Dammed Rivers, Dammed Lies - Int Rivers Network report

[camden7]

This is something people should know about:

18 page report on large dams by International Rivers Network (IRN) can be found here:
http://www.irn.org/basics/ard/pdf/wwf3pdfs/wwf3.briefingkit.pdf


Dammed Rivers, Dammed Lies

The respected International Rivers Network (IRN) reports "dams have failed to live up to expectations and have devastated communities and ecosystems".

In a paper 'Dammed Rivers, Dammed Lies' published in 2003 the widely perceived notion of being in the midst of a "world water crisis" is addressed:

"This crisis is commonly believed to be one of scarcity - that the world is running out of water. But in fact, the "crisis" is mainly one of mismanagement, not absolute scarcity. Freshwater ecosystems worldwide have been dammed, drained and pumped dry to supply inefficient and inequitable irrigation schemes, leaky water mains and wasteful over consumption."

"The best flexible, cost-effective, no-regrets adaptation measure is to lower demand for water by reducing waste and improving the efficiency of its use," the IRN reports.

See also
http://econews.org.au/mary-river-dam.php
.

[arawajo]

Another international story about dams at http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=26729 - I have highlighted some points:

Editor-in-Chief: Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman

Drip irrigation can avert water crisis: expert

KARACHI: Pakistan very urgently needs to switch over to drip irrigation in order to use water in a sustainable manner and to avert looming water crisis, said Peter Bosshard, Policy Director International Rivers Network (IRN), an independent, non-profit organisation based in California.

“In other countries, 90 per cent of agriculture is based on drip irrigation,” he pointed out while talking to The News here. With 40 per cent water being wasted in Pakistan, essentially due to mismanagement, freshwater availability in the country has fallen from 5,200 cubic metres per capita in 1947 to less than 1,000 cubic metres currently, making it one of the most parched nations in the world. No wonder, the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) has come up with a Rs155 million media campaign for water conservation in the country.

Bosshard, who specialises in hydro power, is on a short visit to Pakistan to gain first-hand knowledge of the problems faced by the people in Indus Delta due to scarcity of freshwater as a result of building of large dams and barrages upstream on River Indus.

“New dams will not resolve water problems. They will accentuate water-logging and salinity and adversely affect mangrove forests,” he said. The degradation of mangrove forests in Sindh, which act as nurseries for fish, could be gauged from the fact that they have been reduced from 263,000 hectares in 1977 to 80,000 hectares in 2002, according to a study conducted by the Worldwide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P).

“Everybody tells me that corruption is pervasive in water sector in Pakistan and when you see the projects that make no social, environment and economic sense go forward, the phenomenon can only be explained by corruption,” he said.
He pointed out the World Bank after 1995 stopped funding large dams because public opinion had turned against them and the bank knew it had to tread very cautiously. “We have been more successful in stopping some of the worst projects from going forward, but we have not managed to re-direct them to support positive solutions which can reduce poverty and protect the interest of people,” he said.

He said in order to save River Indus from dying a slow death, a development model was needed that would cater to the needs of people instead of a privileged class.

Scientists have pointed out that the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they would be reduced by 50 per cent every decade. The melting of these glaciers in the wake of global warming threatens to disrupt water supplies over much of Asia, including Pakistan.

“There is a need to bring reform in Pakistan at all levels. There should be an emphasis on lining canals, especially in Sindh. Then the crop patterns need to be changed. Food crops are more important than sugar and cotton which need more water,” he said.