The City of Cape Town has warned its residents they are likely to face water restrictions in the coming 12 months after poor rainfalls this year.

Mayoral committee member for utility services Shehaam Sims [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 14 Nov 2011

The City of Cape Town has warned its residents they are likely to face water restrictions in the coming 12 months after poor rainfalls this year.

Mayoral committee member for utility services Shehaam Sims said people in and around the city would have to carefully control how much water they used in the coming dry season.

“We had good rains this year, but they came mostly out of the wet season when the temperatures had warmed up,” Sims said.

“There was a lot of evaporation as a result and now the Western Cape dams are at 86 percent capacity, compared to 93 percent last year.”

Sims said Capetonians tended to use up every drop of water allocated to them by the water affairs department. A meeting between the city, the department and other water bodies would be held next week to decide on whether to impose summer water restrictions or not.

“Last year we were allocated a capacity of 1090 megalitres per day,” Sims said.

“Cape Town uses about 920 megalitres. We are quite close to the allocation.”

Sims said residents in the city should try to save water by reducing their shower time, only flush toilets when necessary and repairing leaks. She asked people to report leaks in public areas to the city on 0860-103-089.

- Sapa

Residents of Polokwane Municipality, including the business sector, are being urged to drastically cut down on use of water with immediate effect as water reservoirs dry up.

The main culprit is the continuous [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 03 Oct 2011

Residents of Polokwane Municipality, including the business sector, are being urged to drastically cut down on use of water with immediate effect as water reservoirs dry up.

The main culprit is the continuous watering of gardens.

Municipal spokesperson Simon Mokoatedi said the reservoir levels were alarming.

He confirmed that the Potgieter reservoir was empty and the Krugersburg reservoirs were at 20%.

The reservoir supplying Seshego from the Olifants River is at 0.5%.

The municipality is regulating flow and diverting supply to areas in intervals, which is leading to low pressure and complete shortages in some areas. Seshego and Legae la Batho are without water. The city and Mankweng are experiencing low pressure.

According to the municipality, the main culprit is the continuous watering of gardens, despite it issuing several warnings.

“All sources are pumping water into the city at full capacity and these sources have exceeded the quota for extracting water. Unfortunately, there is no other source to augment the supply. The municipality is warning the public if the high usage of water continues at this rate, the entire municipality will experience serious water shortage,” said Mokoatedi.

“This is largely attributable to an increasing trend in a number of factors such as the watering of gardens, leaking pipes, washing of cars and using hoses.”

Meanwhile, the municipality is importing 93% of its water, supplied from outside the borders of the municipal area – 56% is imported from the Letaba water scheme and 37% from the Olifants scheme. The balance of 7% is supplied from sources within Polokwane.

On average, the municipality supplies 64.95 megalitres (ML) per day but the supply has increased to more than 72ML per day over the past four weeks.

“This usage is not sustainable and we have to cut back drastically to avoid shortages,” said Mokoatedi.

By: Mpho Dube
Source: New Age

With climate change now widely recognised as the major environmental problem facing the world, the South African government is taking awareness to schools with plans to incorporate more environmental studies into the school curricula.

Professor Jenny Day, director of the Freshwater Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, said much has to be done to ensure that the Mother City does not dry up.

The Table [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 17 June 2011

Professor Jenny Day, director of the Freshwater Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, said much has to be done to ensure that the Mother City does not dry up.

The Table Mountain fossil aquifer has been there for millions of years. Extraction would permanently reduce the amount of water.

This could even include pumping water from under Table Mountain.

“The Table Mountain Series Aquifer stretches from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town and up to the Cederberg. We think there is an awful lot of water but we don’t know what we can exploit without causing any damage. Or how much of it would be replaced by rainfall,” she said.

The city is currently investigating this option.

Day’s views have been backed up by the Department of Water Affairs which on Monday announced that the Western Cape could face dire water shortages within the next six years.

But these shortages will not bring the city to a grinding halt if Capetonians “use water more sparingly”.

In the mid-1980s, Day co-authored Vanishing Waters, in which he predicted that, by about 2015, many of the country’s larger cities will experience permanent drought conditions.

According to the department’s latest Western Cape water supply system study, few surface water development options are available “for augmenting water supply to the City of Cape Town and surrounding towns”.

“Population growth and the subsequent growth in the economy have been identified as major factors that are placing exponential strain on the water available for users,” the department said in a statement.

“The users include the City of Cape Town, as well as municipalities of Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, Swartland and Saldanha as well as agricultural users.”

But it is not all doom and gloom for the city. Millions have been invested in infrastructure upgrades and replacements, water metering and water pressure management among other measures to reduce water losses.

The city also plans next month to issue a tender for a feasibility study to build a “large scale” seawater desalination plant. And feasibility studies on a large-scale re-use programme are also on the cards.

Day said desalination, although expensive, was not far off.

“In my opinion it is going to have to happen in Cape Town not very long from now. But because it is so expensive, they have to look at other options first.”

Phil Mashoko, director of water and sanitation for the city, said it was pivotal to start planning for the future supply of water.

“There is no reason for people to panic. We are being proactive by putting plans in place now to ensure that we don’t run out of water six years from now,” Mashoko said.

Last year the city embarked on a water conservation campaign which will be intensified.

Source: Times Live
Related arcticel: Desalinated sea water for city in four years

In its desperate efforts to battle chronic water shortages, Jordan, one of the world’s 10 driest countries, is mulling “unconventional” and “environmentally unfriendly” plans, experts say.

The plan is to provide the capital [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 06 April 2011

In its desperate efforts to battle chronic water shortages, Jordan, one of the world’s 10 driest countries, is mulling “unconventional” and “environmentally unfriendly” plans, experts say.

The plan is to provide the capital Amman with water for 50 years.

The challenge is huge for this tiny country where desert covers 92% of the territory and the population of 6.3 million is growing.

Critics said the government’s efforts to manage the country’s limited water resources and generate new ones are being hindered by a strategy which at best is chaotic.

Jordan is tapping into the ancient southern Disi aquifer, despite concerns about high levels of radiation, while studies are underway to build a controversial canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.

“Unconventional projects, like Disi for example, are environmentally unfriendly,” said water expert Dureid Mahasneh, a former Jordan Valley Authority chief.

Radiation

The $990m project seeks to extract 100 million cubic metres of water a year from the 300 000-year-old Disi aquifer, 325km south of Amman, officials said.

The plan is to provide the capital Amman with water for 50 years, said water ministry official Bassam Saleh, who is in charge of the project that was launched in 2008 and is due to be completed in 2012.

A 2008 study by Duke University in the US, shows that Disi’s water has 20 times more radiation than is considered safe, with radium content that could trigger cancers.

“Our research shows that the Disi aquifer is heavily contaminated with radium,” according to the study done by the Durham, North Carolina team which tested 37 pumping wells in the aquifer.

“Disi water should not be touched. How can you go for a non-renewable water resource that is contaminated with radiation and needs treatment?” Mahasneh said.

But the government has brushed aside such concerns.

“We know there is radiation in Disi because it is underground water but we will treat it by diluting it with an equal amount of water from other sources,” said Saleh.

Major pumping effort

Jordan University professor Elias Salameh agreed. “The radioactivity can be treated, and it is not a complicated matter.”

Munqeth Mehyar, of the Jordanian-Israeli-Palestinian non-governmental group Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), warned against abusing the water resource.

“If we over pump the Disi water, we will suffer from problems like sinkholes for example. And there are no studies that tell you for sure how long the aquifer water would last,” he said.

Jordan has also agreed in principle to build, along with its Palestinian and Israeli neighbours, a $4bn pipeline from the Red Sea to refill the rapidly shrinking Dead Sea.

But the world’s lowest and saltiest body of water lies below the Red Sea and the pipeline must cross higher land in order to reach it – a project that will entail a major pumping effort.

A desalination plant would also be built to remove the salt and provide 200 million cubic metres of potable water to Jordan each year.

“This project is worrisome. It will cause indescribable damage,” Mehyar warned.

Challenge

A feasibility study is being carried out by the World Bank but environmentalists fear that an influx of seawater could undermine the Dead Sea’s fragile ecosystem.

The degradation of the Dead Sea began in the 1960s when Israel, Jordan and Syria began to divert water from the Jordan River – the Dead Sea’s main supplier.

Over the years 95% of the river’s flow has been diverted by the three neighbours for agricultural and industrial use, with Israel alone diverts more than 60% of it, according to FoEME.

The impact on the Dead Sea has been compounded by a drop in groundwater levels as rainwater from surrounding mountains dissolved salt deposits that had previously plugged access to underground caverns.

Industrial and tourist operations around the shores of the lake exacerbate the situation.

“We ask the government to keep an open mind while examining the plan,” said Mehyar.

The government acknowledges the project will be a challenge.

Water mismanagement

“Six studies on the Red-Dead plan’s impact on the environment are currently being conducted,” said Fayez Batainah, who heads the project at the water ministry. “We are coordinating and cooperating with the World Bank and all concerned sides.”

But Mahasneh said the authorities did not have a comprehensive strategy.

“There is chaos in the country’s water polices. We do not have a real strategy and efficient water management, and the current plans did not consider what independent experts think or say,” he said.

“The country for example is still cultivating crops that consume a lot of water. We should import these crops and save our water,” he said, singling out tomatoes and bananas.

More than 60% of Jordan’s annual water consumption of 900 million cubic metres goes to agriculture, which contributes 3.6% to gross domestic product, according to official figures.

“We have water… but we suffer from massive water mismanagement,” Mehyar said.

According to him, around 48% of pumped water supplies are lost annually due to worn-out pipes and theft.

“We need very firm decisions to deal with such problems. If we save this lost water, our situation will improve a lot. We do not even have a comprehensive study about the water situation in Jordan,” Mehyar said.

Jordan’s population is expanding by 3.5% a year and every drop of water is needed.

Years of below-average rainfall have created a shortfall of 500 million cubic metres a year, and the country forecasts it will need 1.6 billion cubic metres of water a year by 2015.

- Sapa

According to a new study by WWF and German development bank DEG, the shortage of freshwater is not only becoming more and more of an ecological risk, but it also is rapidly becoming a [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 04 April 2011

According to a new study by WWF and German development bank DEG, the shortage of freshwater is not only becoming more and more of an ecological risk, but it also is rapidly becoming a major business growth risk – one that investors need to take into account.

Access to sufficient water of adequate quality is of considerable economic significance.

Assessing Water Risk: A Practical Approach for Financial Institutions, states that climate change, population growth and increasing living standards are contributing to the rising pressure on existing and already scarce water resources, particularly in developing countries. In Southeast Asia and Africa, for example, water shortages constitute a threat to entire ecosystems and to the living standards of the population.

“The availability of water also is becoming a development bottleneck for companies. With the water risk filter we have now developed a new tool to identify such risks to companies and to offer support in water management,” said Dr Peter Thimme, head of DEG’s department for Sustainable Development/Environment.

Access to a sufficient quantity of water of adequate quality, he added, is therefore of considerable economic significance.

“Our intention is to provide the conscientious investor with the knowledge to work with clients toward more sustainable water management, with the aim of mitigating both business and environmental risks,” according to the study.

“Business risk stemming from a company’s relationship to water can be broken into three broad, inter-related categories: physical – as a result of too little, too much or polluted water; regulatory – with dwindling availability and increased pollution, the regulation of water is bound to become stricter; and reputational – public and media awareness of water and how companies are handling this resource is on the rise.

The report goes on to state that “all of these risks can cause disruption of supply and, in worst cases, termination of business operations.”

According to DEG and WWF, 191 out of over 300 companies studied as part of the report showed high potential business risks related to freshwater. Concrete support measures to mitigate these water risks will now have to be initiated, according to the report.

”Sustainable use of water is a responsibility of companies to eco-systems and the local population, which is dependent on this water,” confirms Martin Geiger, head of Freshwater at WWF Germany.

In particular, the report shows that the agribusiness’ are at a particular risk since they sector accounts for 70 percent of global water consumption. If countermeasures are not taken now, water-intensive agricultural produce may become scarce in the future and the companies concerned may face economic risks, according to the report.

The newly developed water risk filter system in the report is intended to identify water-related risks at an early point in time so they can be considered in investment decisions.

The tool also outlines possible courses for action for companies from different industries and regions, which may be threatened by water shortage or pollution, either directly or in their supply chain.

DEG is planning to support the implementation of individual business approaches to improve the situation in a follow-up project financed by funds for technical assistance from the bank. The development finance institution in turn hopes this will cushion the ecological and economic impacts of the ongoing water crisis.

Additionally, the project produced more than 80 detailed and comprehensive country fact sheets on individual water situations and mappings.

Source: WWF

Durban could face water restrictions as early as next year. This is the warming from eThekwini municipality water department head Neil Macleod, who said last week that recent good rains are the only reason [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 06 March 2011

Durban could face water restrictions as early as next year. This is the warming from eThekwini municipality water department head Neil Macleod, who said last week that recent good rains are the only reason restrictions have been avoided so far this year.

Rainwater Harvesting is a sustainable way of augmenting municipal supply

“The total rainfall for last year, for this region, was the fourth lowest on record. The dams at the beginning of this year were on average 20 percent lower than at the start of 2010. We typically have a series of wetter years followed by a series of dryer years. The wet years have continued for an extended period and have protected us for the statistical possibility of restrictions.

“If we’d had normal rainfall over the past three years, we would almost certainly be in the middle of water restrictions right now,” he said.

And the situation is likely to get worse. “For 2011, I do not see restrictions being introduced. But 2012 could be a different story. We are nearing the end of the summer rains and if we have a dry winter comparable to last year, then water restrictions in 2012 are almost inevitable,” he said.

Macleod’s comments come just two weeks after Professor Mike Muller, former Department of Water Affairs director-general and now commissioner of the government’s National Planning Commission, warned that South Africa will face a water crisis within the next decade.

He singled out the eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth) and Joburg metros as the municipalities likely to first feel the shortages.

Muller told the Sunday Tribune yesterday that it is vital for cities to plan to ensure they avoided water crises.

“We need to plan and do the right things at the right time. Water is difficult because you don’t know exactly how much you have. You’re working on estimates of how much rain will fall, but it might not be the same as what you’ve estimated.

“We need to ensure not only that we have enough water now, but that we have enough if there is a drought. If that happens, we need to know we have plans in place. The national Water Affairs department has plans for all major cities, but often they are not implemented in time.

Every city needs to think about what it needs to do and whether it is doing it,” he said.

Muller said he was impressed with the efforts of Macleod’s department to reduce water losses and ensure available water was being used effectively. “Every city, when it plans, needs to look beyond building dams. They need to conserve and better use the water they’ve got,” he said.

Macleod said: “We are at a point where our dams are unable to sustain the current demand over an extended period and the risk of failure is one in 15 years – that means water rationing every 15 years, statistically.”

Adding to the problem in Durban is the amount of water lost or stolen, with the recent draft budget report for the 2011/12 financial year stating that 35 percent of the city’s water is lost or stolen through illegal connections.

Macleod said measures were in place to reduce this figure, including replacing ageing pipes and managing water pipe pressure.

But Macleod said other measures need to be considered, including building the Spring Grove Dam in the KZN Midlands and building a dam in the Umkomazi River.

Spring Grove should have been storing water five years ago, he said, “but construction work has not even started” despite an ever-growing demand for water. Macleod said even if Spring Grove was built there would still be a need for more capacity.

The other option would be to dam the Umkomazi River.

“The most recent estimate I saw put the final cost at close to R20 billion. Environmentally, the proposed site is also in a rather sensitive area.

“Continuing with traditional dam building is becoming unaffordable from both economic and environmental perspectives,” he said.

Given this, other more innovative measures are needed, including desalination of seawater and recycling water. Recycling is cheaper but has other implications.

“People don’t like the idea or want to drink recycled sewage. It has a ‘yuck’ factor. This is despite the fact that most of our water comes from heavily polluted waters, but it is the thought of recycled sewage that disturbs people. Durban’s water, for example, has Pietermaritzburg’s sewage in it. Recycling is more an emotional thing, and that’s the really big negative we’re facing,” Macleod said.

A desalination plant would cost about the same to build as a recycling plant – about R1.6bn to R2bn.

“Recycling is cheaper because the amount of impurities, and this might be surprising, are higher in seawater than sewage, making it easier to treat than seawater. Sewage plants would be inland, while the desalination plant is at sea level, so the amount you spend on pumping the treated water is less. While the capital costs are about the same, the operation costs do differ,” he said, adding they would be run by a private company, probably foreign, because of the specialist nature of the work.

Both options are being researched, but Macleod said a decision was needed urgently.

“Whatever we build, it has to be built by 2013 or 2014. We need it really soon,” he said.

Macleod encouraged ratepayers to report water theft or leaks so they can be dealt with quickly. The toll-free number is 080 131 3013.

By: Matthew Savides
Source: iol

Demand for water in agriculture and energy production could spike in the coming decades while catastrophic floods and droughts strike more often, a water conference in Canada is to hear this week.

A [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 28 February 2011

Demand for water in agriculture and energy production could spike in the coming decades while catastrophic floods and droughts strike more often, a water conference in Canada is to hear this week.

A pair of denim jeans requires up to 6 tons of virtual water

“At unpredictable times, too much water will arrive in some places and too little in others,” said Zafar Adeel, chair of UN Water which coordinates water-related efforts of 28 United Nations organizations and agencies.

Within a generation, water demand in many countries is forecast to exceed supply by an estimated 40 percent.

In other parts of the world prone to flooding, catastrophic floods normally expected once a century could occur every 20 years instead.

Meanwhile, spending on technologies and services to discover, manage, filter, disinfect and desalinate water, improve infrastructure and distribution, mitigate flood damage and reduce water consumption by households, industry and agriculture is expected to rise to a trillion dollars annually by 2020.

Some 300 scientists, policy-makers and economists will release these and other research findings as well as proven new tools, ideas and best practices for optimizing water management at a Canadian Water Network international conference in Ottawa.

The event kicks off on February 28 and runs through March 3.

Conference speaker Hans Schreier of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver will present research buttressing the need for flood-prone areas to brace for more frequent disasters.

He pointed to Canadian insurance data showing claims resulting from extreme weather increased 20-fold in the past 30 years and flood-related claims now exceeding fire and wind insurance claims every year.

Schreier called for improved road and street designs to minimize rainwater runoff.

“Until now, all we’ve ever done in urban environments is to drain everything into rivers and lakes,” he told AFP.

But curbs, drains and impermeable surfaces could be replaced where possible with grassy shoulder depressions that collect and absorb rainwater while directing excess runoff into constructed wetlands or storm water retention ponds.

This would mitigate flood damage, but also polluted runoff normally drained via pipes into lakes and rivers would be instead filtered and cleaned as it sinks through the ground, helping compensate the extensive loss of wetlands to development.

Other low-cost innovations might include home driveway designs and materials that allow most precipitation to be absorbed instead of running onto streets and roads, he said.

Another topic to be discussed at the conference is the impact of water shortages on businesses that rely on “virtual water” or the amount of water used in production of items.

A desktop computer, for example, requires 1.5 tons (1,500 liters) of water; a pair of denim jeans up to 6 tons; a kilogram of wheat 1 ton; a kilo of chicken 3 to 4 tons; a kilo of beef 15 to 30 tons.

Nicholas Parker, chairman of the Cleantech Group, said: “What people don’t often realize is how much water there is in everything we make and buy, from t-shirts to wine.”

One proposal is to list water used on product package labels to inform consumers and encourage conservation, said Adeel, noting that annual global trade in “virtual water” now exceeds 800 billion tons, the equivalent of 10 Nile Rivers.

As developing countries gain wealth, their citizens’ demands for food and energy, which both require a lot of water to produce, will skyrocket, Adeel warned.

“We have to be prepared for the security challenges that will arise from this,” he said.

Policy innovations to be discussed include helping farmers reuse water or tap into municipal waste water to “get a lot more bang out of your buck for the same volume of water.”

Agriculture is the biggest water user by far at 71 percent worldwide.

Similarly, coupling industries so that runoff from one plant can be used as an input for another would go a long way to reduce shortages, Adeel said.

On the social front, he said it is important to get local entrepreneurs engaged.

He pointed to India where an estimated 500 million people have cell phones but only 350 million have access to toilets.

“That says there is something in their marketing approach that the cell phone companies have got right. We just need to duplicate that (business acumen) to bring clean water and sanitation to all,” he said.

- AFP

South Africa faces a water crisis and could start having critical shortages as early as 2020; experts told the inaugural South African Water and Energy Forum in Johannesburg.

Water shortages will largely be [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 15 February 2011

South Africa faces a water crisis and could start having critical shortages as early as 2020; experts told the inaugural South African Water and Energy Forum in Johannesburg.

Water shortages will largely be due to demand outstripping supply

The forum’s two-day conference is being held at the Sandton Sun for local and international experts to deliberate on water and energy supply issues in South Africa and globally.

Former Water Affairs director- general and visiting professor at the Wits University Graduate School of Public and Development Management Mike Muller told delegates that “a crisis is looming … If we don’t panic now and take action now, we will be in a crisis by 2020.”

Metropolitan municipalities including eThekwini, Nelson Mandela Bay, and the City of Johannesburg, will be the first to be hit by shortages.

The shortages, Muller said, will largely be due to water demand outstripping supply, and to a lesser extent by poor water quality as municipal infrastructure deteriorates.

Other contributing factors include leaking pipes and the theft of water for agricultural purposes by farmers along the Vaal River.

“Good water management is very important for growth and development,” said Muller.

“South Africa will not run out of water, but the next drought will see supply cuts. New work must start now.”

He urged the government and municipalities to start building water infrastructure immediately.

Business Leadership South Africa CEO Michael Spicer said South Africa had sophisticated legislation and institutions, but was failing to implement those pieces of legislation.

SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Neren Rau said the crisis was “now”.

“Government has to take the lead. We don’t believe this is being taken seriously.”

Pancho Ndebele, director for Emvelo, a company specialising in solar energy and water eco-solutions, said it was important that companies understand their water footprint.

In Europe, he said, companies were toying with the idea of detailing the water footprint of every item they sell.

By: Sipho Masondo
Source: Times Live
Related Article: Water crisis looms for South Africa

Increasing drought and aridity around the world, linked to climate change and land degradation, are becoming a major threat to food security and poverty reduction efforts, according to the United Nations’ anti-desertification chief.

Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 14 February 2011

Increasing drought and aridity around the world, linked to climate change and land degradation, are becoming a major threat to food security and poverty reduction efforts, according to the United Nations’ anti-desertification chief.

Farmers in Africa’s Sahel region have planted trees on 5 million hectares of degraded land, since 1975

Stepping up investment in restoring degraded land and curbing desertification could work toward solving a wide range of the world’s most pressing problems – climate change, food security, water shortages and the threat of growing conflict and migration, said Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification.

“No one is unaffected by desertification,” he said in an interview with AlertNet. “It is affecting our food security, entrenching people in poverty, increasing our water stress and leading us to lose biodiversity.”

The U.N. desertification convention, a lesser-known cousin of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, aims to curb degradation of dry land around the world and the advance of deserts, a major problem in regions including Africa’s Sahel zone and China.

Since 1950, 1.9 billion hectares (4.7 billion acres) of land around the world has become degraded, a problem that has reduced harvests, contributed to changing rainfall patterns and increased the vulnerability of millions of people, Gnacadja said. Each year, on average, another 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of land a year is lost to the problem, he added.

That is hugely worrying at a time when the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation predicts world food production will need to grow 70 percent by 2050 to meet rising demand, the Benin-born official said. Right now, about 44 percent of the world’s food – grain and livestock – is produced in dryland areas, he said.

Many of the world’s most vulnerable people also live in dry regions – half of the 1.2 billion people who reside there are below the poverty line – which suggests worsening climate-linked droughts and other land degradation could worsen poverty and drive growing conflict and migration, Gnacadja said.

“The drylands are the most conflict-prone zone of the world and that is not by accident,” he said. “Instability is fuelled by precisely the quest of people to have access to very scarce resources like productive land and water.”

PLANTING TREES

Migration from degraded areas is also likely to grow, he said, particularly as people living in already vulnerable areas reach the end of their ability to adapt to worsening droughts, water shortages and other problems.

Those in the richer world who see desertification and poverty as relatively remote problems should keep in mind that “building fences around our prosperity will not work”.

“It has not worked in history,” he said. “What will work is to invest to reduce the push factors that compel people to migrate because they have reached a tipping point and can’t adapt anymore.”

The good news is that a growing number of countries and regions most vulnerable to desertification pressures are now starting to address the threat.  Farmers in Niger, in Africa’s Sahel region, have replanted trees on 5 million hectares (12 million acres) of degraded land since 1975, improving the region’s water supply and reducing conflict. China and India have also switched in recent years from countries losing forest to countries gaining it through huge replanting efforts.

Among the countries that are signatories to the U.N. desertification convention, 38 percent now have some type of desertification and drought monitoring systems in place, Gnacadja said. At a convention meeting in Bonn next week, experts will launch a new desertification monitoring and assessment system that should make tracking land degradation – and progress against it – easier and more effective.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” Gnacadja added.

There is still plenty of work to do, however, he said. Progress has been slow on winning needed funding and technology transfer from richer nations to address desertification, he said, and both donor countries and desertification-threatened ones have done too little to revamp their policies to adequately address desertification threats.

Source: Alert Net