The Gender Issue

Women bear the brunt of climate related issues on the water cycle (Source: WaterAid) 

In my previous blog post I briefly looked at the areas of the world that were experiencing both physical and economic water scarcity. Competition for water resources is increasing, mainly due to the increasing pressures from agriculture, industry and the environment. Those people that will be the worst affected by these pressures are the poor and within this group, it is women that end up paying the price.

Two thirds of the worlds 1.2 billion poor people are women (IFAD, 2012). Amber Fletcher described these women as “invisible food producers” in her most recent TEDx talk in July 2015. Being the optimist I am, this concept is unsettling. The point she was making was that farmers are stereotypically thought of as male and therefore created an invisible connection between the problem and the solution. This problem however, has been outlined in a United Nations sponsored report by the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The gender issue has been recognised as one that needs to be addressed in this sector as women play such a vital role in securing water for both agricultural and domestic purposes. In many communities it is seen as their responsibility to keep sanitation facilities in order, along with the daily collection of drinking water from local wells. They have developed great knowledge over crop production and water resources through first hand experiences, yet there is an ever-growing gap between policy and practice. Although the problem has been discussed by such organisations, governance has still not given women the recognition they deserve, as they still remain excluded from decision-making.

With Climate Change putting increasing pressures on water resources, it is no doubt that women will be at the forefront of this. With increased floods and droughts, adequate drinking resources are being tampered with. Women will need to travel further to collect water, taking valuable time out of their days; impacting potential time spent on an education. Sadly, this journey has also jeopardised women’s safety, as cases of violence have unofficially been reported in South Sudan. Additionally a study by Neumayer and Plümper (2007) found that natural disasters, especially those heightened by a changing climate, would result in the death of more women than men.

Accepting that there is a gender issue is the first step. The second would be to focus more efforts on tackling the issues associated with the inequality, and third, empowering women with responsibility over water resources they already possess great knowledge over. If it’s as easy as one, two, three, then why has this not happened yet? Why are we still seeing such a disparity between the effects on men and women? Climate Change is happening now, and we have a social responsibility to women across the world to tackle these humanitarian rights immediately. 

Stress vs. Scarcity

Source: Global physical and economic water scarcity (2007) 

In order to determine those areas which are most vulnerable to water insecurity, it is important to distinguish between some key terms. Water stress is a measure of availability and is referred to when annual water supplies drops below 1,700m³ per person for any given area. When this figure reaches below 1,000m³, the issue becomes one of access and the region is then said to experience water scarcity (WWAP, 2012). 

This map from the UN splits water scarcity up into physical scarcity and economic scarcity. Physical water scarcity refers to when water resources have exceeded their sustainable limits; this does not necessarily mean that dry areas are therefore physically water scarce in this sense. Economic water scarcity refers to the financial capability to extract water from a particular area; therefore some areas may be abundant in water supplies but may not have the means to use this water.  

It may be easier to determine which regions are experiencing water stress due to the quantified definition, however when discussing scarcity it becomes somewhat more difficult. Although there is a threshold of 1,000m³,  the extent of which regions experience physical and economic scarcity are changing all the time, and so defining those regions experiencing this can sometimes be difficult. At present, one third of the world's population is experiencing some kind of physical or economic water scarcity.

The race for what's left

With the world’s population reaching 7.3 billion people this year, there is no doubt that new pressures are being put on nation’s natural resources. One of these major pressures is land space and the water resources associated with them. As a result “land-grabs” have been a new phase of foreign direct investment, especially within African farmland (Allan, 2013). Even though most countries have the space to be potentially food self-sufficient, they do not necessarily have enough water to do so. Therefore, areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, are leasing land at reduced prices to countries such as China, India and Saudi Arabia (Ananthaswamy, 2011). This dash for resources may appear to be a suitable solution, however could lead to potential conflicts between nations.

Over a period of 5 years, Saudi Arabia leased 376,000 hectares of land in Sudan in order to grow food to be exported back to their homeland. This is a relatively cheap solution as it costs less than developed irrigation systems. However I find myself asking, why don’t these countries just import the food they need? Suweis et.al (2011) suggests that due to the complexity of trade markets, the driving forces of an increasing population and increased economic development, is forcing these water-poor countries to increase their security. In a changing world, leasing land at a fixed price is not subject to the market forces of food supply and therefore ensuring those at the top, stay there.

With the rich getting richer and solutions to potential water conflict being resolved short-term, are there any adverse long-term effects that may result? D’Odorico et.al (2010) suggests that these land-grabs within the virtual water network may result in societies becoming less resilient to severe droughts. This exploitation of otherwise unused supplies could dry-up resulting in catastrophic consequences in the future. With Climate Change increasing the likelihood of severe droughts occurring, tensions will rise as the fight for land may see these big players at the top looking for alternative solutions to the problem sooner than they originally thought.

Source: Chris Madden

What is Virtual Water?

Figure: The backbone of the GVWTN, with the blue dots representing net exporters and red dots representing net importers (Suweis et.al 2011)

This concept of "virtual water" was defined by J.A. Allen (1998) as the water which is embedded in commodities. Since an individual is classed as short of water if they are unable to access one cubic metre of high quality drinking water each year, there are many regions in the world where water scarcity is a major issue. The movement of "virtual water" between these regions is known as the Global Virtual Water Trade Network (GVWTN).

The network shown in this figure from Suweis et.al. (2011) represents that 80% of the total water volume only moves through 4% of the total number of links, meaning that a small number of countries have a large network of connections. This creates a disparity between water-rich countries and those which are water-poor. For example, the United States, Argentina and Brazil are some of the main exporters of water shown in this figure, whereas Japan and China are some of the larger importers.