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World's Water Storage Capacity |
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By the Environment News Service
Speaking to the Bonn International Conference on Freshwater, UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said that siltation is reducing the capacity of the world's reservoirs to hold water, a result that is hastened by the clearcutting of forests. "The issue of dams can arouse strong passions on both sides," Toepfer told the delegates. "Some people are very much in favor of building dams and others are vehemently against. However, what we are talking about here is the state and fate of the existing stock of dams and reservoirs on whose waters billions of people depend for not only irrigation and drinking water, but also for industry and the production of hydroelectricity." Toepfer, a former German environment minister, counselled careful management of the world's stocks of fresh, drinkable water. "It would seem prudent and sensible for us to manage the existing stock in the most sustainable way possible. Otherwise we face increasing pressure on natural areas with water, such as wetlands and underground aquifers, with potentially devastating environmental consequences to wildlife and habitats," he said. In response, UNEP has launched a new Dams and Development Project (DDP), to address siltation and other serious environmental effects of dam development. Based in South Africa, the Dams and Development Project, known as the DDP Unit, is a follow up to the work of the World Commission on Dams, publisher of an in-depth report on the environmental impact of large dams in November 2000. The new DDP Unit has secured funding and pledges of over $2.5 million from the governments of Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Sustainable management of reservoirs will take a central role in its work. None too soon for Rodney White, author of "Evacuation of Sediments from Reservoirs" and a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. White is warning the world's leaders to pay more attention to the capacity of the world's dams to hold water. "The loss of capacity of the world's dams should be of highest concern for governments across the globe, and at the moment I do not believe this issue is commanding the attention it deserves," White said. "The demand for water is rising, not falling, as the population of the planet climbs from six billion today to an estimated 10 billion by 2050. I am extremely concerned," said White, "that water shortages in some of the poorer parts of the world will intensify unless we act to reduce reservoir sedimentation and conserve storage in existing dams using sound management techniques. Sediment removal should be a fundamental feature in the design of dams and their associated infrastructure." In view of the "threat of global warming," Toepfer urged the planting of forests across the globe. "We must act to reduce the loss of forests and to re-afforest cleared areas as part of a comprehensive strategy of watershed management of the world's river systems," he said. "There will always be natural levels of erosion that will contribute to a loss of water storage capability," Toepfer acknowleged, and called on engineers to provide "technical solutions that offer environmentally friendly ways of extending the lives of the world's reservoirs." Jeremy Bird, interim coordinator of the DDP Unit, said next week, a meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, they would be looking at how to improve the performance of reservoirs and dams across a wide range of functions from agriculture to power generation. |
BONN, Germany, - The reservoirs of the world are losing their capacity to hold water as erosion brings silt down to settle in behind dams, the chief of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned.
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