women in science - biblioteca alexandrina - margaret catley-carlson - october 2007 water: no...

Women in Science - Biblioteca Alexandrina - Margaret Catley-Carlson - October 2007

Water: No shortage of Problems

Science Solutions???Women's’ roles- finding

answers?

Women in Science Conference at The Biblioteca Alexandrina,

October 2007

Margaret Catley-CarlsonTrustee, Library of Alexandria

Chair, Global Water PartnershipInternational Water Management Institute

UN Secretary General Advisory Board on Water


Where We Will Go Today… Why things have to change – the

water crises New approaches to looking at water Science – what can we expect? Women – is there a special concern? Women in Science – a special role?


I. Water – Basic Statistics Oceans 80%. 20 per cent of precipitation falls

on land Each day the sun pulls up 1 trillion tons of

water 12 zeros. 100 year period, a water molecule spends.

98 years in the ocean, 20 months in ice, 2 weeks in lakes and rivers, a week in the atmosphere.

Only 2.5% or 35 million km3 is freshwater. 70% polar ice caps; Soil humidity, inaccessible. Usable water -less than 1% per cent of the planet’s

existing freshwater.


Crisis Is Today:

Water tables declining.

Many rivers no longer reach the sea.

1b+ people – no consistent access to freshwater.

Twice that number lack access to sanitation.

Freshwater aquatic species in peril(28%?).

Deltas and wetlands disappearing.


Human Welfare Implications

Water IS life 2 liters, 25 liters, 2500 liters We have 400-500 liters per day The poor have as little as 20 liters

6,000 children per day die – clean water and sanitation

Women – heavy toll Girls – education, life chances, fertility

Sanitation in schools =11% + p/y since 1990 90% of LDC urban water NOT treated


Water and Health

Close to half population of developing world suffering at any one time from Diarrhea, ascaris, guinea work, hookworm, shisto

4 billion cases of diarrhea – 2.2 million deaths 6 million blind from trachoma Well designed system reduces shisto 77% Arsenic in Asia – Cholera – loss of life; loss of economic gain


What has gone wrong? Management along sectoral lines Social/institutional development cannot

keep pace with change Low cost/no cost services – irrigation and

drinking water Government roles

Delivery easier than policy The big ones:

Population: Pollution: Prosperity.


II. What Has To Happen? IWRM


Build New Alliances

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……

Central Government

Private sectorAcademiaCivil societyetc…

Across sectors &disciplines

Across institutional roles

GWP - a platformfor alliance building

Local government


Building capacity to support IWRM

A. Enabling environmentA1. PoliciesA2. LegislationA3. Financing & incentive structures

B. Institutional rolesB1. Creating an organization frameworksB2. Institutional capacity building

C. Management instrumentsC1. Water resources assessmentC2. Plans for IWRMC3. Demand managementC4. Social change instrumentC5. Conflict resolutionC6. Regulatory instrumentsC7. Economic instrumentsC8. Information management


III. What Can Science Do?“Very Little” By common consent, the problem is

management. Water is badly or not managed everywhere.

No science innovations required to achieve 90% of the desired water management objectives. The last 10 % can be achieved with better

monitoring systems, forecasting, data management, GIS.


III. What Can Science Do? “A Great Deal” Traditional engineering, Agriculture – revolutionizing the 17/40/80. Finding more water, using water more often Biotech, nanotech, membranes. Toilets and sewage developments- 38%……? Most of all –

what new science is needed to inform policymaking and water management?


A Real Ongoing Crisis: Australian List (courtesy James Moody of CSIRO) Rising public investment/interest

Greater scrutiny Expectation of evidence based decision making Regulation, trade, compensation, levies – legal Community involvement = need for transparency Commercial interest = profit motive – need to

reconcile with sustainability agenda.

Future challenges for science Climate change = a ‘whole of climate’ approach Important data sets needed to collate, interpret,

extrapolate Models – huge effort and expense to set up and test

models.


Future Challenges for Science – Moody

Increased capacity to measure, forecast and report on quality and quantity

Satellite imagery – large public investments Soil resource information Water Resources information network Catchment modeling toolkit Robust water and pollutant accounts to

underpin trading, regulatory systems Allocating and justifying environmental flows Assessing the merits of new infrastructure.


Solutions and fixes: Allocation: Needs to Be Based on Good Science Regulatory and water allocation transfers and

trading issues. How much water for environmental flows;

Tradeoffs with other uses; Opportunity costs of alternative uses, embodied value of "virtual water“.

Economics of setting fees at a level that will result in cost cost-recovery and water use efficiency.


The Big One – On the Farm

17/40/80. Water use efficiency. WUE = y/w.

Supplemental irrigation; Groundwater harvesting. Improvements in on-farm management practices to

conserve water, soil and salts. Saline soils and brackish water. Wastewater. Biotechnology (genetic modifications) – major-benefit to

future water management. Through savings and efficiencies in crop demands and

yields. Knowledge and technologies are available -

implementation and incentives are lacking.


New Tech, Nanotech Low tech/low cost solutions,

Point of use purification. Well water, solar energy, sanitation. Ngo's have been successful in providing this

level of assistance. Membranes, membranes, membranes. Nanotech.

Pollution, arsenic, heavy metals? Lower cost desalting for brackish groundwater

Or Biofuels from brackish water……?


Management Science & Decision Support IBRD: "in the absence of sound policy, increased

investment will be ineffectual in reaching the millennium development goals". . Strengthening governance mechanisms (privatization,

policy and regulatory reforms); Financial sustainability (cost recovery, tariffs, mobilizing

financial resources); Improving service delivery (access, quality, partnerships); Targeting poverty groups.

Related science: Multicultural economic analysis through input/output

analysis of a region or nation to be able to determine the direct and indirect benefits of investments and rank the priority investments that provide the biggest payoff.


Global Warming – all about water.


It’s a lot about Women June

Zeitlin, WEDO

Women and children are fourteen times more likely to die than men are during a disaster.

2004 Asian Tsunami - 70-80% overall deaths women. 1991 Bangladesh cyclone disasters kill 140,000,

90% victims were women. 2003 Canicule - more women than men died Eureopeanj heat wave. Hurricane Katrina in the US, African-American women -poorest

population faced the greatest obstacles to survival. Women:

the majority of the worlds’ poor Especially he world’s rural poor, are largely responsible for securing food, water and energy for cooking and

heating. London School of Economics 2006 analyses disasters in 141 countries

decisive evidence that gender differences in deaths from natural disasters are directly linked to women’s economic and social rights.

gender inequalities are magnified in disaster situations. Where women lack basic rights, more women than men will die from natural

disasters. pposite true: where women and men enjoy equal rights, natural disasters kill the

same number of women and men.


Women need to take leadership Examples where women’s participation has been critical to

community survival. In Honduras, La Masica was the only community to register no

deaths in the wake of Hurricane Mitch due to an early warning system operated by women in the community.

November 2006, Kenya’s Greenbelt Movement, founded by Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai, and the World Bank’s Community Development Carbon Fund, signed an emissions reductions purchase agreement to reforest two mountain areas in Kenya.

Women’s groups will plant thousands of trees, poor rural women with a small income and some economic independence.

will also capture 350,000 tons of carbon dioxide, restore soil lost to erosion, and support regular rainfall essential to Kenya’s farmers and hydro-electric power plants.

women in science - biblioteca alexandrina - margaret catley-carlson - october 2007 water: no...

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