The World’s Most Hostile International Water Basins

At the launch of A New Climate for Peace, a new report on climate-fragility risks produced for the G7 by a consortium of international partners including the Wilson Center, USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator Christian Holmes called water a common denominator for climate risk.

“How you manage your water programs…has a huge amount to do with how you mitigate the prospect for increased fragility,” he said. “Sometimes it’s the obvious that’s so easy to miss, and I think that the obvious on water as it relates to economic development is, essentially, the question of sustainable water supply.”

One of the most striking infographics from A New Climate for Peace touches on that question of supply. Using data from Oregon State University’s Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database and adapted from a graphic that originally appeared in Popular Sciencelast year, the map shows the world’s most active – and tension-filled – international water basins.

Water is a common denominator for climate risk

The Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database measures not only the frequency of hostile events in a basin, but cooperative ones as well, each on a sliding scale. Hostile events range from declarations of war (zero recorded from 1990 to 2008, the period of time encompassed by the graphic) to leaders using “language of discord.” Cooperative events range from “mild verbal support” to “voluntary unification into a single country.”

The total number of events is indicated by shades of blue – the darker the blue, the more transboundary events, both positive and negative. This is essentially the “hot list” of international water basins – which regions have the most official and unofficial chatter over water.

Circles superimposed on the basins represent the total number of hostile events. As the description text points out, however, “circle size does not automatically translate into conflict danger.” In some places, transboundary institutions and diplomatic frameworks allow different actors to work through their differences. Cooperative hostility, if you will. In the Danube River Basin, for example, the high number of “hostile” events is mitigated by strong cooperative incentives associated with European integration. Likewise in North America, where Canada, the United States, and Mexico share several basins with a high number of hostile events, there is little chance of violent conflict.

Water basins in South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa are major hotspots with a high number of hostile events and weaker institutional frameworks to mitigate them. The Indus, Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Salween, Tigris-Euphrates, and Jordan basins witness a very high number of interactions, suggesting at least that continued dialogue could be a way forward to mitigate the risk of violent conflict or fragility. The Nile Basin has less activity reflecting the stalled negotiations between the basin’s 10 member states to replace colonial-era water agreements. The Mekong Basin, where the largest member, China, does not participate as a full member of the Mekong River Commission, shows less activity as well.

The map does a great job illustrating why it can be difficult to answer the question, where is the highest risk of water-related violence? Tensions between states and other freshwater basin actors isn’t necessarily a sign of impending violence if there’s a framework to resolve them. Likewise, lack of communication over a major natural resource can be a bad sign for cooperation when the resource in question is the Nile. More

More infographics from ‘A New Climate for Peace: Taking Action on Climate and Fragility Risks’ are available on NewClimateforPeace.org.

 

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This machine makes salty water drinkable

The American engineers who traveled to rural India two years ago believed they were going to help poor villagers get rid of microbes in their drinking water. But soon after their arrival, they began hearing about a different problem: salt.

“People kept talking about the salt in the water,” recalled Natasha Wright, a doctoral candidate who was part of the team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology that made the journey in 2013. “The groundwater beneath the villages was brackish.”

Those complaints inspired new technology that could some day supply water to thirsty villages and drought-stricken farms in other parts of the world. The MIT team developed a solar-powered water desalination system that uses the sun’s energy to turn brackish liquid into contaminant-free water safe for drinking and for crops.

While there are dozens of different desalination systems in use around the world, MIT’s is uniquely designed to be small, relatively cheap and 100-percent solar-powered, making it suitable for remote areas where the electricity supply is unreliable or non-existent, Wright said.

The panel of judges last month deemed the machine’s potential so impressive that they gave the inventors the $140,000 “Desal Prize,” an award sponsored by Securing Water for Food, a joint project of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the governments of Sweden and the Netherlands. Some 68 engineering teams from 29 countries competed in the contest, hosted by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation in Alamogordo, N.M.

“Providing a sustainable water supply is important for the West, the country and the world,” Esteva Lopez, the department’s reclamation commissioner, said after the top prize was awarded to MIT and its research partner, Jain Irrigation Systems.

Wright said she and fellow engineers from MIT’s Global Engineering and Research Laboratory became aware the extent of saltwater intrusion in northern and central Indian aquifers during visits to investigate solutions for widespread water contamination in India. In addition to problems with bacterial contamination, the groundwater in much of rural India is brackish, having a salt content lower than seawater but still high enough to cause problems. In some of the villages visited by the MIT researchers, locals were trying unsuccessfully to remove the salt using filters and chemicals.

“People complained about the salty taste,” Wright said, “and the salt ruined their cooking pots.”

Traditional desalination systems are expensive and require substantial amounts of electricity to operate, making them impractical for India’s remote farming communities. Instead, the MIT researchers designed a system that removes salt through a process called electrodialysis, using a series of electrodes and membranes to remove the salt. They added solar panels and batteries to run the pumps and charge the electrodes. Then, in a final step, they installed ultraviolet light arrays to kill any microbes remaining in the water.

The finished prototype is small enough to fit in a tractor-trailer and includes photovoltaic cells to supply the electricity. The system, when fully operational, can supply the basic water needs of a village of between 2,000 and 5,000 people, MIT officials said. Although the prototype was more expensive, Wright said the team is hopes to lower the costs of a village-sized unit to about $11,000.

Such a lower-power system is useful mainly for treating brackish water and not seawater, which contains far more salt. But the prototype now being tested could handle water that contains salt concentrations of up to 4,000 parts per million, meaning it would work in about 90 percent of India’s wells, Wright said. Seawater’s salt concentration averages about 35,000 parts per million.

“There are places where this kind of system won’t work, but the advantage is, it uses half the energy of other systems,” said Wright. And, thanks to solar cells, “you can be fully off the grid.” More

 

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Water Resource Management- New Publication 2014

Department of Organic Food Quality and Food Culture, University of Kassel and Department of Archaeology and Heritage Management, Rajarata University, Sri Lanka are pleased to announce about the publication of their new research paper, titled "Water Resource Management in Dry Zonal Paddy Cultivation in Mahaweli River Basin, Sri Lanka: An Analysis of Spatial and Temporal Climate Change Impacts and Traditional Knowledge" in the Special Issue "Changes in precipitation and impacts on regional water resources", Climate Journal International.

The paper may be accessed at http://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/2/4/329

Abstract: Lack of attention to spatial and temporal cross-scale dynamics and effects could be understood as one of the lacunas in scholarship on river basin management. Within the water-climate-food-energy nexus, an integrated and inclusive approach that recognizes traditional knowledge about and experiences of climate change and water resource management can provide crucial assistance in confronting problems in megaprojects and multipurpose river basin management projects.

The Mahaweli Development Program (MDP), a megaproject and multipurpose river basin management project, is demonstrating substantial failures with regards to the spatial and temporal impacts of climate change and socioeconomic demands for water allocation and distribution for paddy cultivation in the dry zone area, which was one of the driving goals of the project at the initial stage. This interdisciplinary study explores how spatial and temporal climatic changes and uncertainty n weather conditions impact paddy cultivation in dry zonal areas with competing stakeholders' interest in the Mahaweli River Basin.

In the framework of embedded design in the mixed methods research approach, qualitative data is the primary source while quantitative analyses are used as supportive data. The key findings from the research analysis are as follows: close and in-depth consideration of spatial and temporal changes in climate systems and paddy farmers' socioeconomic demands altered by seasonal changes are important factors. These factors should be considered in the future modification of water allocation, application of distribution technologies, and decision-making with regards to water resource management in the dry zonal paddy cultivation of Sri Lanka. More

 

 

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India and Pakistan at Odds Over Shrinking Indus River

Nearly 30 percent of the world's cotton supply comes from India and Pakistan, much of that from the Indus River Valley. On average, about 737 billion gallons are withdrawn from the Indus River annually to grow cotton—enough to provide Delhi residents with household water for more than two years. (See a map of the region.)

Baseera Pakistan Aug 2010

"Pakistan's entire economy is driven by the textile industry," said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "The problem with Pakistan's economy is that most of the major industries use a ton of water—textiles, sugar, wheat—and there's a tremendous amount of water that's not only used, but wasted," he added.

The same is true for India.

That impact is an important part of a complex water equation in countries already under strain from booming populations. More people means more demand for water to irrigate crops, cool machinery, and power cities. The Indus River, which begins in Indian-controlled Kashmir and flows through Pakistan on its way to the sea, is Pakistan's primary freshwater source—on which 90 percent of its agriculture depends—and a critical outlet of hydropower generation for both countries.

(Related: "See the Global Water Footprint of Key Crops")

Downstream provinces are already feeling the strain, with some dried-out areas being abandoned by fishermen and farmers forced to move to cities. That increases competition between urban and rural communities for water. "In areas where you used to have raging rivers, you have, essentially, streams or even puddles and not much else," said Kugelman.

In years past, the coastal districts that lost their shares of the Indus' flows have become "economically orphaned," the poorest districts in the country, according to Pakistani water activist Mustafa Talpur. Because Pakistani civil society is weak, he says, corruption and deteriorating water distribution tend to go hand in hand.

In the port city of Karachi, which depends for its water on the Indus, water theft—in which public water is stolen from the pipes and sold from tankers in slums and around the city—may be a $500-million annual industry.

In the balance is the fate not only of people, but important aquatic species like the Indus River dolphin, which is now threatened to extinction by agricultural pollution and dams, among other pressures. Scientists estimate that fewer than 100 individuals remain.

Threat to Peace?

One of the potentially catastrophic consequences of the region's fragile water balance is the effect on political tensions.

In India, competition for water has a history of provoking conflict between communities. In Pakistan, water shortages have triggered food and energy crises that ignited riots and protests in some cities. Most troubling, Islamabad's diversions of water to upstream communities with ties to the government are inflaming sectarian loyalties and stoking unrest in the lower downstream region of Sindh.

But the issue also threatens the fragile peace that holds between the nations of India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed rivals. Water has long been seen as a core strategic interest in the dispute over the Kashmir region, home to the Indus' headwaters. Since 1960, a delicate political accord called the Indus Waters Treaty has governed the sharing of the river's resources. But dwindling river flows will be harder to share as the populations in both countries grow and the per-capita water supply plummets.

Some growth models predict that by 2025, India's population will grow to triple what it was—and Pakistan's population to six times what it was—when the Indus treaty was signed. Lurking in the background are fears that climate change is speeding up the melting of the glaciers that feed the river.

Mountain glaciers in Kashmir play a central role in regulating the river's flows, acting as a natural water storage tank that freezes precipitation in winter and releases it as meltwater in the summer. The Indus is dependent on glacial melting for as much as half of its flow. So its fate is uniquely tied to the health of the Himalayas. In the short term, higher glacial melt is expected to bring more intense flooding, like last year's devastating deluge.

Both countries are also racing to complete large hydroelectric dams along their respective stretches of the Kashmir river system, elevating tensions. India's projects are of a size and scope that many Pakistanis fear could be used to disrupt their hydropower efforts, as well as the timing of the flows on which Pakistani crops rely.

(Related: "Seven Simple Ways to Save Water")

"Many in Pakistan are worried that, being in control of upstream waters, India can easily run Pakistan dry either by diverting the flow of water by building storage dams or using up all the water through hydroelectric power schemes," said Pakistani security analyst Rifaat Hussain.

For years, Pakistani politicians have claimed India is responsible for Pakistan's water troubles. More recently, militant groups have picked up their rhetoric. Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the Pakistani militant group allegedly responsible for the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, even accused India of "water terrorism."

Hope for the Future

In the past few months, however, the situation has improved, according to Kugelman. "We've been hearing nearly unprecedented statements from very high-level Pakistani officials who have essentially acknowledged that India is not stealing Pakistan's water, and that Pakistan's water problems are essentially a function of internal mismanagement issues," he said. Militants are still griping, he said, "but not as shrilly."

This may be because the two countries are cooperating on water and other issues better than before, and because militants are now focusing less on their archenemy in India and more on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

"But I imagine this is momentary," said Kugelman. "The facts on the ground—the water constraints in both India and Pakistan—have not abated. They're both still very serious and getting worse."

What's needed, he says, is more conservation and adaptation—a smarter way of doing business. More

This Article is part the National Geographic Society’s freshwater initiative and is a multiyear global effort to inspire and empower individuals and communities to conserve freshwater and preserve the extraordinary diversity of life that rivers, lakes, and wetlands sustain.

 

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Himalayan Water Security: The Challenges for South and Southeast Asia

The scramble for control of natural resources to support economic and population growth, combined with the uncertain effects of climate change on the Tibetan Plateau, is raising tensions in Asia over Himalayan water resources.

Ten of the region’s largest and longest rivers (the Amu Darya, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Salween, Tarim, Yangtze, and Yellow) originate in the Himalayas. These rivers help provide water, food, and energy for nearly 4 billion people in China and across South and Southeast Asia—nearly half of the world’s population. However, depletion and diversion of these transborder resources to meet growing industrial, agricultural, and urban demands have the potential to trigger far-reaching economic, social, and environmental challenges.

The lack of comprehensive and effective regional frameworks for cooperation hinders sustainable management of these waterways. China, which controls the headwaters of these rivers, has an enormous need for Himalayan water to satisfy economic and energy demands but has little incentive to participate in formal water-sharing and water-management agreements with its neighbors. China’s dam-building and water-diversion projects are a source of major concern to the countries downstream, which often complain about Beijing’s lack of transparency and reluctance to share information. Although managing water-sharing relations with China might be the most prominent challenge, cooperation is not much easier at the middle and lower reaches of the rivers. Collaboration in South and Southeast Asia is frequently frustrated by competing national interests, economic priorities, political disputes, and weak regional organizations. In addition to the environmental impacts of man-made diversion projects and unsustainable freshwater usage, there is also inadequate cooperation on scientific research to understand and prepare for the effects of climate change on the region’s water supplies.

This Asia Policy roundtable contains seven essays that discuss the challenges and implications of water security in Asia and recommend steps that both upstream and downstream countries could take to better manage the region’s shared water resources.

Asia’s Unstable Water Tower: The Politics, Economics, and Ecology of Himalayan Water Projects
Kenneth Pomeranz

China’s Upstream Advantage in the Great Himalayan Watershed
Jennifer L. Turner, Susan Chan Shifflett, and Robert Batten

Melting the Geopolitical Ice in South Asia
Robert G. Wirsing

Himalayan Water Security: A South Asian Perspective
Tushaar Shah and Mark Giordano

Hydropower Dams on the Mekong: Old Dreams, New Dangers
Richard P. Cronin

Climate Change and Water Security in the Himalayan Region
Richard Matthew

Securing the Himalayas as the Water Tower of Asia: An Environmental Perspective
Jayanta Bandyopadhyay

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As I have been arguing for a number of years South Asia needs to re-negotiate the Indus Water Treaty to encompass Afghainstan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan before the region starts to suffer from water insecurity and the effects of climate change. Editor

 

 

 

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Rains Failing Over India:

Feeble 2014 Monsoon Heightens Concerns That Climate Change is Turning A Once-Green Land into Desert

El Nino has yet to be declared. Though signs of the Pacific Ocean warming event abound, they are still in the early stages. But for all the impact on the current Indian Monsoon — the rains this vast sub-continent depends on each year for a majority of its crops — the current pre-El Nino may as well be a monster event comparable to 1998.

For the rains that have come so far have been feeble. By June 18, precipitation totals were more than 50% below the typical amount by this time of year for northern and central India and 45% below average for the country as a whole. A stunted Monsoon that many are saying is about as weak as the devastatingly feeble 2009 summer rains. And with Pacific Ocean conditions continuing to trend toward El Nino, there is concern that this year’s already diminished rains will snuff out entirely by mid-to-late summer, leaving an already drought-wracked India with even less water than before.

Through June 25th, the trend of abnormally frail monsoonal rains continued unabated:

India cloud cover on June 25, 2013 [Left Lower image] compared to India cloud cover on June 25 of 2014 [right upper image].

Note the almost complete lack of storms over India for this year compared to 2013 when almost the entire country was blanketed by rains. Image source: LANCE-MODIS.)

India’s Rain Pattern Has Changed

It’s not just that 2014 is a bad year for India. It’s that the current weakened monsoon comes at the tail end of a long period in which the rains have increasingly failed. Where in the past it took a strong El Nino to stall the rains, ever-increasing human atmospheric and ocean warming have pushed the threshold for Monsoonal failure ever lower. Now even the hint of El Nino is enough to set off a dry spell. A growing trend of moisture loss that is bound to have more and more severe consequences.

A new study by Stanford University bears out these observations in stark detail. For the yearly monsoon that delivers fully 80 percent of India’s rains has fallen in intensity by more than 10% since 1951. And though a 10% loss may seem relatively minor, year on year, the effects are cumulative. Overall, the prevalence of dry years increased from 1981 to 2011 by 27% and the number of years experiencing 3 or more dry spells doubled.

Meanwhile, though a general drying trend has taken hold, rain that does occur happens in more intense bursts, with more rain falling over shorter periods. These newly intensified storms are more damaging to lands and homes, resulting in both increasing destruction of property while also greatly degrading the land through more intense erosion.

25 Percent of India’s Land is Turning to Desert

Loss of annual monsoonal rains is coming along with a dwindling of water flows from the melting Himalayan glaciers. These two climate change induced drying effects are already having stark impacts.

For according to the Indian Government’s Fifth National Report on Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought, a quarter of India’s land mass is now experiencing desertification even as 32 percent is suffering significant degradation due to heightening dryness and erosion. This amounts to more than 80 million hectares of land facing desertification while more than 100 million hectares are steadily degrading. The report also noted that areas vulnerable to drought had expanded to cover 68% of the Indian subcontinent.

From the report: (India Monsoon.)

Desertification and loss of biological potential will restrict the transformation of dry lands into productive ecosystems. Climate change will further challenge the livelihood of those living in these sensitive ecosystems and may result in higher levels of resource scarcity.

Monsoonal Delay, Weakening Continues

By today, June 26, the long disrupted and weakened monsoon continues to sputter. Moisture flow remains delayed by 1-2 weeks even as the overall volume of rainfall is greatly reduced.

Though storms have exploded over some provinces, resulting in flash flooding, much of the country remained abnormally dry.

Overall, preliminary negative rainfall departures remained at greater than 40% below average for most of the nation with only five provinces receiving normal rainfall and the remaining 31 receiving either deficient or scant totals. More

 

 

 

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‘China a concern for South and Central Asia’s water security’

New Delhi: With China building a “cascade of dams” in the upper reaches of rivers that flow into Central and South Asia and drawing large amounts of water to sustain its economy and people, there is a need to engage the Asian giant at bilateral and multilateral fora on the issue of water that is fast becoming a scarce and contentious commodity, said diplomats and experts here.

Himalayas - Source of S. Asia's water

Addressing a round table on “Regional Water Security and Riverine Disputes: Issues Common to Central and South Asia” here Thursday, speakers, including ambassadors from Central Asian countries and other domain experts, also said that there is a need for Track II dialogue between civil society activists of countries and for transparency in sharing of hydro information in order to resolve the issues concerning sharing of water.

Leading strategic expert Brahma Chellaney said Central and South Asia share common water security issues. He said China is “happily placed” as it is home to the largest number of trans-border rivers, which all originate from the Tibetan Plateau and the Xinjiang region. Chellaney said China’s “annexation” of Tibetan Plateau and Xinjiang “changed the water discourse” for the people of South and Central Asia.

Chellaney, who is professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research, said China “is an issue of concern in South Asia and Central Asia… China is building a cascade of dams just before the rivers flow out of its territory.”

Ajay Bisaria, joint secretary in the Eurasia division of the external affairs ministry, said that India stands to benefit from the Central Asia South Asia Electricity Transmission and Trade Project, better known as CASA-1000, a new electricity transmission system to connect the countries of hydropower producing countries of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Ashok Sajjanhar, former ambassador to Kazakhstan, said the Aral Sea from being a lake of plenty with fish, birds and wildlife, has turned into an “ecological disaster” with very high salinity and water level shrunk massively. The Aral Sea is a lake lying between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Sajjanhar said the issue of water distribution and water management between countries sharing water bodies is very crucial.

Rajiv Dogra, former ambassador, said the Central Asian water bodies were once clear blue and pristine, but have shrunk due to overuse.

“A drop of water is a grain of gold”, is the value placed on water in Turkmenistan, said the country’s Ambassador Parakhat Hommadovich Durdyev at the seminar held at the India International Centre and organised by the think tank Society for Policy Studies in collaboration with Asia News Agency.

William Young, Lead Resource, South Asian Water Initiative, World Bank, said the Ganga plains is inhabited by 600 million people, which shows the dependency on the river. He said the World Bank was looking to establish dialogues for the Ganga and Brahmaputra basin river countries.

Sanjoy Hazarika, director of Centre for North East Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, said the run of river dams that China was building on the Brahmaputra removes the fertile silt from the river water when it is released downstream into India, thereby harming agriculture and leading to climate change.

Hazarika also slammed the idea of interlinking of rivers being proposed in India, terming it a disastrous idea. More

 

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World’s largest hydropower project planned for Tibetan Plateau

This is part of a special report produced by on the future of the Brahmaputra river – one of the world’s great transboundary rivers – which starts on the Tibetan Plateau before passing through India and Bangladesh.

Also read:
- It’s time for a new era of cooperation on the Brahmaputra
- Why India and China should leave the Brahmaputra alone
- Brahmaputra river is a living ecosytem, not just a source of hydropower

The Tibetan Plateau, the world’s third pole, gives birth to many of Asia’s major rivers. As the key for maintaining the continent’s ecology, and one of the world’s most important ecosystems in its own right, it is of huge strategic significance.

The Yarlung Tsangpo (known as the Brahamputra in India), which runs alongside the majesty of the Himalayas, is the world’s highest river. It runs west to east along the rift created by the impact of the Eurasian Plate, cutting through the Tibetan Plateau until it meets the point where the Himalayas, the Nyenchen Tanglha and Hengduan mountains join. Here it forces its way between the Gyala Peri and Namcha Barwa peaks to form the world’s deepest gorge, then makes its way to South Asia where it joins the Ganga and flows to the Indian Ocean.

The Yarlung Tsangpo rises at a high altitude, in a geologically complex area. The river’s powerful flow, long course and large drop in altitude give it great potential for hydropower development. But the scale of dam building planned by China and India could have disastrous ecological consequences.

China’s plans date back to the early 1990s, when it carried out a series of hydropower development surveys of the river, with the Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge the focus of interest.

In the late 20th century, this gorge was recognised as the world’s deepest. In the 400 kilometres from the top of the gorge, the river twists around the mountain of Namcha Barwa (known as the Great Bend) and loses more than 2,000 metres in altitude, forming several waterfalls and giving up huge energy potential as it goes. Hydropower experts say a tunnel that cuts the river’s natural loop could carry 2,000 cubic metres of water a second, with a drop in altitude of 2,800 metres – enough to power a 50-gigawatt hydropower station that could provide 300 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year. It would be the largest hydropower project in human history – about three times the size of the Three Gorges Dam.

The world’s largest dam

Eleven hydropower stations are planned on the river, three along the middle reaches from Sangri to Gyaca, and nine on the gorge up to the Great Bend, with total generating capacity of 60 gigawatts.

Work started on the Zangmu Dam – one of the three planned on the Sangri-Gyaca section – in 2010 and this is expected to be generating electricity this year. There are also plans for about 65 gigawatts of hydropower development on the major tributaries of the Yarlung Tsangpo.

India has also been planning hydropower development along the Yarlung Tsangpo and its tributaries on a huge scale; public and private companies have proposed 168 massive dams, to produce 57 gigawatts of hydropower in the country’s north-east.

Floods, landslides and extinction

The Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge is a young and still active geological formation, any interference could have disastrous knock-on effects, from which the ecosystem may not be able to recover.

There are powerful geological stresses here, and seismic activity and landslides are common. The gorge is still taking shape, and I have found more than 100 active landslips or mudslides which any future earthquakes could worsen.

In the early 1950s, an earthquake of magnitude 8 on the Richter scale caused many secondary landslides, which resulted in sustained flooding downstream. In April 2000, I personally witnessed a huge landslide at Yi’ong, which created a four billion cubic metre barrier lake. Sixty days later the barrier failed. The resulting floods affected millions of people and paralysed transportation. Natural disasters of this type are common here.

We still don’t know what the long-term impact of climate change will be on the Tibetan Plateau, but the glaciers and snowlines of the Himalayas are retreating, depriving the rivers of a source of water. If this continues, the plateau’s waterways will be cut off, or even dry up and the land will become a desert.

Today, the ecosystem of the gorge region is already in decline. The primary forests made up of tall trees are now over-mature and swathes of forest over 2,500 metres in altitude are dying. Secondary growth is mono-cultural – the forests are failing to regenerate. Meanwhile, the Monpa and Luopa people who live deep in the gorge continue slash-and-burn methods of farming – the forests on many steep slopes have been torched to provide farmland, resulting in the rapid spread of soil erosion and landslides.

Much of the area’s wildlife – it is one of the most biodiverse regions of the world – is also facing extinction. The ecosystem of the gorge and surrounding areas have become fragmented, meaning animals have smaller areas in which to roam. This leads to imbalances in the food chain, while the mono-cultural secondary forests prevent populations growing and surviving.

The importance of the Tibetan Plateau’s environment to the health of the Yarlung Tsangpo and other rivers should not be ignored. Its worsening environment is a major factor in the degradation of the ecologies of the Yarlung Tsangpo and other rivers; interference from human development and hydropower projects will only add insult to injury. More

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