Global Warming Melting Glaciers, Shrinking Harvests in China and India
by Lester Brown, Washington, D.C on 03.26.08
Photo credit: lobia
The world is now facing a climate-driven shrinkage of river-based irrigation water supplies. Mountain glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau are melting and could soon deprive the major rivers of India and China of the ice melt needed to sustain them during the dry season. In the Ganges, the Yellow, and the Yangtze river basins, where irrigated agriculture depends heavily on rivers, this loss of dry-season flow will shrink harvests. (Read the full report.)
The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia. China and India are the world’s leading producers of both wheat and rice -- humanity’s food staples. China’s wheat harvest is nearly double that of the United States, which ranks third after India. With rice, these two countries are far and away the leading producers, together accounting for over half of the world harvest.
Photo credit: krayker
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that Himalayan glaciers are receding rapidly and that many could melt entirely by 2035. If the giant Gangotri Glacier that supplies 70 percent of the Ganges flow during the dry season disappears, the Ganges could become a seasonal river, flowing during the rainy season but not during the summer dry season when irrigation water needs are greatest.
Yao Tandong, a leading Chinese glaciologist, reports that the glaciers on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau in western China are now melting at an accelerating rate. He believes that two thirds of these glaciers could be gone by 2060, greatly reducing the dry-season flow of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. Like the Ganges, the Yellow River, which flows through the arid northern part of China, could become seasonal. If this melting of glaciers continues, Yao says, “[it] will eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe.”
Even as India and China face these future disruptions in river flows, overpumping is depleting the underground water resources that both countries also use for irrigation. For example, water tables are falling everywhere under the North China Plain, the country’s principal grain-producing region. When an aquifer is depleted, the rate of pumping is necessarily reduced to the rate of recharge. In India, water tables are falling and wells are going dry in almost every state.
On top of this already grim shrinkage of underground water resources, losing the river water used for irrigation could lead to politically unmanageable food shortages. The Ganges River, for example, which is the largest source of surface water irrigation in India, is a leading source of water for the 407 million people living in the Gangetic Basin.
The upper Yangtze River in China. Photo credit: livepine
In China, both the Yellow and Yangtze rivers depend heavily on ice melt for their dry-season flow. The Yellow River basin is home to 147 million people whose fate is closely tied to the river because of low rainfall in the basin. The Yangtze is China’s leading source of surface irrigation water, helping to produce half or more of China’s 130-million-ton rice harvest. It also meets many of the other water needs of the watershed’s 368 million people. (See data .)
The population in either the Yangtze or Gangetic river basin is larger than that of any country other than China or India. And the ongoing shrinkage of underground water supplies and the prospective shrinkage of river water supplies are occurring against a startling demographic backdrop: by 2050 India is projected to add 490 million people and China 80 million.
Image credit: ^^Maurice^^
In a world where grain prices have recently climbed to record highs, with no relief in sight, any disruption of the wheat or rice harvests due to water shortages in these two leading grain producers will greatly affect not only people living there but consumers everywhere. In both of these countries, food prices will likely rise and grain consumption per person can be expected to fall. In India, where just over 40 percent of all children under five years of age are underweight and undernourished, hunger will intensify and child mortality will likely climb.
The glaciologists have given us a clear sense of how fast glaciers are shrinking. The challenge now is to translate their findings into national energy policies designed to save the glaciers. At issue is not just the future of mountain glaciers, but the future of world grain harvests.
The alternative to this civilization-threatening scenario is to abandon business-as-usual energy policies and move to cut carbon emissions 80 percent -- not by 2050 as many political leaders suggest, because that will be too late, but by 2020, as outlined in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. The first step is to ban new coal-fired power plants, a move that is fast gaining momentum in the United States (see report).
At issue is whether we can mobilize to lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations before higher temperatures melt the mountain glaciers that feed the major rivers of Asia and elsewhere, and before shrinking harvests lead to an unraveling of our civilization. The good news is that we have the energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies to dramatically reduce CO2 concentrations if we choose to do so.
This is a well written piece, but I'll take just one small issue with the last paragraph.
At issue is the fact that we won't turn around atmospheric carbon loading in time. It might take months to set up a meeting, more months to hammer something out, then good luck with adherence. The Himalayas, the Antarctic, Greenland, ad miserium et al. It'll take too long to agree we're the family of man, and that's where we need to start. This is too heavy a pendulum with just too much momentum to bring it to a complete stop and push it the other way. In time.
The only practical source to replace such volumes of water is the oceans. Desalination is now a 1/1 prospect (pump a gallon, get a gallon) rather than the 9+/1 ratio it used to be. On top of that, we'll have more ocean to work with.
Barring this or something else that works, we're looking at a 50-70% population loss worldwide to either lack of water or war over lack of water.
For want of a nail...
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
The environment is revenging on human beings. Recently, there are many natural disasters caused by environment pollution.
I think John made some very good points and puts the argument for desalination very adeptly; lets hope there are people in governments who are equally enlightened.
The world cannot afford to ignore water; nor can it afford for it to be owned by the wealthy as oil is currently.
It’s great to see robust discussion about the impact of climate change and why the need to reduce greenhouse gases is critical. Many government and industry leaders believe hydrogen is an important part of the energy mix that will not only improve our environment, but also reduce our dependency on oil. This week the NHA Annual Hydrogen Conference and Expo US, March 30 – April 3, is taking place in Sacramento, CA. Please visit hydrogenconference.org to learn more. If you live near or if you’re traveling to Sacramento, we invite you to join us and experience how hydrogen can have a positive impact on our lives. The latest hydrogen technologies from all over the world will be on display, and there will even be opportunities to drive hydrogen vehicles from several leading auto manufacturers – all this is free and open to the public on Monday, March 31 at the Sacramento Convention Center. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements from the Hydrogen Conference.
In addition, the Hydrogen Education Foundation has recently launched a website to help people better understand hydrogen as a fuel. Please visit www.h2andyou.org to improve your knowledge about hydrogen as an alternative fuel.
We have the technology to build far better and much more efficient power sources, and should put our knowledge to work. As the alternative is starvation and planetary devastation, our motivation to co-operate is extreme.
India and China are facing a looming crisis.
With lower grain harvests from insufficient water their massive populations will be imperiled. India could (and may have to) adopt a “one-child-per-family-policy” similar to China's.
Even with this drastic measure, the problem will still be huge.
The motivation to change energy policies is overwhelming.
One water control method already in planning is to build “Three-Gorges” type power facilities on each river that flows out of China's Himalayan highland. This will provide both clean energy, and a more controlled water flow that mitigates water loss from glaciers.
More needs done.
The first and easiest step is to ban the building of further “old-style-inefficient-high-polluting-coal-fired-power-plants,” and to assist all countries to access and implement the new technology that has already been developed and proven to work.