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space INSIGHT, Winter '96 Edition

Regional Reports on Freshwater Augmentation Technologies in Progress

Freshwater resources are vital for meeting basic human needs, and inadequate protection of the quality and the supply of freshwater can impose critical limits on sustainable development. Many health hazards in developing countries and transition-economy countries are related to poor water quality and limited water quantity. Many of these countries use more than their annual freshwater renewal rate by satisfying demands from non-renewable resources. These water shortages are expected to worsen as a result of several factors, including continued rural-urban migration compounding population growth, pollution of surface water sources, and increases in living standards resulting in increased demand. Traditionally, governments respond to extra demand by increasing water supplies for urban dwellers; a practice that is becoming increasingly more difficult as sources of good quality water become more distant, making them more expensive to explore and develop. Over-pumping of ground water will not make up the difference either, as over-pumping has led to salt-water intrusion and a lowering of water tables in many parts of the world. Planners must therefore make wider use of both conventional and non-conventional technologies for augmenting and maximizing the use of freshwater resources.

As an input to what some see as the most important development issue we will face in the coming years, IETC together with the UNEP Freshwater Unit, initiated an effort in mid-1995 to identify and better understand technologies for augmenting freshwater resources. We did this by undertaking regional surveys with specialized partner organizations: the Organization of American States (OAS) in Latin America; The Danish Hydraulic Institute (Bangladesh) for Asia; the Institute of Water and Sanitation Development (Zimbabwe) for Africa; the Institute for Ecology of Industrial Areas (Poland) for Eastern and Central Europe; the Arab Centre for the Studies of Arid Zones and Drylands (ACSAD) for West Asia; and, as Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are both numerous and multi-regional, we commissioned two studies to give us an indication of their special needs, one in the Caribbean carried out by the OAS (involving Malta representing the Mediterranean and Cape Verde representing SIDS in the Atlantic Ocean as a way of broadening the context of this work), and one in the South Pacific being implemented by the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission.

Each study had similar terms of reference, including:

  1. a thorough inventory of local conventional and non-conventional technologies for maximizing and augmenting freshwater resources and where these are being applied in the field;
  2. the hiring of local consultants to analyze the identified technologies and prepare case studies of highly successful applications of these technologies;
  3. preparation, based on activities outlined in above 1 and 2, of a regional document analyzing the technologies, including capital costs, applicability of the technology, need for additional field research, ease of operation and maintenance, required institutional arrangements, and types of equipment required; and ,
  4. organization of a regional workshop of experts to review and finalize the draft document before its publication in IETC's Technical Publication Series as a Source Book on Alternative Technologies for Freshwater Augmentation in each considered region.

By the time this issue of Insight went to press, workshops had been held in Latin America (Lima, Peru, 19-22 September 1995), the insular Caribbean (Bridgetown, Barbados, 24-27 October 1995), Asia (Kathmandu, Nepal, 5-9 November 1995), Africa (Harare, Zimbabwe, 27-30 November 1995), and Eastern and Central Europe (Warsaw, Poland, 6-9 December 1995). The workshops for the SIDS and West Asia will be held in the first and third quarter of 1996 respectively.

The results to date indicate that: (i) both conventional and non-conventional technologies exist to address freshwater problems; (ii) several of the non- conventional or alternative technologies have applications not only in a specific region, but in other regions and could be shared through international and regional technical cooperation projects; and, (iii) the barriers to sharing and acquiring such information include several problems: One is how to communicate information among technical experts as well as to decision-makers. Another is the economic constraints on acquiring analytical information (hard-copy or electronic) on the details of these technologies. A third problem is the lack of legislation and economic incentives to encourage adaptation of existing or new technologies particularly at the local level. Finally, there is also a lack of institutional coordination required to successfully implement and maintain these technologies, including the active involvement of local communities in the planning process.

In addition to publishing each regional study under its Technical Publication Series in 1998, as noted above, IETC will make this information available on the Internet. 




          		
          
          
	        
    
              

	
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