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Global Rundown
- A new report on the economic importance of a strong water sector forecasts that America will need to invest $3.4 trillion over the next 20 years to modernize its infrastructure.
- As Iran’s water crisis continues, dams in the country’s second-largest city, Mashhad, have dwindled to less than 3 percent capacity.
- Millions of people in Niger, Nigeria, and Ghana are at high risk of surface water contamination and loss as a result of deforestation, a new report indicates.
- The over-extraction of sand from Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, Asia’s largest lake and a crucial Mekong River source, threatens to shrink its wet-season size by up to 40 percent.
The Lead
For every 1,000 hectares of forest cleared in Niger and Nigeria, almost 10 hectares of surface water disappear, according to a study released this month from Water Aid and Tree Aid, two international NGOs.
The links between deforestation and worsening water crises in West Africa are clear, the report shows. Across Ghana, Niger, and Nigeria, 122 million people live in areas of high surface water risk as a direct result of deforestation — a 5 million-person increase in five years. Nigeria alone, which loses 27,000 hectares of vegetation cover annually, accounts for 70 percent of this vulnerable population.
In Niger, the impacts of deforestation are particularly dire. Tree loss imperils nearly all the country’s available freshwater sources. In the primarily arid and semi-arid country, climate change is giving rise to a pronounced “more drought, more flood” phenomenon. Without forests to filter and absorb excess water, storms – when they do arrive – are falling increasingly in extreme bursts, resulting in runoff, contamination, and infrastructure damage. But there is also hope. Of the three countries studied, Niger is the only one to achieve a net gain in forest cover since 2013, adding more than 100,000 hectares.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- New Era of Confrontation Between Energy and Water Opens in Great Lakes — Near Lake Michigan shore a $15 billion data center prompts a small town reckoning.
- Traces of Old Farm Chemicals Contaminate Water Across the U.S. — No surprise: The Trump administration doesn’t want Americans to know they’re there.
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
$1 million
When invested into water infrastructure in America, it yields $2.5 million in economic output, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit U.S. Water Alliance. What’s more, that $1 million provides 10 jobs, $837,000 in labor income, and $1.4 million in GDP.
The publication, a centerpiece of the organization’s Value of Water campaign, links the country’s financial health with sound water investments — a relationship that is strained by widespread underinvestment, it warns. Over the next 20 years, the report estimates that America will need to spend roughly $3.4 trillion to modernize and repair its aging wastewater, treatment, and stormwater facilities. The problem is comparatively worse in rural communities, which face greater needs per-capita than urban areas in 80 percent of states.
Per capita, these investments would have the greatest impact in North Dakota, Iowa, Louisiana, West Virginia, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
“Clean water utilities are on the frontlines of protecting public health and the environment. This report affirms what we have long known — that closing the investment gap will not only safeguard clean water, but also strengthen the entire U.S. economy,” Adam Krantz, CEO of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, said in the report.
In context: After Decades of Neglect, Bill Coming Due for Michigan’s Water Infrastructure
40 percent
Amount by which the wet season-size of Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Asia, will shrink by 2038 if local mining continues at its current pace, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature Sustainability. A rising demand for sand, used to make concrete and glass, has led to increased dredging in the Cambodian lake, which drains for half of the year into the Mekong River, supporting its southern flow. But during the rainy summer months of May through October, rising water levels in the Mekong reverse this trend, and Tonle Sap pulses, “expanding the lake’s surface area by 4 to 6 times and swelling its water volume to 80 cubic kilometers,” Science reports. This dynamic supports some of the world’s most biodiverse riparian, lake, and wetland habitat, and the livelihoods and cultural identities of some 60 million people who live along the Mekong’s shores. In the absence of strong, nutrient-rich pulses, fisheries and water supplies are at risk of collapse.
According to Science, sand is the world’s second most-exploited resource, “often extracted from riverbeds or shores.” Water is the most exploited. Both Cambodia and Vietnam have banned sand export, though its mining from the Mekong watershed continues, to the detriment of its health and local human communities, flora, and fauna.
In Context: Can the Mekong, the World’s Most Productive River, Endure Relentless Strain?
On the Radar
As the Tehran metropolitan area — home to nearly 18 million people — nears a potential Day Zero scenario within two weeks, Iran’s second-largest city is also facing acute water shortages amid widespread drought, exacerbated by mismanagement.
The water levels in dams in Mashhad, population 4 million, have dwindled to less than 3 percent capacity, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. The city’s water consumption has been measured at roughly 8,000 liters per second, “of which about 1,000 to 1,500 litres per second is supplied from the dams,” Hossein Esmaeilian, the chief executive of Mashhad’s water company, told AFP. Residents are urged to reduce their water consumption by 20 percent, he said.
Tehran officials admitted this week that water rationing began too late in the capital, a failure that may now lead to forced evacuations, according to Iran International. The country’s central plateau may be depopulated as a result of “a chronic disconnect between scientists, industry, and government agencies.” Already, residents of villages and rural regions have abandoned their land amid shortages and migrated toward city centers, further straining limited reservoir supplies.
Wetland Watch
MARSH Project: Near the historic downtown of Charleston, South Carolina, a grassroots effort to preserve important salt marshes along the Ashley River — installed amid rollbacks to the Clean Water Act — has proved successful in mitigating floods, the Associated Press reports.
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