Nature at your Fingertips -

Water issues threatening all Asian cities

Why is this important?
Quite frankly, most Asian cities are built in disaster prone areas but exist often for trade or economic reasons. For example many are built near river basins or the coastline even though they are prone to flooding or tsunamis. Jakarta for example was a very minor town in history before colonial trade built it up and the fact that many areas in Java as a whole are far better for agriculture than any part of Indonesia. Finance and capital is another factor.. they tend to be AGAINST moving to other areas. It's very hard for a government to move a city away, even a tightly controlled dictatorship would be unable to do this. They could provide incentives or force some people into other areas, but the mass will refuse to move.

Glacial Mass Loss
The Himalayan Mountains has been steadily losing glacial mass. Many scientists have contributed it to rising global temperatures, but whatever is done to mitigate this.. most would agree it's too late to change this and it's going to happen. nearly 70% of the worlds drinking water comes from glaciers not the sea or rivers.
How does this affect everyone: Most of Asia's rivers begins in the Tibetan Plateau. Thus it affects Central Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, and East Asia. 1.3 billion people dependent on these sources of water!

Sea Level Rise
There's alot of attention and headlines about sea level rise but glacial mass is by far a more serious issue for Asia than sea level rise, but the issue is still there.

Cities and Urbanization
It is expected that Asia will become more urban as populations move into the cities. While there's some in this forum who argue that this is a good thing (keep people in the city and keep the country side natural), it doesn't work like that in real life. Tall buildings are very inefficient with water, you not only need it for drinking, but for AC use. Tall buildings circulate air poorly compared to smaller ones. Electricity consumption is much higher in cities as well. What generally happens is that cities in Asia end up using most of the ground water in the city area and as a result build a network of pipes to drain water from the rural areas. Cities with textiles industries consume tons of water.

an example (not from Asia) is California.. its dry but agriculture grows very well there provided it gets enough water. when it does get water, the state's growing agricultural output skyrockets more than a place that naturally has water. As a result the California used up much of the ground water in its own state and has since then, built a series of underground pipes to drain ground water from beyond state lines. The same is happening in many parts of Asia, such as Indonesia, China, etc

Competing Water use
Most of Asia has now been carved up into the notion of a Nation-State that was invented in the west.. with its tightly defined notions of borders and citizenship.. This means that although rivers which go through many countries, are now carved up into spheres of influence. But because river issues tend to affect the entire path, its difficult to get countries to work together. The general rule seems to be.. Upstream countries have little incentive to care about downstream countries. Dams are generally more negative than positive.

Most of Asia is still rapidly developing.. many are moving to cities, they need water and electricity. China for example prioritizes building dams to meet the growing energy needs of its economy and growing cities.. but in the process the effects of these dams to downstream areas of China and downstream countries is ignored, even if it is massive. Even downstream countries build dams affecting countries further down!

Asia is also global now. Historically Asians used the river for local agricultural use.. now they are using it for global production. This means that a farmer is no longer producing his cabbage or rice for his family or town, he's producing it to sell on the global market. This means increased water consumption! Secondly much water use is also becoming more and more privatized even though it was traditionally a common property. (This is a good and bad thing depending on scenario, but in many cases, is bad)

Growing water scarcity is another major issue..

Cities vs Rural planners
In Asia, much of the planning tends to be done by a central group, usually those based in the city. thus when they do planning in the country.. its often to the benefit of the city. What rural planners are concerned about and what city planners are concerned about will often be very different. in places like India and China, much of the planning is done for the benefit of urban areas. Vietnam too.. are Hanoi based planners planning Ho Chi MInh City well familiar with the local issues?
There also tends to be stereotypes and discrimination towards rural areas as well.. such as their practices are obsolete, they are not educated, etc.. yet these rural areas tend to be at the forefront of the environmental changes and may have traditional practices that were far more environmentally sustainable.. but are often dismissed because their practices are not as profitable.
In the case of rivers that go through many countries.. borders tend to be minority areas.. and minorities tend to be on both sides.. for example the border of China and India has Tibetan speaking people on both sides.. these people are probably better familiar with ecological issues with the river than say a planner from a city far away.. also because of their ethnic connection, they could perhaps find a better way to communicate with each other in a constructive manner, than say two planners and politicians from New Delhi and Beijing.

The average city person is also a big problem in this because they don't see the problem as often as the rural area, they won't think much about it.

Another issue is prestige.. much of Asia is still in the rapidly developing phase or newly industrializing phase.. there's the mentality of "hey now we're growing" or "now we're catching up with the west, we want the same things the west has!"

This results in many prestige projects, such as giant towers, utopian visions of cities, etc.. many of which have really little practical value other than to show off.

And in Vietnam:
The Mekong River Basin is the most affected by these changes. Especially Ho Chi Minh city. The Red River Basin is also affected, which includes Hanoi and Haiphong
1. Dams built upstream in China, Laos, etc. Its taking away much of the needed soil and sediments, its also affecting the ecology.
2. Even if there were no dams built (or lots of dams), it won't stop the glacial mass issues or sea level issues
3. Much of the Mekong basin is expected to go underwater in a 1 meter sea level rise.. Ho Chi Minh City is the most vulnerable, infact probably one of the most vulnerable cities in the world to this crisis.
4. Because Vietnam has a very coastal geography and is made up primarily of two giant river basins, the threat to the country is very serious.

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