China, Guizhou: two million hit by drought

A drought in southwest China has left over two million people short of drinking water, the government said.

Guizhou province has been under the grip of a drought since early July 2011. Rainfall last month was 70 percent less than average, according to new agency Xinhua.

The drought has affected over one million hectares of crops and left 760,000 livestock short of drinking water. This has caused an economic loss of more than six billion yuan (US$ 923 million).

Source: ©Indo-Asian News Service, MSN News, 12 Aug 2011

China: Algae outbreak in major lake threatens drinking water for 300,000

A green algae outbreak has been reported in China’s fifth-largest freshwater lake, threatening the drinking water source for 300,000 residents in an eastern city.

Three to four square km of green algae were found on the east part of Chaohu Lake, the water source for Chaohu city, Su Huimin, chief of Chaohu municipal environment protection bureau, said Thursday [08 July 2010].

“Hot weather and flood discharge from the more polluted western Chaohu

Lake have led to the algae outbreak,” said Su.

Su told Xinhua that the drinking water supply for local residents has not been affected so far, but the green algae was close to the city’s drinking water source.

“We will now test the water quality every two hours, instead of every four hours as before,” said Tang Xiaoxian, director of the local environment monitoring center.

Tang added that local authorities have beefed up monitoring of the green algae and also sent boats to clear it.

Covering an area of 13,000 square km, Chaohu suffers from severe environmental pollution, with lake embankments destroyed and wetland damaged during the urbanization and industrialization drives in the province.

In 2007, an algae outbreak in China’s third-largest freshwater lake, Taihu, cut tap water supplies for more than 1 million people in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province for about 10 days.

Source: Bi Mingxin, Xinhua, 08 Jul 2010

Afghanistan, Badghis: Maqurites struggle for drinking water

Villagers in a district of western Badghis have to carry water from as far away as 25 kilometres due to a lack of wells or other resources, officials and locals said. Those living in Samadi, Noorkhel, Musazai, Niaz, Firozi and Nabikhel villages in Maqur district all lacked access to clean drinking water, officials said.

Haji Abdul Samad said 1,600 families living in his village of Samadi all faced problems getting clean drinking water. Even though the river was not clean, people were forced to drink from it, he said. However, during the summer months, the dirty water was undrinkable. He urged the government to provide clean drinking water for the village.

In Noorkhel village, Zemaray said his family needed at least 200 litres of water a day which they were bringing from an area up to six kilometres away.

Dr. Muhammad Arif, in charge of a clinic in the district, said the dirty water spread disease and many villagers were falling sick with stomach ailments.

Director of the national solidarity programme in the province, Abdul Salam, said they had dug a number of wells in the area, but they were not deep enough and so the water was still not fresh. He called on the international community to provide better access to clean water.

Source: NNI, Frontier Post, 13 May 2010

Sri Lanka: water shortages grip southeast

A new cottage industry has emerged in Sri Lanka’s southeastern Ampara District – mobile water sellers, plying their trade on bicycles with large water barrels tied to their backs.

With the end of this year’s seasonal rains in May, Ampara, about 350km southeast of the capital, Colombo, is in the grip of a serious water shortage likely to last until November, affecting lives and livelihoods – not just in Ampara, but in surrounding communities as well.

Each morning men on bicycles now travel into the jungle to locate water springs and bring the water to populated areas.

According to residents, the going rate for drinking water is about 25 US cents per 25 litres.

Others fortunate enough to have water in their backyard wells are also selling it, while hiding their buckets at night to prevent theft of the precious resource.

“I have to go to work and can’t go out looking for water,” Priyanga Nishan, a resident of Ampara, told IRIN, explaining why he now had no choice but to purchase water.

[T]wo of the main water canals, Ekkgal Oya and Namal Oya, had dried out completely, forcing farmers to abandon their cultivation activities.

So bad is the situation that on 3 September [2009], about 500 villagers in the Damana area, south of Ampara town, blocked the main road with burning tyres to protest against the lack of water.

[..] Given prevailing conditions, water is now being released from irrigation tanks once every fortnight in the district, insufficient to meet the needs of farmers

Source: IRIN, 08 Sep 2009

Bangladesh: RDA’s water use model gets global recognition

Rural Development Academy (RDA), Bogra, [presented the] RDA-Model of Water Management [during the World Bank Water Week 2009] in Washington, DC on February 19, [2009].

The water management model uses underground pipes to irrigate fields and distribute drinking water to households from deep tube-wells which drastically reduce wastage of water.

[...] MA Matin, director of Centre for Irrigation and Water Management of RDA [...] started an experimental irrigation programme named Buried Pipe Irrigation System in 1982 at Narhatta village of Kahalu upazila in Bogra to ensure more water to villagers, save electricity and minimise cost. [...] In 1987, the second phase of the experimental programme was introduced at Shasibadani village in Bogra Sadar. In the second phase the facility of drinking water distribution from the same deep tube well was added.  “One deep tube well provided drinking water for 2,200 people and ensured irrigation water for 60 hectares of land in the village,” said Matin.

“Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA), Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) and Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) along with other government establishments have started replicating the RDA model throughout the country,” he added. The RDA used the model in more than 200 villages in 55 districts, sources said.

A large amount of government money is being saved as the deep tube wells and the pipe network is owned buy beneficiaries, claimed Matin. “For example the RDA completed a water supply project with eight deep tube wells at a cost of Tk 16 lakh on both side of the Bangabandhu Bridge. The government in 1998 planned to complete the project spending Tk 1.36 crore,” he said.

The RDA also implemented an arsenic- and iron-free water supply project on Jamuna Fertiliser Company premises at Tarakandi in Jamalpur spending Tk 3.25 crore whereas Japan wanted nearly 10 times more to complete the automatic water supply project, Matin claimed.

[...] Sayda Begum, 35, wife of Mohammed Dulu Miah of [Garh Mohastan village of Shibganj upazila in Bogra], said her family is now better protected against waterborne diseases as dirking water is supplied to her home through pipes. “Most of the villagers were suffering from waterborne diseases before,” she said. The RDA has been supplying drinking and irrigation water to the village for six years.

Deep tube well owner Jahangir said, “We have been providing arsenic- and iron-free drinking water for monthly Tk 10 per person. Each person gets 150 litres of water a day.” The RDA gave him the total cost of the well as soft loan, Matin said.

Source: Hasibur Rahman Bilu, Daily Star, 16 Feb 2009

India: seventy per cent of schools in seven states without toilets, national survey reveals

[...] Seventy per cent of [elementary] schools in as many as seven states are without toilet facilities and 20 per cent elementary schools in over 10 states have no drinking water facilities, [a new] study said.

[In] Arunachal Pradesh [...] 78 per cent schools [are] without toilet facilities, it said.

The study, compiled by National University of Educational Planning and Administration based on the District Information System for Education data for 2007-08, was tabled in Parliament last week.

Minister of State for HRD M A A Fatmi had said in Parliament that [...], 2.65 lakh [265,000] toilets and 1.93 lakh [193,000] drinking water facilities have been sanctioned under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan [programme for universal elementary education] till date.

[...] The data for the study was collected from all the 35 states and union territories.

In Maghalaya, half of the elementary schools had no access to drinking water supply, and over 73 per cent of the schools in Assam did not have toilets, a key element contributing to the high drop-out rate among girls.

Gujarat emerged as the only state where just 7 per cent of schools function without headmasters and 12 per cent of the schools are without drinking water facilities.

Delhi, on the other hand, had only [...] nine per cent without toilets and less than one per cent without drinking water facilities.

Neighbouring Uttar Pradesh fared relatively better with a little over two per cent of the schools having no water supply.

The picture remained the same for all other states except for Lakshadweep, which emerged the only state with all the schools having drinking water facilities.

Note: Reports based on 2007-08 data are not yet available on the District Information System for Education (DISE) web site.

Source: The Hindu, 25 Dec 2008

India, Gujarat: New Independent Review Documents Failure of Narmada River Dam

For decades, the Sardar Sarovar Dam on India’s Narmada River has been a powerful symbol of what is going wrong with large dam projects. A new independent review shows that the project’s benefits have not been realized, while the social, environmental and financial costs are even more serious than expected.

Dam proponents are promoting Sardar Sarover as “the lifeline of Gujarat.” They say the project will irrigate large swathes of land, generate electricity and provide drinking water to the thirsty cities of this dry state in western India. If completed, the project will displace more than 300,000 people, including many indigenous communities in the Narmada Valley.

In August [2008], one of India’s leading think-tanks, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), published a detailed analysis of the costs and benefits of the Sardar Sarovar Project [under the title "Performance and development effectiveness of the Sardar Sarovar Project"]. The conclusion of this independent review [regarding drinking water supply was]:

• The project authorities are reneging on their promise to supply drinking water to Gujarat’s population. They have increased industry’s share of the water to industry from 0.20 to 1.00 million acre feet (MAF), while drinking water for domestic use has been reduced from 0.86 to 0.06 MAF.

[...] The independent review concludes as follows: “It is strongly recommended that the dam height at 121.92 m should not be raised further …, at least until the past obligations are fulfilled, the benefits of 121.92 m are completely realized, and an honest comparative analysis of future costs and benefits is carried out. Such a decision would also ensure that concerns on social and ecological impacts are addressed, responsibility for non-compliance is fixed, and violators are penalized.”

Read more: Peter Bosshard, International Rivers, 15 Dec 2008

See also: Manasi Singh, Narmada dam again under the scanner, OneWorld South Asia, 20 Nov 2008

China to spend $3 billion on water projects

China has earmarked 20 billion yuan ($3 billion) of a massive economic stimulus packet for shoring up risky reservoirs, improving irrigation networks and supplying clean drinking water in rural areas, state media said.

[...] Government funds for water projects are to be assigned within 10 days and the money spent by March [2009]. {…] “Our target is to enhance the safety of key reservoirs by 2010, provide qualified drinking water for all rural residents by 2013 and complete the construction of water-saving facilities for large-scale irrigation areas across the country by 2020,” Xinhua quoted Vice Premier Hui Liangyu as saying.

[A] third of all counties and villages do not have adequate water infrastructure, Xinhua said.

Source: Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters, 18 Nov 2008

India, Karnataka: Govt committed to provide potable water, Yeddyurappa

The State government [of Karnataka] is committed to provide potable water from surface-level sources to all urban and rural areas in five years, Chief Minister (CM) Yeddyurappa said on Thursday [16 Oct 2008]. [A]t present only 20 per cent of urban dwellers and four per cent of rural people are getting drinking water from reservoirs. The rest depend on ground water.

“By the year 2050 total requirement of water for drinking purpose will go up to 154 tmc against 70 tmc at present. The proposed project will be worked out considering the total demand for water in 2050. The government will implement the project worth Rs 53,877 crore in a phased manner,” Yeddyurappa said.

[...] The CM also gave his consent to prepare a [drinking water] master plan [and] a plan to promote rainwater [...] across the State.

Source: Deccan Herald, 17 Oct 2008

China doubles drinking water shortage statistics in less than a week

BEIJING, Feb. 29 (Xinhua) — The number of Chinese officially suffering drinking water shortages has more than doubled in less than a week after the government revised its statistics. The State Flood and Drought Relief Headquarters on Friday released new figures showing 5.9 million people with drinking water shortages, more than double that figure of 2.43 million published on Feb. 24. A headquarters spokesman would not elaborate on the revision, but said the situation was due to a lingering and severe winter drought.

Read more: Xinhua, 29 Feb 2008