There is a danger of adaptation becoming an "industry" driven by grant-hungry researchers and agencies seeking a trendy new theme. As Simon Maxwell pointed out in his ODI Opinion no 122 (Jan 2009) there is a "frenzied creation" of new funding mechanisms in this area, creating a real risk of fragmentation and inefficient delivery.
Water adaptation ticks a number of important boxes - food, energy, poverty, economic development itself - so let us not erect an unnecessary new compartment here. One other Big Idea in Istanbul was for policy makers to "get out of water boxes".
Jim Winpenny
re: Climate change: a scapegoat for the world’s water woes? @ Wednesday, April 29, 2009 1:10 PM
I am not sure the World Water Forum was the place to be having realistic discussion about water and climate change anyway!
We run a charity and now 60% of our work is sanitation based. We install ecosan toilets, which compost human excreta and turn it into an agricultural compost. The urine is filtered and used in the same way.
Here are the benefits: no pollution (that includes waterways); reduction in methane emissions; agricultural product; increased crop yields; less water usage... I could go on.
WW Forum simply underlined how big business sees a dwindling resource as a way to make money in whatever way it can. Adding climate change is simply jumping on the bandwagon.
You won't make any significant changes unless you start addressing issues from the bottom up, rather than the top down. We can solve many of the world's problems if we just stopped and thought about the very foundations of life. These are sanitation and water, and these can impact on many aspects of climate change.
Feel free to contact me through our web site if you would like to discuss further.
Thanks for raising the subject. David
