Two Economist articles of recent publication draw attention to the imminent threat that the availability of water, or the lack thereof, poses to social, political and economic stability. A Himalayan rivalry, Aug 21; and Chattahoochee blues, Sept 18; describe current and potential disputes on both domestic and international levels.
In discussing the extremely complex nature of relations between India and China, A Himalayan rivalry briefly describes the recent Sino-Indian war which saw China attacking India while the USSR and USA were preoccupied with the 1962 October Cuban missile crisis, with China occupying disputed areas in Arunachal and Kashmir for roughly a month before peace and withdrawal. The long border between the two countries was, in 1962, a demarcation with no real geographical, historical or even official basis after more than a century of gerrymandering by the British and Russian empires competing for control of central Asia. To a great extent it remains so today, and its obscurity mirrors the current relationship of the two giants, whose trade has increased from “$270m in 1990” to an expected “$60 billion this year,” yet whose militaries still manoeuvre along the borders; China making “huge improvements... in its border infrastructure, enabling a far swifter mobilisation of Chinese troops there,” and India announcing “last year that it would deploy another 60,000 troops to Arunachal,” a border province at the eastern end of India, most of which is claimed by China as “Chinese South Tibet.”
Arunachal is not only a new home to 60,000 Indian troops, but also a province through which the Brahmaputra River flows; from Tibet to Bangladesh and into the Indian ocean; sustaining millions of Indians and Bangladeshis. According to
The Economist, “China appears to have reasserted its demand for most of India’s far north-eastern state,” (Arunachal) having made diplomatic mischief with citizenship and visas for Arunachalis and by objecting to Asian Development Bank loans to India “on the basis that some of the money was earmarked for irrigation schemes in Arunachal.” Whether or not China will have Arunachal remains to be seen; however, China will have its water. A possible motivation for the objection to the above mentioned financing of irrigation projects in India is that should China begin diverting water from the Brahmaputra, the impact would be much more measurable in its effects on agriculture and industry, thereby strengthening India’s claims of damages against China.
The Economist reports that one dam is being built on the Brahmaputra, or the Yarlung Tsangpo River as it is known in Tibet, however the Zangmu dam is actually only one of a few that China has apparently already announced publicly. Considering China’s penchant for great works of engineering as in the Three-Gorges-Dam, its long term view in policy matters, its demonstrated willingness to divert waters as in the ‘South-North Water Transfer Project, and as China prefers in matters most sensitive to announce their intentions and projects near or at completion as a fait-accompli; many in India and Bangladesh surmise that with the infrastructure already being put into place, a gradual if not sudden diversion of the waters that feed the Brahmaputra River is an inevitability, in light of China’s already apparent problem of feeding and watering its 1.34 billion inhabitants. Many sources show a litany of dams currently under construction and in planning stages along the Yarlung, well beyond what is publicly admitted by Chinese officials and media.
Aspects of the Brahmaputra/Yarlung situation are paralleled in the south-eastern US as described in Chattahoochee blues, where local water utilities are illegally supplying the growing Greater Atlanta area with more and more water from Lake Lanier, itself created by the construction of the Buford dam on the Chattahoochee river in 1956; a dam originally intended primarily to supply power. Downstream farms, industry and communities in Georgia and Alabama want to ensure their own adequate supply of water; as do communities, environmentalists and oyster farms in Florida; where fresh water from the Chattahoochee empties into the Apalachicola river, sustaining the watershed and floodplain which feeds the complex ecosystem of forests and marshes and the special balance of fresh and salt water where the river meets the gulf of Mexico.
Federal courts have been forced through a process of lawsuits into a position where it must take sides in a dispute which it understands cannot be fairly resolved, as there is plainly not enough water to satisfy the overall demand, if not need. Their decision has been to defer to the judgement of Congress or to a negotiated solution between the parties, with the caveat that should neither process produce a decision by 2012, local water suppliers in greater Atlanta will (still) no longer be able to legally use Lake Lanier as a source of water. While the court recognises this outcome as a “Draconian result”, the status-quo being already one of illegal removal of water from Lake Lanier, watchers will await what Draconian measures the authorities will employ to stop Atlanta from supplying itself with water from the lake, if any.
There seems to be a precedent forming both on domestic as well as international levels that is one of first-come, first-served. Furthermore, if nations fail to properly resolve and manage their own internal water-resource problems and allow their populations to deprive each other and suffer thereof, there seems little hope that any agreement internationally as to the equitable and sustainable distribution of water is possible.
The Economist; A Himalayan rivalry:
The Economist; Chattahoochee blues:
More on the Brahmaputra/Yarlung River:
