WWF highlights a major problem that lies ahead

Large scale transfers of water from one river basin to another are generally occurring without adequate scrutiny of their economic, environmental and social impacts, according to an analysis released to World Water Week by WWF.

Dave Tickner, WWF-UK head of freshwater, says: “With the number of large water transfer schemes possibly nearly tripling by 2020 and the amount of water transferred expected to double, poorly assessed mega-transfers have the potential to inflict immense harm on both the communities donating the water and the communities receiving it,”

Existing and proposed large water transfer schemes were looked at in Spain, Australia, Lesotho and South Africa, Greece, Brazil, Peru and China and found to be high cost, high risk solutions to water problems “with the benefits much less, or likely to be much less, than the sales pitch.”

By 2020, large scale water transfers from one river basin to another are expected to reach around 800cubic kilometres a year - around half a Lake Ontario or more than eight Lake Genevas. With problems evident in many of the 360 schemes implemented since 1950, the total number of schemes is predicted to reach between 760 and 1240 by 2020.

Australia’s Snowy Mountains Scheme took 99% of the iconic Snowy River’s flows to produce power and provide for distant irrigation, causing generations of conflict. Despite expensive re-engineering and irrigation efficiency schemes, implementation of a decision to return a fourth of the Snowy River flows is well behind schedule while climate change impacts are threatening to seriously reduce power generation.

Both donating and receiving basins experienced depletion and damage as Spain’s 282 km Tagus-Segura transfer provoked a unrestrained expansion of irrigated land, much now watered illegally. Planners were wildly optimistic about the water available and while users of the transferred water were to pay for the scheme and its operations only around 30% of these payments have been collected

The report finds that in many cases there was little examination of alternatives to massive schemes, particularly in managing demand and promoting efficient water use in the mostly water scarce regions.

More information: www.wwf.org.uk/oneplanet