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About water

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Statistics can look stark. More than one in five people on the planet don't have a decent toilet of their own. One in ten don't have clean water close to home.

But thanks to your incredible support, we've already reached millions of people in some of the toughest places in the world. We can't stop there.

By working together, we can reach everyone, everywhere within a generation - and change millions more lives for good.

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Clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene are vital for living a dignified, healthy life.

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Natural resources

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Newsela | Earth's Systems: Natural resources

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Natural resources are found in nature, and can be either renewable or nonrenewable based on whether they can be replaced.

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The properties of water

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Newsela | Experiment Central: The properties of water

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The properties of water - it's more complicated that you might think.

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Water Pollution

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It's a quandary of food production: The same drive for efficiency that lowers the cost of eating also can damage our soil and water.

Take the case of one simple, essential chemical element: phosphorus.

Phosphorus is one of the nutrients that plants need to grow, and for most of human history, farmers always needed more of it. "There was this battle to have enough available phosphorus for optimum crop production," says Kenneth Staver, a scientist with the University of Maryland's Wye Research and Education Center, which sits between farm fields and the Chesapeake Bay on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

That's also the tension in this story: agriculture on one side, and water quality on the other.

Traditionally, farmers got phosphorus from animal manure. So if you grew crops like corn or wheat, it was good to have poultry or hogs nearby. Your grain fed the animals, and their manure fed your crops. Everything worked together.

Then came industrial fertilizer: big phosphorus mines; factories for making the other important nutrient, nitrogen; and railroads or highways to carry that fertilizer to any farmer who needed it.

"With the development of the inorganic fertilizer industry, it's possible to grow grain without having animals nearby. So you can decouple the animal agriculture from the grain agriculture," Staver says.

And decouple they did. Farmers concentrated on just one kind of production. So did entire regions. Georgia, Arkansas and Alabama, for instance, now produce the largest number of chickens - more than a billion of them every year. But they don't grow much chicken feed. They haul in grain from far away.

As that grain flows from fields to chicken houses, or hog farms, so do the nutrients in it, such as phosphorus and nitrogen.

Some of it goes into meat that people eat, but a lot goes into animal waste.

This is where the problem starts. Farmers near those chicken houses or hog farms often take lots of that manure and spread it on their fields, partly just to get rid of it and partly for its value as fertilizer. Crops, however, need much more nitrogen than phosphorus. When farmers use manure to give their crops an optimal amount of nitrogen, they oversupply phosphorus.

"This is happening everywhere," Staver says. "Where you have large concentrations of animal production, you tend to have a buildup of nutrients - phosphorus is the one that accumulates - in soils around concentrated animal-producing regions."

Wherever it accumulates, rain washes it into streams, lakes and estuaries, where it's an ecological disaster.

"It drives algae growth, so it ends up clouding the water. You don't get the light penetration to support the rooted aquatic plants that are important in the food chain," Staver says. "You also get these algae blooms, and when they die, they draw oxygen from the water. You get dead zones."

In many places, environmental regulators are trying to stop this buildup of phosphorus.

Until recently, it looked like Maryland was taking the lead. The state has a big poultry industry right beside the Chesapeake Bay, which has been choked with nutrient pollution.

Last year, Maryland proposed new rules that would have stopped farmers from putting more phosphorus on any fields that already have too much of it. It required soil tests to determine a key phosphorus index number.

Lee Richardson, a farmer in Willards, Md., was worried. "The word we were getting - if [your fields] were over 150, you weren't going to spread manure," he says. Most of his fields are over that level.

The manure ban would have hit him two different ways.

First, he grows chickens; if their manure couldn't go on his fields, it would have to go somewhere else. "Chances are, growers were going to have to pay to get it hauled away and taken out of the chicken house," he says.

Second, his corn fields still need nitrogen. Without manure as a nitrogen source, he'd have to buy the manufactured kind of fertilizer, which is more expensive.

Richardson and other farmers protested, arguing that the new rules would inflict huge economic harm, while the environmental benefits are uncertain.

In November, the state of Maryland backed down. It promised to study the issue some more. Kenneth Staver, from the University of Maryland, says it's not that hard to imagine a solution to the problem.

"The obvious one is, find a way to redistribute the phosphorus from the animal production facilities back to where the crop production is," he says. The manure would have to travel to the vast fields that farmers currently fertilize with fresh, mined phosphorus.

Hauling manure such distances would cost money. Staver says it's the price of cleaner, healthier water.

If farmers have to pay that cost, growing chickens or hogs will get more expensive.

Then we, the consumers, would pay for it, through more expensive meat.

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How Mass-Produced Meat Turned Phosphorus Into Pollution

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Phosphorus is one of the nutrients that plants need to grow, and for most of human history, farmers always needed more of it. But excess phosphorus, either from manure or manufactured fertilizer, can run off into streams and lakes and become an ecological disaster.

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Water in South Asia

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The latest United Nations World Water Development Report, released just ahead of World Water Day on March 22, warns that, by 2030, only 60 percent of the world's demand for water will be met by existing resources at the current rate of use. That will leave 40 percent of the population without access to the water it needs. Signs of this impending crisis are already there for all of us to see.

In South Asia, home to nearly 1.6 billion people, cities are increasingly feeling the pressure of population growth and urbanization. It is estimated that 22 of 32 Indian cities face daily water shortages. In Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, many local residents have grown accustomed to waiting in queues for hours to obtain drinking water from the city's ancient, stone waterspouts. In Karachi, Pakistan, electricity and water shortages have led to protests and citywide unrest.

"Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink" aptly describes the problem of water in South Asia - a problem of scarcity amid abundance. Transboundary rivers such as the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra have defined the geography, history, and culture of South Asia for centuries and are critical to economic growth, food and energy security, and sustainable development within the region. But over the last few decades, these rivers have come under considerable pressure from industrial development, urbanization, population growth, and environmental pollution. This situation has been compounded by poor domestic management of water resources and increasing variability in rainfall and climate patterns that have made South Asia highly susceptible to floods, droughts, and natural disasters.

While in areas such as trade and energy South Asian governments have made significant progress in opening up and allowing for the movement of goods and people, regional cooperation on water lags behind. Geopolitics and a history of cross-border disputes have meant that transboundary water issues are perceived largely from a perspective of national security. This highly securitized approach has severely limited access to water and climate data in the region. South Asian governments, in particular India and Pakistan, treat hydrological data secret and classified. While some existing bilateral treaties and agreements, such as the Indus Treaty of 1960 or the Ganges Treaty of 1996, do contain provisions for bilateral data sharing, actual data-sharing practices are ad hoc, and the range of information shared is quite limited. It is also worth noting that none of the existing treaties provide for the public disclosure of data or information exchange between governments.

The closed data environment for water and climate information in the region has compromised governments' ability to make informed decisions on the planning, management, and development of what are essentially shared river basins. The lack of information sharing has also affected governments' ability to deal effectively with natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and landslides.

On World Water Day, The Asia Foundation released a major new report: "Strengthening Transparency and Access to Information on Transboundary Rivers in South Asia." The report examines the availability and accessibility of hydrological data and information related to three transboundary rivers in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal and tests the efficacy of right-to-information or freedom-of-information laws in accessing this data. The study - conducted with the World Resources Institute and civil society organizations in these countries with support from Skoll Global Threats Fund - highlights some of the key barriers to information access on water and climate issues in the region. The report illustrates that while governments in these countries have enacted laws and policies that seek to open up environmental data and information, in practice, the securitization of information remains a major constraint. Moreover, limited human resources, training, and capacity have undermined the capability of these governments to effectively implement existing transparency laws and policies. Across all three countries, hydrological data and information are not being collected, maintained, or published in a systematic manner. Where data is available, it is often of poor quality, difficult to verify, and provided in a format that is not user-friendly. Taken together, the highly fragmented availability of data makes it difficult to get a complete hydrological picture of the rivers. To discuss some of the broader implications of this study, The Asia Foundation convened civil society organizations, think tanks, international agencies, and donors for a regional forum, "Access to Water and Climate Data in South Asia," on March 23-24 in Kathmandu. Participants debated the issues and challenges in making climate and water data more accessible throughout South Asia, and brainstormed ways to leverage existing information-sharing experiences and practices.

While acknowledging the many constraints to regional data sharing, the forum also highlighted some of the innovative ways in which participating groups are enhancing data access and exchange on water and climate issues. For instance, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, the environmental NGO Aaranyak and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) have piloted an innovative community-based flood warning system that uses mobile phones to transmit critical flood related data and information to communities upstream and downstream of the eastern Brahmaputra basin. At a national level, multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and others are supporting governments to improve their data and information management systems while simultaneously building government capacity to better manage these systems. At a regional level, ICIMOD has been working with the governments of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan to develop a Regional Flood Information System in the Hindu-Kush Himalayas that seeks to facilitate sharing of flood data and information between countries to reduce the vulnerability of affected communities. There are also ongoing efforts to provide the media and private sector with data and information on water related issues. For example, the Third Pole recently launched a new, open source geospatial database - Data.TheThirdPole - to provide the media and other stakeholders with access to a searchable catalog of water-related datasets sourced from different organizations in Asia. Such initiatives testify to the growing demand for more accurate and comprehensive data and information on transboundary water issues on the subcontinent.

The democratization of data, technology, and access has been one of the defining developments of the 21st century. Riding on the wave of this global movement, governments in South Asia have opened up in nearly every sphere, whether enacting transparency laws, disclosing budget and public expenditure information to citizens, or taking the lead in e-governance and other ICT initiatives. Given these developments, and the proliferation of new information and communication technologies, the paradigm of security that has prevented governments from effectively sharing data and information on shared resources is out of date. Water scarcity for many South Asians is already a daily reality, and if we are to go by the UN's latest report, the current situation is only going to get worse unless steps are taken to mitigate the crisis. The sharing of data and information between governments, and between governments and civil society, will be critical to planning for this new and uncertain water future.
Mandakini Devasher Surie is The Asia Foundation's senior program officer in India. She can be reached at mandakini.surie@asiafoundation.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

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South Asia's Water Crisis: A Problem of Scarcity Amid Abundance - The Asia Foundation

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The latest United Nations World Water Development Report, released just ahead of World Water Day on March 22, warns that, by 2030, only 60 percent of the world's demand for water will be met by existing resources at the current rate of use.

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Water in Asia

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The United Nations was founded in 1945. Last year, on the occasion of its 70th anniversary, the leaders of the world met at its headquarters in New York. On Sept 25, 2015, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a visionary agenda to transform the world. The agenda is called "The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development". It contains 17 sustainable development goals and 169 targets, which are to be achieved by the year 2030.

In goal No. 6, the aspiration is to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water by 2030. Can Asia achieve this goal?

In this essay, I will begin with an overview of Asia's water challenges, discuss the most important things that Asia should do in order to achieve the goal and conclude with some thoughts on Singapore's experiences.

ASIA'S WATER CHALLENGES
The first of Asia's water challenges is caused by the growing gap between urbanisation and the provision of water and sanitation services to the urban population.

It is estimated that by 2050, 60 per cent of Asians will live in cities. At present, about 269 million Asians do not have access to safe drinking water. To reduce this number to zero by 2030 is a formidable task in view of the exponential increase in Asia's urban population and the inadequate urban infrastructure in many Asian countries and cities.

Another serious problem in Asia is that about 80 per cent of waste water is being discharged into rivers and the sea with little or no treatment. In Vietnam, only 4 per cent of waste water is treated. In India, it is 9 per cent, in the Philippines, 10 per cent, and 14 per cent in Indonesia. The consequence is that the untreated waste water will contaminate the water ecosystem. The UN's target is to reduce by half the percentage of untreated water by 2030.

ST ILLUSTRATION : MIEL

The second challenge is that Asia is depleting its groundwater at an unsustainable rate. According to the Asian Development Bank, seven of the 15 biggest extractors of groundwater in the world are in Asia. India, China and Pakistan account for 86 per cent of the total groundwater extraction in Asia. If the current trend continues, groundwater will eventually become depleted. This will have disastrous consequences for food production as well as for human consumption.

The third challenge is Asia's vulnerability to floods. In 2014 and 2015, Indonesia, Malaysia, Southern Thailand and Sri Lanka were afflicted by serious floods caused by the north-east monsoon. Millions of people were displaced. Another negative consequence of the floods was that they contaminated the potable water. The contaminated water, in turn, caused water-borne diseases. More than 340,600 children under five die annually from diarrhoeal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene or unsafe drinking water.

Another challenge is the impact of global warming and climate change. Changes in temperature, evaporation and precipitation will have an impact on the region's water resources, such as on river flows. Climate change has also increased the frequency of both floods and drought. Additionally, many of Asia's cities and countries are low-lying and will be adversely affected by the expected rise of sea levels. Climate change will, therefore, pose a new challenge to Asia's water problem.

WHAT MUST ASIA DO?
The most important thing is, surprisingly, not about money or technology. It is about governance. The reason is this. What is lacking in Asia is not money or technology, it is political will and good governance. If the leaders of Asia were to decide that by 2030 no one in their respective countries will lack access to clean and affordable drinking water, and if they would appoint competent and honest people to take charge, the problem will be solved. The present situation is that no such political will exists in many countries and their water utilities or authorities are often both incompetent and corrupt. The bottom line is this: If Phnom Penh in Cambodia can solve its water problem, there is no reason why other Asian cities and countries can't do the same.

What is lacking in Asia is not money or technology, it is political will and good governance. If the leaders of Asia were to decide that by 2030 no one in their respective countries will lack access to clean and affordable drinking water, and if they would appoint competent and honest people to take charge, the problem will be solved.

The second necessity is for Asian governments, both at the national and local levels, to appoint a minister or a senior official to be in charge of water. In Singapore, we have a minister in charge of the environment and water. If this is not feasible, then the second-best option is to have a well- coordinated, multi-agency approach to water. Asian leaders ought to put the provision of safe and affordable drinking water to all their citizens as a top national priority. They should then develop an appropriate strategy and execute it consistently and effectively. One lesson that the rest of Asia can learn from the experiences of Japan, South Korea and Singapore is that a good water policy can be an engine of economic growth and national prosperity.

The third requirement is to mould the public attitude towards water by, among other things, getting the price of water right. Although the UN has recognised as a human right a person's access to clean water, it does not mean that water should be provided for free. Water is a precious resource and, if it is provided for free, the consumers will have an indifferent and wasteful attitude towards it. It is, therefore, essential to charge the consumers for the price of water. The price of water should not be subsidised by the taxpayers. Instead, financial assistance can be given to needy families and individuals to help them pay for their water.

The fourth action is to promote efficiency in the use of water. This applies to domestic consumption, industrial consumption and agricultural consumption. The largest consumer of freshwater in the world is agriculture. The current system of irrigation is centuries old and inefficient. The drip irrigation is much more efficient. We need a revolutionary breakthrough in the use of water in agriculture. In many cities, a lot of water is lost through leakage or theft. To reduce the leakage, old infrastructure should be replaced.

Theft of water can be eliminated by strict law enforcement. Industries can increase their water efficiency by recycling their waste water. Seawater can be used for process cooling where it is available. In cities and places such as Singapore and California, the recycling of water may be a viable option. There are many ways in which water can be used more efficiently.

The fifth requirement is to embrace integrated water resources management (IWRM). What does this mean? It means breaking out of our silos and taking a holistic, systemwide approach to water.

In the case of Singapore, it means protecting our water ecosystem, using waste water as a resource, and maximising the use of unconventional resources, such as recycled water, desalinated water and groundwater. By implementing IWRM, Singapore has closed the water loop.

The sixth and final requirement is finance, technology and innovation. Financing for water-related projects is available from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Private capital is also available because water is a viable industry. There are many new technologies and innovations which will enable Asian countries and cities to reduce the cost of water, to reduce the cost of waste- water treatment and the costs of desalination and the recycling of water.

SHARING SINGAPORE'S EXPERIENCE
Singapore is a small, highly urbanised and water-scarce city. It has a population of over five million and a large manufacturing economy. Water security is, therefore, a strategic imperative for Singapore.

Faced with this dire situation, Singapore has been successful in improving the supply of water, both in quantity and efficiency, on the one hand, and, moderating the demand for water, on the other.

The water leakage in Singapore is 5 per cent. The demand for water has been gradually reduced. In Singapore in 2003, the per capita consumption was 165 litres. This fell to 151 litres by 2015. Our target is to reduce it further to 140 litres by 2030. Our long-term ambition is to emulate cities such as Hamburg in Germany, where the annual per capita consumption of water is as low as 110 litres.

On the supply side, the introduction of Newater in 2003 was a game changer. At present, Singapore's Newater plants can meet 30 per cent of the nation's needs. This will go up to 55 per cent by 2060. Complemented by desalinated water and rainfall, Singapore's water future looks reasonably secure.

CONCLUSION
I support the UN's goal that by 2030 every person will have access to safe and affordable drinking water. At present, about 269 million Asians do not have such access. To reduce this number to zero in 14 years is a formidable task. I believe, however, that with political will, good governance and sound water policy, the goal can be achieved.

The writer is Ambassador-at-Large at Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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The United Nations was founded in 1945. Last year, on the occasion of its 70th anniversary, the leaders of the world met at its headquarters in New York. On Sept 25, 2015, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a visionary agenda to transform the world.. Read more at straitstimes.com.

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Water & Activism

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In Detroit, protests continue over the city's massive effort to shut off water to thousands of customers who aren't paying their bills. Activists call the move a violation of a basic human need, while city officials call it an economic reality.

Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department has been accruing a massive debt for decades - in part because officials say there was only a token attempt to collect past-due bills. By this year, about half of all water customers were behind on payments, owing a combined $90 million.

So officials here launched an aggressive campaign targeting back payments, using the time-honored utility tactic of shutting off water service until payment arrangements were made.

Some Detroiters are split on the move.

Along the city's busy Woodward Avenue, longtime residents like Clifford Durham say water customers should have known what was coming.

"It's a shame that it's happening, but they had options and budget plans like, 10, 15 years ago," Durham says. "Tell 'em your situation. Don't wait 'til your bill is $300 or $400 and get a shut-off notice," he says. "The protesting that's gonna go on for the water I think is ridiculous."
A Cause Celebre
The sheer number of people shut off - 17,000 - has led to frequent demonstrations and some international attention. The United Nations declared it a human rights violation. Activists, a federal judge, even movie stars like actor Mark Ruffalo - who portrays the alter ego of The Hulk in the Avengers films - joined in what's truly become a cause celebre.

"There's no reason that this city and this state, with all of its wealth, can't come up with some sort of a program to keep this water from being turned off. I mean, it's insane," Ruffalo said.

City officials say they are setting up payment plans for residents, and add that more than half of those who had their water shut off subsequently paid their bills and had service quickly restored.

But others have tried to block the shut-offs, pouring concrete over water mains tagged by the city with blue paint - a kind of scarlet letter indicating the pipes there should be closed.

Tutorials have also spread on Facebook describing how to get water flowing again. Detroiter Nita O'Neal says it's relatively easy to find someone with the kind of long metal keys that open closed water valves - even though only city workers are supposed to have them.

"People gonna turn that water back on. Somebody has a water key, trust me. You give 'em $5, you gonna get your water back on," O'Neal says. "People have to have shelter, food and water."

Turning the water back on that way is, in fact, a crime - it's stealing water. But for families with little or no income, O'Neal says, the stakes are too high to worry about that.

"You got babies that's probably not taking baths. That's opening up the door for protective services to come in, say that you are unfit parent," she says. "This is a game that they're playing, and it's a serious, dangerous game."

City officials counter that water rates are going up in part because people game the system. Paying customers, they say, have to cover the costs for those not paying their bills.

But Water and Sewerage Deputy Director Darryl Latimer says the department wants to cooperate with customers, even those who argue water should be a right, not a privilege.

"I think water is a right. However, if all of our customers took that stand - that it's a human right and we're not gonna pay - then no one would have water," Latimer says.

It remains very much an evolving situation in the city. The water and sewerage department recently began targeting past-due commercial and residential customers, then declared a two-week moratorium on all shut-offs.

Detroit's emergency manager put Mayor Mike Duggan in charge of the formerly autonomous water system. But the department itself remains a bargaining chip in Detroit's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. The city wants out of the water business and the debt it carries and is pushing to either regionalize or privatize the system.

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A Right Or A Privilege? Detroit Residents Split Over Water Shut-Offs

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In Detroit, protests continue over the city's massive effort to shut off water to thousands of customers who aren't paying their bills. Activists call the move a violation of a basic human need, while city officials call it an economic reality.

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Water testing device

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Newsela | Meet the 11-year-old girl who invented water-testing device

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Gitanjali Rao, 11, wins science prize for her portable device that can test for lead in water

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Article + Podcast + Video

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Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a city landmark teeming with tourists, restaurants and - until recently - floating trash.

John Kellett used to walk by Pier 6 every day on his way to work at the Baltimore Maritime Museum on the Inner Harbor. He'd notice the trash floating in the water and hear tourists call the harbor disgusting - and it bugged him.

That's when he developed his idea: a big water wheel to collect the plastic cups, cigarette butts and Cheetos bags that flow into the waterway after rainstorms. Kellett approached Baltimore officials about ways to remove the trash - and they listened. The water wheel is now docked in the harbor.

"It looks sort of like a cross between a spaceship and a covered wagon and an old mill," says Kellett. "It's pretty unique in its look, but it's also doing a really good job getting this trash out of the water."

"I started out thinking, 'Maybe we could bale it like a hay baler.' And then I said, 'Well, that's not necessary; maybe we can make it even simpler - we can just use the power of the runoff that brings it to collect it,' " he says.

Kellett is talking about the runoff from the Jones Falls river. He placed the water wheel right where the river spills into the harbor. That's where trash lingering on Baltimore's streets ends up after rainstorms sweep it into storm drains.

The city used to catch the trash with crab nets. But since the water wheel began churning in May, it has removed 40 tons of trash from the harbor.

That's made business owners like Bill Flohr very happy.

"The water wheel has been a time-saver for us," says Flohr, who runs Baltimore Harbor's East Marina. "It seems to be collecting probably 95 percent of what we normally had to pick up by hand."

Flohr likens the trash that comes into the harbor "to having a box of mice, letting them go in a gymnasium, and having two people try to corral them. The mice spread out, the trash spreads out, and it's a long job to get it clean," he says.

John Kellett knows his invention doesn't solve Baltimore's trash problem, but he's hoping the thousands of tourists who see the water wheel will realize that every piece of trash that ends up on the ground may eventually float by in the water.

Baltimore wants to make the Inner Harbor clean enough for swimming by 2020.

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Baltimore's Water Wheel Keeps On Turning, Pulling In Tons Of Trash

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Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a city landmark teeming with tourists, restaurants and - until recently - floating trash. John Kellett used to walk by Pier 6 every day on his way to work at the Baltimore Maritime Museum on the Inner Harbor.

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Flint, Michigan, USA

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Newsela | It's been three years since Flint residents have had access to safe water

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Sierra Nevada, California, USA

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Newsela | After years of dry weather, California's drought status is finally lifted

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Cape Town, South Africa

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Newsela | Opinion: What is really scarce in a water drought

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Water crises require shared solutions and an understanding of each other's needs

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Why care about water?

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Why Care About Water? | National Geographic

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What would happen if you didn't drink water?

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What would happen if you didn’t drink water? - Mia Nacamulli

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Life without clean water in Ethiopia

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The Journey Episode 2: Life without Clean Water | charity: water