1. More Than A
Year of Living Dangerously.
Indonesian citizens, particularly children, are suffering
from a rise in industrial pollution that has accompanied the nation's rapid
economic growth, according to a World Bank report released yesterday. More than
6 million vehicles were added to Indonesia's streets between 1995 and 2000, and
many of them use leaded gasoline. Lead in the environment puts an estimated
one-third of Indonesia's kids at risk for brain and intestinal damage. Annual forest fires, set deliberately to
clear land for agriculture, cause dangerous haze that spreads beyond Indonesia
to neighboring nations. Air pollution in
general takes an annual toll of at least $400 million on the
nation's economy, largely in health costs, with respiratory-tract inflammation
the sixth leading cause of death in the country. Solid waste disposal has also become a major
problem in Indonesia, and substandard sewage systems are leading to pervasive
pollution of surface and groundwater.
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2. Tailoring Water
Management Solutions to India Recent research
suggests government and donor efforts to transfer water management
institutions and policies from western countries to India fail to take into
account the realities of the country's river basins - undermining attempts to
contain the growing water crisis and reduce vulnerability to drought. "Water
management solutions developed in Europe, North America and Australia cannot
be expected to address the more fundamental issues that water sectors in
South Asia must contend with. The items that top the water agenda here - such
as providing access to water for drinking, growing food, and sustainable
groundwater management - are either unresolved in the developed world or have
become irrelevant due to economic development," argues Dr. Tushaar Shah
of the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program - a new initiative to introduce
research knowledge into the policy planning process. Recent research,
which analyzed the effectiveness of Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM)
models in implementing sustainable water management regimes, found that in
many cases these models were not designed to handle the hydrogeology,
demography, socio-economics, and organization of the water sector found in
South Asia. This does not mean
that India and other South Asian countries cannot learn valuable lessons from
these models. Loosely structured, they can serve as coordinating mechanisms,
facilitating dialogue and negotiation on resource allocation among organized
stakeholders and representative bodies. But River Basin Organizations cannot
by themselves address the more fundamental issues that water sectors in India
must contend with. "Its an entirely
different ball game from IRBM in western countries," explains Dr.
Tushaar Shah. "For reform to succeed in developing countries such as
India, you have to find ways of influencing huge numbers of small-scale water
users who depend on rain-fed agriculture and private or community water
storage, without much mediation from public agencies or service
providers." For IRBM to work in
India and other countries in South Asia, models have to be properly tailored
to local conditions. IWMI-Tata researchers have highlighted four areas policy
makers need to consider for the successful application of IRBM. The challenge for
developing countries when implementing IRBM ·
Regulate the informal water sector: How do you regulate vast numbers of small-scale
users who are not linked to public institutions? One possibility is to find
ways of underpinning macro-level institutions with nested organizations of
users at the grassroots. ·
Improve the productivity of "Green Water": For countries such as India,
where the population density is high, both upstream and downstream,
increasing the productivity of water diverted from rivers is less important
than being able to capture rainfall and store water effectively in the soil
profile ("green water"). ·
Manage groundwater: In South Asia, protecting groundwater from
over-exploitation by millions of small unlicensed pumpers is an increasingly
pressing issue. Community initiatives for groundwater recharge may offer the
most immediate hope for reversing damage in areas where water tables are
dropping as much as a meter each year. ·
Water scarcity: The heart of the problem in most water-scarce countries is too many
people living off a limited natural resource base. Getting more crop, cash
and jobs per drop is part of the answer; the other is generating off-farm
livelihoods in rural areas. For more information
on the research see 'The Challenges of Integrated River Basin Management in
India,' issue 3 of the Water Policy Briefing series (http://www.iwmi.org/waterpolicybriefing)
For questions and
comments on the research contact Dr. Tushaar Shah on +91-2692-229311-13 or
e-mail t.shah@cgiar.org For general enquiries
contact Jack Durrell (j.durrell@cgiar.org) at the International Water
Management Institute (IWMI). 3. Excess Nitrogen Affecting Human Health BOULDER, Colorado, June 12, 2003 (ENS) - The growing use
of nitrogen as a nutrient is affecting
public health beyond its benefits for agriculture, according to a new University of Colorado (CU) led study.
Alan Townsend of CU-Boulder's Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, the
study leader, said changes in the global nitrogen cycle, while beneficial in
increasing crop growth, appear to pose a growing health risk. Roughly half of
the inorganic nitrogen ever used on the planet has been applied in the past
15 years. "The major global changes in the nitrogen cycle have
occurred because humans now convert more nitrogen to such usable forms than
all natural processes combined," Townsend said. "The synthesis of
nitrogen fertilizers accounts for most of this change. But the overuse of
nitrogen fertilizers can lead to a number of problems, including air and
water pollution." "Ecological feedbacks to excess nitrogen can inhibit
crop growth, increase allergenic pollen production and potentially affect the
dynamics of several vector borne diseases, including West Nile virus, malaria
and cholera," the researchers wrote in their paper which appeared in the
June 2 issue of "Frontiers in Ecology." A positive aspect of using nitrogen as a fertilizer has
been an increase in food production in poor nations, reducing hunger and
malnutrition, Townsend said. So far, most nitrogen studies have focused on problems
resulting from nitrogen rich runoff from agricultural lands such as losses in
biodiversity, increased acid rain and changes in coastal ocean ecology that
include oxygen poor "dead zones" like those seen in the Gulf of
Mexico. But excess nitrogen can contribute to respiratory ailments,
heart disease and several cancers, said Townsend, who is an assistant
professor in CU-Boulder's Ecology and volutionary Biology Department. "On the bright side, there are solutions to these
problems," said Townsend. "Too much fertilizer is being used in
developed countries, while in some impoverished countries, additional
fertilizer is needed. This is something that can be changed." In the
United States, fertilizer intensive crops are common and more fertilizer than
is needed for maximum crop yields often is used. Reducing fertilizer also
would lessen crop pollution to our waterways and air, he said. The use of fertilizer in modern industrial nations is not
optimized for the production of the healthiest food, Townsend said. Crops
like corn largely become food for domestic animals, leading to further
nitrogen losses to the environment, disparities in world food distribution
and a growing tendency for unhealthy diets even in wealthy nations, the
researchers concluded. In the United States, more than half of the grain produced
is fed to animals, and corn is used much more widely as a sweetener than for
human consumption as a grain. Meat consumption by humans has doubled
worldwide since 1960, and excess meat consumption has been linked to numerous
health issues, including heart disease. Increased nitrogen pouring into the
world's oceans can cause algal blooms that can harm fish, shellfish and
humans. On land, ozone, a major pollutant produced with high amounts of
nitrogen oxides, causes numerous health problems as well as billions of
dollars of crop damage, according to the research team. "We believe the greatest net health benefits come from
using nitrogen at moderate levels," said Townsend. "Making and
using it at higher levels does not lead to parallel increases in benefits,
but does greatly exacerbate environmental and health problems." The
project was funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Co-authors on the paper
are from Cornell, Harvard and Princeton universities, the Woods Hole Marine
Biological Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in
Boulder and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis. Other
co-authors are from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, the New England School of
Acupuncture in Watertown, Massachusetts, and Visteon Corporation in Sterling
Heights, Michigan. |