SYDNEY, 10 September 2005 — The world is gradually winning its battle to overcome drinking water shortages through better resource management, an international conference on rivers held in Australia this week heard.
But while countries including Australia and China begin to tackle problems caused by over-damming, diverting and polluting rivers, dangers are looming elsewhere, including in India.
“We’re beginning to manage our rivers a lot better with integrated water resource management,” Dr. Selina Ward, a marine scientist with the University of Queensland and convener of Riversymposium 2005, said in a telephone interview from Brisbane.
“This is occurring all over the world or at least an attempt is being made to have this happen throughout the world. (Still), areas like India are continuing to build a lot more dams when other countries in the world are beginning to ... pull them down,” she said. “There’s that area of conflict where in many countries dams are seen as essential to the survival of the population.”
In India, the world’s second most populous nation, two key states have agreed to start the first stage of a $200 billion plan to link India’s rivers. But critics have condemned the scheme as a recipe for ecological disaster. The first stage involves building a 230 km canal diverting water from the Ken River to the Betwa in northern Madhya Pradesh and building a dam and small hydroelectric plant in the middle of the Panna tiger reserve, one of the most successful.
The United Nations estimates nearly 2 billion people lack access to clean drinking water, the conference was told. But among the 430 delegates from about 40 countries there was optimism that better management was beginning to ease the problem.
Water scarcity had become an issue partly because of increased pollution. “In many areas, particularly in Asia, we have plenty of water, but we don’t have plenty of good water that can be used,” Ward said. She rated China’s record on water management a “mixed bag,” with some good achievements.
