The document discusses several key issues related to water security: 1) More than 1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water and over 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation, posing major health risks. Water scarcity is often due to poverty, inequality and poor governance rather than availability. 2) Population growth and increased industrial/agricultural demand are exacerbating water stresses, especially transboundary tensions over rivers like the Tigris/Euphrates. 3) Regional cooperation over water management, such as the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, can mitigate conflicts, but many areas still lack adequate legal frameworks for cooperation.

1. *
Bradford Model United Nations
10th November 2011

2. * According to UNESCO- water security involves protection of vulnerable
water systems, protection against water related hazards such as floods
and droughts, sustainable development of water resources and
safeguarding access to water functions and services.
* Drought study shows that water shortage has more ties to population than
global warming does. As the temperature increases, rainfall in the
Southeast will increase the area may get drier because of evaporation.
However this is not the key factor of drought.
* While the world's population tripled in the 20th century, the use of
renewable water resources has grown six-fold. Within the next fifty years,
the world population will increase by another 40 to 50 %. This population
growth - coupled with industrialization and urbanization - will result in an
increasing demand for water and will have serious consequences on the
environment.
* According to WHO, more than one out of six people lack access to safe
drinking water, namely 1.1 billion people, and more than two out of six
lack adequate sanitation, namely 2.6 billion people (Estimation for 2002,
by the WHO/UNICEF JMP, 2004). 3,900 children die every day from water
borne diseases (WHO 2004). One must know that these figures represent
only people with very poor conditions. In reality, these figures should be
much higher.
*

3. *

4. Only 63% of the world’s population • 1.1 billion People live without
have access to improved sanitation. clean drinking water
Waterborne diseases cause • 2.6 billion People lack
1.4million children’s death every adequate sanitation
year. • 1.8 million People die every year
Women spend thousands of hours from diarrhoeal diseases.
each year collecting and carrying • 3 900 children die every day
water. from water borne diseases
Half of the world’s hospitalizations
are due to water-related diseases.
70% of the world’s fresh water Daily per capita use of water in
supply is devoted to agriculture. residential areas:
Over 50% of all water projects fail in - 350 litres in North America and
the first few year. Japan
- 200 litres in Europe
Quantity of water needed to - 10-20 litres in sub-Saharan Africa
produce 1 kg of: Over 260 river basins are shared by
- Wheat: 1 000 L two or more countries mostly
- Rice: 1 400 L without adequate legal or
- Beef: 13 000 L institutional arrangements.
*

5. * By water resources, we mean all the water
available for human use, namely domestic use,
agriculture, industry.
* By water supply, we mean water that has been
treated and has become drinking water.
* The poorer the country, the smaller the difference,
as people often drink water without treatment. As
long as the country develops, the management of
water resources in general differs from the one of
drinking water.
*

6. * According to the UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, „More
people die from unsafe water than from all forms of
violence, including war‟.
* Day after day, we pour millions of tons of untreated sewage,
industrial, and agricultural wastes into the world's water
systems. This causes clean water to become scarce.
* Hillary Clinton US Secretary of state believes that "access to
reliable supplies of clean water is a matter of human
security. It's also a matter of national security." She also
suggests that global peace and security will depend on access
to water. This shows that water security is important in world
politics.
* The United Nations Development Programme, in its annual
Human Development report, argues that 1.1 billion people do
not have safe water and 2.6 billion suffer from inadequate
sewerage. This is not because of water scarcity but poverty,
inequality and government failure.
*

7. * Turkey has been accused by
Syria and Iraq of depriving
them of much-needed
water, as it continues to
build a series of dams along
the Euphrates and Tigris. It
is also embarking on an
ambitious project to sell
water from its Manavgat
river across the Middle
East.
*

8. * The most sacred Hindu river, the
Ganges, is so depleted that the
Sundarban wetlands and mangrove
forests of Bangladesh are seriously
threatened. It is also said to contain
unacceptable levels of arsenic. As
more trees are chopped down, and
more buildings erected along its
banks, the glaciers supplying the
river have been melting, raising
fears of shortages and drought
downstream. The river has been the
subject of a long-running dispute
between India and Bangladesh,
although recently progress has been
made in resolving the conflict.
*

9. * We already know that drought occurs when not enough rain
falls to the ground. Drought could occur as a result of ocean
currents, how moist the soil is and by the shape of the land.
* EFFECTS- lack of water means less irrigation for farming, less
drinking water, less water for hygiene, and less hydro-
electricity. In developing countries droughts cause famine, bad
diseases, and death.
* Parched soil resulting from a drought
* This used to be a river
*

10. * People in Ranchi (India) are facing severe water
crisis due to the bad climatic condition and drought
like situation in the region. Continuous drought
from the past two years and shortage of water in
the dams the water crisis has surfaced in the
region. Extensive deforestation, urbanisation and
industrialisation have led to scanty rainfall because
of this the water level of the region has gone down
over the years.-this brings us back to the
relationship between water and population.
* Ramprit Yadav, a resident of the village described
the situation-"We are facing lot of trouble because
of water crisis. There is a small tap for water supply
and the population of this area is around ten
thousand. We get water by filling our vessels from
here. Now, we are getting water once in four to
*
three days," said Yadav.

11. * According to the UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, „More people die
from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war‟.
* Day after day, we pour millions of tons of untreated sewage, industrial,
and agricultural wastes into the world's water systems. This causes
clean water to become scarce.
* Hillary Clinton US Secretary of state believes that "access to reliable
supplies of clean water is a matter of human security. It's also a matter
of national security." She also suggests that global peace and security
will depend on access to water. This shows that water security is
important in world politics.
* The United Nations Development Programme, in its annual Human
Development report, argues that 1.1 billion people do not have safe
water and 2.6 billion suffer from inadequate sewerage. This is not
because of water scarcity but poverty, inequality and government
failure.
*

12. * Iraq
* Water Crisis, worst drought in decades
* Most downstream country
* Damaged economy, agriculture,
population displacements and threat to
the ecosystem and biodiversity
* Main sources: Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
* Turkey
* Shortage of water (186bn m)
* Quantity per capita = 1833m3
[only 1/5 of the water-rich countries]
* Utlises only 25.9bn m3 of its available
capacity (110bn m3), the remaining
portion is not a surplus, it cannot yet
allocated to its needs
* In the past 40 years, there are 650 dams
in Turkey and 20 in Euphrates and Tigris
* ABSENCE OF WATER SHARING
AGREEMENTS OR COORDINATION
PROCEDURES
*

13. *

14. * Iraq
* Demand for increasing flow in the Euphrates and in the Tigris
* Strategic cooperation for Turkey to release more water from
the Tigris and the Euphrates has failed
* Turkey
* No multilateral water sharing agreement but rather a
bilateral solution possible
* Refuses to sign the United Nations Convention on the “Law of
the Non Navigational Uses of International Watercourses”
*

15. * Ilisu dam by Turkey will reduce the water of the Tigris
by 47% and deprive 50% of its annual average discharge
at the border of Iraq
* A quarter of the country‟s electricity is derived from
hydro-electric schemes which have required damming
* The collateral damage has been enormous in terms of
population displacement, habitat destruction and
ultimate water loss and degradation in the wider area
around the dams
*

16. * Partition of British India in 1947
* As a result of violence- estimated 1 million dead
* 3 official wars between India and Pakistan: 1947,
1965, 1971
* At partition in 1947, the line between India and
Pakistan was drawn on religious grounds, paying no
attention to hydrology. As a result, more than 85
percent of the irrigated area of the Punjab -- the
breadbasket of the subcontinent -- was included in
Pakistan, while the headwaters of the Punjab rivers
were in what subsequently became Indian-held
Kashmir. “Punjab" means "land of five rivers"
*

17. * About 25% of Pakistan's
total land area is under
cultivation and is watered
by one of the largest
irrigation systems in the
world. Pakistan irrigates
three times more acres
than Russia.
* The most important crops
are wheat, sugarcane,
cotton, and rice
* Farming is Pakistan's
largest economic activity.
, agriculture, and small-
scale forestry and fishing,
contributed 20 percent of
GDP and employed 48
percent of the labor force
*

18. * The economy of India is the
fourth-largest by purchasing
power parity . According to a
2011 PwC report, India's GDP
at purchasing power parity will
overtake that of the United
States by 2045
* India contains the largest
concentration of people living
below the World Bank's
international poverty line of
US$1.25 per day
* For example, in 1980 rural
sanitation coverage was
estimated at 1% and reached
21% in 2008
* India faces a turbulent water
future. Unless water
management practices are
changed – and changed soon –
India will face a severe water
crisis within the next
two decades and will have
neither the cash to build new
infrastructure nor the water
*
needed by its growing economy
and rising population.

19. Three out of six rivers, which
run through Pakistan, originates
from Kashmir namely Rivers
Indus, Jhelum and Chenab
where as remaining three
namely Rivers Ravi, Sutlaj and
Bias originate from India.
There will be no ground defence
of Pakistan if the rivers and
canals of Pakistan are dried up.
It was this reason that the
Prime Minister of Pakistan
*
described the strategic value of
Kashmir to Pakistan as soon as
1951

20. * Signed with international cooperation in 1960
* The treaty assigned water use of the three eastern
rivers (the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej) -- which comprise
19 percent of all water in the basin -- to India. Use
of the three western rivers (Indus, Chenab and
Jhelum) was assigned to Pakistan, with two
provisos: a small allocation for consumptive use in
Kashmir, and permission for India to tap the
hydropower of the Pakistani rivers before they
reach Pakistan (with specific conditions to ensure
that India could not manipulate the quantity or
timing of flows into Pakistan).
*

21. * According to ‘World Water Vision Report’, “There is a water crisis
today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy
our needs. It is a crisis of managing water so badly that billions of
people - and the environment - suffer badly." *ME* In other
words, we are managing our water resource badly and we are
suffering for it. Corrective measures can still be taken to avoid the
situation from worsening and that is what we should try and
delegate in our meeting, to come up with solutions*.
* As far as trans-boundary conflicts are concerned, regional economic
development and cultural preservation can all be strengthened by
states cooperating of water. Instead of a trend towards war, water
management can be viewed as a trend towards cooperation and
peace. Many initiatives are launched to avoid crises. Institutional
commitments like in the Senegal River are created. In 2001, Unesco
and Grenn Cross International have joined forces in response to the
growing threat of conflicts linked to water. They launched the
joint „From Potential Conflicts to Co-Operation
Potential’ programme to promote peace in the use of trans-boundary
watercourses by addressing conflicts and fostering co-operation
among states and stakeholders.
* The United Nations declared has 2005-2015 as the „Water for Life‟
decade. The goal is to reduce by half the proportion of people
without access to safe drinking water by 2015 and to stop
unsustainable exploitation of water resources. Governments pledged
to do this when they adopted the Millennium Development Goals in
2000.
*