Water Crisis Looms for Many Asian Countries

Floods killed hundreds of people in China this year and heavy rains spread havoc in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and elsewhere. But despite such deluges, much of the booming region is running short of water.

Long an abundant resource in much of Asia, water supplies are being drawn down by increased use from expanding industrial production, rising living standards and growing populations.

Experts have been warning for several years that Asians must reduce consumption and curb waste or face economic and social disruption.

“Water tables are falling, rivers are drying up, and competition for dwindling supplies is increasing,” Sandra Postel, a water expert for the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, said in a recent report.

A World Bank study said water supplies in China “already are being siphoned away from farmlands surrounding Beijing in order to meet rising urban and industrial demands. With some 300 Chinese cities now short of water, this shift is bound to become more pronounced.”

The International Rice Research Institute, based in Los Banos, Philippines, warned in 1995 that competition for water between agriculture and industry could lead to social unrest.

“Projections suggest that most Asian countries will have severe water problems by the year 2025,” the institute said in a report.

The proliferation of wells could dry up underground water sources in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, it added.

“I suspect that in the next 50 years we will see a shift from oil to water as the cause of great conflicts between nations and peoples,” said Wally N’Dow, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Human Settlements held last June in Istanbul, Turkey.

“There is a tremendous economic and human cost involved due to inadequate supplies of water.”

Studies estimate about 60% of drinking water supplies in Third World cities are lost, either by illegal taps into the systems or leakage through rusted pipes, N’Dow said.

That compares with an average of 12% waste in the water systems of Britain and the United States, according to a U.N. survey.

Throughout the developing world, about 20% of urban families buy water from vendors because they have no access to municipal systems.

For the 10 million residents of Jakarta, Indonesia’s biggest city, access to the municipal supply is a mixed blessing.

The water utility, Perusahaan Air Minum, says it is able to supply only 50% of Jakarta’s total needs. And it guarantees only that the water won’t be murky; it doesn’t promise it is safe to drink. Tourists are advised to drink only purified bottled water.

Research by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency found that 73% of shallow wells in North Jakarta are contaminated by human waste and ammonia. About 13% contain heavy minerals, including mercury.

World Bank experts warn that with growing congestion and pollution in Indonesia’s main cities, “it will be increasingly difficult for Indonesia to compete for foreign investment, especially in the higher technology industries needed to enhance the productivity of the labor force.”

The bank said heavy reliance on underground water to serve industrial and domestic needs in Indonesia’s big cities could not continue indefinitely.

In the Philippines, Public Works Secretary Gregorio Vigilar said safe drinking water may be scarce in Manila in five years unless more homes are linked to sewage treatment systems.

Only 10% of 800,000 households are connected to the sewer system. The rest use tanks that dump waste into canals and contaminate underground water.

If left unchecked, the contamination could severely limit the supply of safe drinking water, Vigilar said. A recent cholera outbreak in Manila killed seven people and sickened 310.

As with underground water, many of Asia’s major rivers suffer from overuse and are tapped out during the drier parts of the year, when farm irrigation siphons off large amounts of water.

A 1993 analysis by the World Bank said many river “basins exist throughout Asia where essentially no water is lost to the sea during much of the dry season.”

These include most rivers in India, among them the Ganges, a principal water source for the densely populated and rapidly growing South Asia.

Few countries enjoy the options open to Singapore, a small island city-state with plenty of money.

About half of the total land area of 247 square miles is set aside for water catchment, and there is no more room for building additional reservoirs.

Singapore now buys most of its water from neighboring Malaysia. Officials worry that this supply may be interrupted when current contracts expire because Malaysia’s consumption is growing rapidly with its booming economy.

As a backup, Singapore expects to be operating its first desalination plant within six years to convert seawater into drinking water. Tentative plans call for a total of six such plants.

Desalination is energy-intensive, however, and the cost of such fresh water is seven to eight times higher than the current cost of treated water. That would be a problem for much of Asia, but wealthy Singapore is not worried by the added cost.

“Whatever it is, we are not going to die of thirst,” said the island’s prime minister, Goh Chok Tong.