Photo © Aubrey Ann Parker/Circle of Blue

Panama is one of the fastest-growing economies in the Western Hemisphere, largely thanks to a new free-trade agreement with the U.S. and an ongoing $US 5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal. Slated for completion in 2014, the expansion will double the canal's capacity, which will reduce emissions, and the new system will recycle 60 percent of the water in each transit, along with an overall decrease of 7 percent less water than is used by the existing locks.

By Brett Walton
Circle of Blue

Food
The food crisis in the Horn of Africa will continue this year, according to a famine early warning system funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Though the famine early warning system has global forecasts, the Horn of Africa is the only emergency spot forecasted in the near term.

In response, the United Nations, which said in a statement that the situation is “expected to get worse”, has called for more than $US 2.3 billion in aid to help Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti to cope with refugee settlement and the short-term effects of the drought. At the same time, the executive director for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says that a million children in Africa’s Sahel region are at risk of malnutrition in 2012 because of poor harvests caused by insufficient rain.

Health
Global health leaders are hopeful that 2012 is the year that Guinea worm, a water-borne parasite, will be eradicated. Infections have fallen from 3.5 million in 1986 to 1,056 during the first 10 months of 2011. Following small pox, Guinea worm would be the second-ever human disease to be eradicated. Polio, another water-borne disease, is next in line. Advocates anticipate a polio-free world in 2013.

Energy
Thanks to the payroll tax cut compromise, U.S. President Barack Obama has 60 days to approve or deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The 2,700-kilometer (1,700-mile) oil conduit from the Canadian tar sands to refineries in Texas would have an initial capacity of 700,000 barrels per day. The president’s decision should come by the end of February.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will make several final decisions this year that could have consequences for water resources, and the agency will start the rule-making process for several new regulations. In the spring, the EPA will decide what pollution controls are necessary for the Navajo Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant that provides nearly all the electricity to move Arizona’s annual share of the Colorado River, 3.5 billion cubic meters (912 billion gallons).

The EPA will also submit a draft rule, expected to be released in January, to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants.

By the end of 2012, preliminary results from the EPA’s investigation into drinking water contamination from hydraulic fracturing will be available. Already this year, Ohio has suspended operations at five deep wells used to dispose of fracking-related fluids, citing concerns of a possible link between well activity and nearly a dozen quakes in the area.

Governments could determine the fate of several large dams on major rivers this year: the Grand Inga on the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the Xayaburi on the Mekong River in Laos; the Mphanda Nkuwa on the Zambezi River in Mozambique; and a cascade of dams on the Nu River in China.

Barring any delays, two World Bank-funded studies on Tajikistan’s proposed Rogun Dam will be completed by the end of the year. The studies are a prerequisite for possible World Bank financing for the project. One study assesses the dam’s technical and economic merits; the other looks at potential environmental and social effects. At 336 meters (1102 feet), Rogun would be the world’s tallest dam, trumping the Nurek Dam, also in Tajikistan.

Policy
In Australia, water management officials are expected to release the final versionof the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, a controversial policy that will reduce the amount of water withdrawn from the basin’s rivers.

During the first half of the year, the U.S. EPA will hold public meetings to formulate a draft version of its new “integrated planning” policy, which will reduce the cost of complying with water quality violations. In October 2011, the agency’s acting assistant administrator for water used a three-page memo to introduce the concept.

March 31 is the target deadline for the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to decide whether or not to approve a plan for removal of four dams in the Klamath River Basin in Oregon and California. The Klamath agreements also include projects for environmental restoration, fisheries, water conservation, and tribal programs.

The Chinese government is expected to release its latest Five-Year Plan for the energy sector. The plan is expected to guide the country’s next phase of hydropower development.

Law
On January 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about landowner rights and government power. The case, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, began when the EPA claimed an Idaho couple was building their home on a wetland — in violation of the Clean Water Act — and threatened fines of $US 32,500 per day until the couple complied. The Supreme Court will decide whether the EPA violated due process laws. If so, the agency may have to seek permission from a judge before using compliance orders, its most common enforcement tool.

The Nevada state engineer will decide by March whether to grant groundwater rights in four rural valleys to the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the wholesale provider for the Las Vegas area.

In August the International Court of Arbitration will submit its final decision on India’s Kishanganga hydroelectric project, a point of contention between India and Pakistan since construction began five years ago. In the fall of 2011, the court issued an interim decision that ordered India to halt construction of works that would permanently affect the river’s flow.

This could be the year that the International Maritime Organization’s convention on ballast water management is approved. The convention would reduce the risk of invasive aquatic species by requiring cargo ships to manage the water they use to balance their loads. For the convention to enter into force, it must be ratified by countries representing 35 percent of the world’s merchant shipping tonnage. To date, the convention is 9 percentage points below that threshold.

Meetings
The sixth edition of the water-sector’s largest gathering, the World Water Forum, will take place March 12 through 17 in Marseille, France. The fourth World Water Development Report will be released that week.

In June, sustainable development advocates will come together in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit, a landmark conference that produced agreements on climate change and biological diversity. This iteration will focus on the green economy and poverty.

Arts
Several water-themed documentaries will be released in 2012. The global water crisis is the subject of Last Call at the Oasis, while actor and director Robert Redford narrates The River Red, a film that considers a new “water ethic” for the Western United States. Hidden history is the topic of Under the City, in which filmmakers go underground to explore rivers buried by urban development in London and New York City, among others.

Photographer Edward Burtynsky, who has turned his lens on the mining and oil industries, is now working on a series about water, which will be completed in 2013.

Brett Walton is a Seattle-based reporter for Circle of Blue. Walton can be reached at brett@circleofblue.org.

While landowners took to Australia’s streets in mid-August to demand greater protection against the potentially lucrative coal seam gas industry, opposition groups in South Africa were mustering strength against shale gas exploration that, they say, could threaten the nationally significant Karoo region.

Australia and South Africa are among an increasing number of countries around the world that are reckoning with the prospects of developing unconventional fuels to bring revenue, to diversify energy sources, and to reduce carbon emissions.

But the rapid expansion of the unconventional fuels industry, along with the large volumes of water needed to unlock gas from underground coal beds and shale rock formations, have raised concerns over the potential damage to underground water aquifers, human health, food production, and the environment. These industries are also creating competition over land and water rights, which could spill over into political and social disputes.

Dewatering Australia: Coal Seam Gas v. Agriculture
In recent weeks, Australian farmers have locked gates on properties and organized protests against coal seam gas and coal mining companies trying to tap underground resources in prime agricultural lands.

The protesters, many of them farmers, worry that coal seam gas — also known as coalbed methane (CBM) extraction, which withdraws pre-existing water from the coal seam, thus reducing the pressure and allowing the methane gas to separate from the solid coal and to flow to the surface — might pollute the water resources for drinking and farming. They are demanding a moratorium on CSG drilling, until the health and environmental impacts of the process can be assessed further. The CSG “dewatering” process typically takes two years.

Around 2,000 yellow signs bearing “Lock the Gate” slogans were hung on farm gates throughout Queensland and New South Wales in mid-August, encouraging land owners to stand up to the energy companies, Sky News reported.

Protesters also gathered at a recent mining conference in Sydney on August 18, according to ABC News.

The recent events follow months of wrangling between farmers and miners over energy production, traditionally a very influential sector in Australia. The tensions also sparked political controversy earlier this month, when the Greens Party called for new laws to give stronger rights to farmers, enabling them to keep coal seam exploration rigs off their land, Reuters reported.

According to Australian legislation, the rights to below-ground deposits belong to the government, instead of to individual landowners, meaning that citizens have a hard time keeping energy companies off their property.

Meanwhile, Australia’s CSG industry — a major source for the country’s growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector – plans to build roughly $US 70 billion worth of LNG projects in Queensland state over the next seven years; a scenario that is also estimated to create thousands of new jobs each year. Exploration is also advancing in neighboring New South Wales, according to Reuters.

Fracking South Africa’s Karoo Region: Shale Gas Exploration in the Desert
Similarly, South Africa has been gauging the extensive risks associated with the potentially big economic benefits of proposed shale gas drilling in its Karoo region, a semi-desert area known for its stark beauty and indigenous plants; a region that is also believed to hold substantial deposits of shale gas.

Earlier in August, Yale Environment 360 reported that opposition to natural gas drilling is growing among farmers, landowners, and environmentalists in the country, amid concerns that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking – the process of injecting water, chemicals, and sand at high pressure into rock formations to free up the oil and natural gas trapped inside – will deplete and pollute the Karoo’s scarce water supplies.

The worry is that the poverty-stricken region will become the arid twin of the Niger Delta’s swampy mangroves, where foreign oil companies and long years of conflict have contaminated the Nigerian land and water.

In July, protesters chanted outside the Shale Gas South Africa Conference in Johannesburg, where Shell South Africa – just one in a score of companies eyeing shale gas in Karoo — was to discuss its fracking plans for the region.

Earlier this year, in February, South African farmers and environmentalists voiced a public concern over plans to look for shale gas. Then, in May, the South African government said it would conduct a comprehensive feasibility study of hydraulic fracturing before it decides on the shale gas applications in its Karoo region, and the government imposed a moratorium on the use of the fracking technique until that time. This announcement came on the heels of a number of policy decisions in China, Europe, and the United States that have set diverse agendas for shale gas drilling around the world.

Source: Australia Broadcasting Corporation News, Sky News, Toowoomba Chronicle, Yale Environment 360, Reuters

On Wednesday, Western countries clashed with Russia and developing nations over whether climate change is a matter of national and international security that merits the attention of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Reuters reported.

Although it initially blocked the adoption of a statement on the issue, Russia later agreed to a revised text that referred to the “possible security implications” of global warming.

The heated discussion — the first formal Security Council debate on the topic in four years — came as Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general for the United Nations, said that climate change is a real threat to international peace and security, urging developed countries to lead the global effort against it and emerging economies to take their fair share of the responsibility, according to a U.N. news release.

“Extreme weather events continue to grow more frequent and intense in rich and poor countries alike, not only devastating lives, but also infrastructure, institutions, and budgets – an unholy brew which can create dangerous security vacuums,” Ban said.

In the debate called by Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month, Western speakers said that climate-induced aridity had contributed to conflicts in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region and in Somalia, where a famine has just been declared by the U.N. The region is currently battling its worst drought in 60 years.

But Russia said Moscow was “skeptical” about attempts to put climate change on the Council’s agenda and expressed concerns that this will “lead to further increased politicization of this issue and increased disagreements between countries.”

Temporary Council members India and Brazil said they also doubted whether the body should address the issue. Meanwhile, a number of developing countries saw the discussion as an attempt by big economies to meddle with the authority of the U.N. General Assembly and other U.N. agencies that are specifically focused on climate change and the environment.

Earlier, Achim Steiner, the under secretary general for the U.N. and executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), said that climate change was advancing faster than were efforts to contain it; efforts which are plagued by slow-moving U.N. negotiations and other measures.

“What the ever-evolving scenarios and scientific findings suggest are continuing, accelerating, and even ‘tipping point’ trends linked to environmental change, including climate change,” he said. “This is happening in a world of close to 7 billion people, rising to over 9 billion by 2050, and on a planet where resource constraints are rapidly emerging.”

In a presidential statement, the Council said that “possible adverse effects of climate change may, in the long run, aggravate certain existing threats to international peace and security.”

The U.N. Secretary General also added that the world must move from conceptual discussions to concrete measures. For instance, in December, at the next Conference of Parties (COP 17) to the United nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa, global leaders must make a decisive move towards achieving these goals.

Sources: Reuters, United Nations

Wastewater is being recycled in hopes that it will alleviate the stress placed on Perth’s water supply, reported the Sydney Morning Herald. The highly treated water could reach home taps within 18 months.

Western Australia, where Perth is located, has been experiencing drought conditions since 1970, with winter rain levels decreasing as much as 20 percent since that decade, WA Today reported last year after a study on the drought was released.

The reservoirs that typically provide Perth’s drinking water are currently around 20 percent full, so the government is looking into alternatives—especially since a study by the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Water Research predicts that supplies will run out by the 2012 summer if nothing is done.

Still, there is much opposition to the plan, including from scientists in Australia and the U.S.
Steven Oppenheimer of California State Northbridge University and Peter Collignon of Australian National University agree that recycled drinking water could be a health risk, reported The West Australian. Oppenheimer said that the plan was the equivalent of “playing Russian roulette” with health, while Collignon stressed the importance of rigorous testing before implementing any recycled water into the drinking supply, as he believes current tests are not sufficient.

Government policy makers insist the recycling method is safe and emphasize that the water is needed quickly.

“Some people are nervous about recycled water being used in Western Australia. Time to get over that,” said Brendon Grylls, leader of the National Party of Australia, as quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Jorg Imberger, director of the Centre for Water Research, said recycled water is the only option for water-stressed Western Australia and must be a top priority, according to WA Today. While the current plan is to allow the treated wastewater to mix with the aquifer’s natural water for 18 months, Imberger believes the process can, and should, be accelerated.

“My opinion is, pull it out right away; there’s no health issues,” Imberger told WA Today.

Australia will not be the first to turn wastewater back into drinking water. Singapore has been doing it for seven years and produces 30 percent of its freshwater needs through recycled gray water, which it branded NEWater, as Circle of Blue reported in January. After the water passes through traditional water treatment plants, it is purified for drinking through a three-step process that includes micro-filtration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet treatment.

Recycled water has also been used to recharge groundwater supplies in Orange County, California, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA states that recycling water provides a locally controlled water source and keeps water from being diverted from natural ecosystems.

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, WA Today, The West Australian

As is the case in China, Australia—one of the world’s largest coal, copper, and uranium producers—suffers from a geographical mismatch of water resources and mineral deposits.

In the nation’s relatively dry interior, mining and processing require more than 100,000 cubic meters (26 million gallons) of water each day. To increase output, mining companies will need more water than is locally available, but hydrological demands have already surpassed the supply limit in many areas.

Water recycling is widely employed—up to 80 percent of the mining water in the Bowen coal basin is re-used, according to University of Queensland professor Damian Barrett—but even these measures can’t overcome natural constraints.

To alleviate this chokepoint, there are plans for a multi-billion-dollar network of water infrastructure projects—a desalination plant, dams, and more than a thousand kilometers of pipelines, most of which will be approved this year—that will transport water from reservoirs, aquifers, and the ocean to mines in the states of South Australia,Western Australia, and Queensland, Australia’s leading coal producer.

Project: Connors River Dam and Nathan Dam

Project: Moranbah-Galilee Pipeline

Project: Olympic Dam

Not only are Australia’s large-scale projects reminiscent of China’s massive water infrastructure projects, but China’s growth is also spurring them. Between 2008 and 2009, copper exports to China—Australia’s top trading partner—doubled and coal exports increased ten-fold, according to Australia’s trade statistics.

Read more: Bohai Sea Pipeline Could Open China’s Northern Coal Fields and A Dry and Anxious North Awaits China’s Giant, Unproven Water Transport Scheme

Residents of the planet’s driest places rely on extensive waterways to deliver their supply. Click through the interactive infographic below to learn more about 10 cities that rely on extensive waterways, plus additional plans to expand networks even further.

Graphic by Kelly Shea, an undergraduate student at Ball State University.

With contribution by Aubrey Ann Parker and Brett Walton. Parker is a Traverse City-based data analyst and news desk editor for Circle of Blue and can be reached at aubrey@circleofblue.org. Walton is a Seattle-based reporter for Circle of Blue and can be reached at brett@circleofblue.org

]]>