| Mining underground water in Darfur |
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2007-07-20, 11:48:24 There's water under Darfur, the war-torn region in central Africa, which could help solve the region's underlying problems, says an expert on spying underground water using ground-penetrating radar. National Geographic News has a story on this, with nicely balanced reporting. They talked to a researcher who argues there's actually little or no water under there, and quote an expert on the region who doubts that finding water would solve the people's problems. But let's leave those issues aside for a second. Even if there is water under there, and even if it could help solve the region's problems, how long would this solution last? It seems not long, from the stuff I'm reading in Fred Pearce's book When the Rivers Run Dry (which is an excellent book, by the way). I just read in there about Indians who are pumping up groundwater for farming or for selling to textile dying companies and to people for drinking water. And I read about the Great Manmade River in Libya, a vast system of pipes and pumps that brings water from below the Sahara Desert across 600 miles to the farms and cities of Libya's coast. All this pumping draws on water that's been stored underground for hundreds or thousands of years, and any major project to tap the water would likely drain the reserves much faster than they get replenished. In some regions of India, at least, the level of the water is sinking fast, and it doesn't seem the pumping can persist for too much longer. But it's a classic "tragedy of the commons," where people can profit in the short run by exploiting these waters, but in the long run they're undercutting their own, or their kids', livelihoods. Or, at best, it's a stopgap measure that solves a problem now—but without some other solution, it is just delaying a real solution. So, back to Darfur. If pumping up water from underground really would solve the region's current problems, it seems like it would be a good thing. How could you argue that people focus on the long run, and not do that? And yet, if water scarcity really is a major underlying problem that's fueling the conflict there, then it seems that if the underwater aquifiers there were to go dry after, say, a few decades of pumping, then what would happen? |