the activities
Who Owns Your Water? Description: Throughout the world, countries, state and cities share water systems (especially rivers). Unfortunately, there are many times when the richer areas and/or those upstream have access to the majority of the water. This leads to conflicts, hard feelings and even war. This Senior Project explores how and why water is shared, what issues this creates and how every actioin affects another. Students will complete a research paper, physical product, portfolio and an oral / visual presentation. Go directly to:
Since rivers and watersheds do not observe national boundaries, possession of the water has put communities, states and nations in conflict. "Rapidly growing South Carolina depends on upstream North Carolina for three-fourth's of its water," points out James Leutze in Troubled Waters. On a global scale, interdependencies on water increase the conflict between political antagonists. Israel v. Palestine, Turkey v. Syria, and the U. S. v. Mexico, are among many disputes in the world over shared water systems. In this investigation of the problems of upstream/downstream sharing, the student will begin to understand the complex and volatile nature of the thirst for water. The Problem You are happily taking a shower when all of a sudden, your brother flushes the toilet in the other bathroom, blasting you with hot water. You are a victim of being downstream. Or maybe your mother begins to run a load of wash, taking your hot water and icing you down with a stream of nothing but cold. Again, you are downstream, and those upstream get the water. These are common, nuisance instances of two parties not both being able to enjoy a full water supply because one party gets to the water before it can flow to another. But suppose you and your neighbors draw water from a common well, the pipes of which pass your neighbor's house first? What if your neighbors wash their cars, hose off their driveway, take long showers, and leave leaks unrepaired, while you barely have enough water to take a bath? Hard feelings? No doubt. On a larger scale, how would you feel if you lived in a community at the mouth of a river and your water supply was being dammed or used up by a community upriver before it got to you? Make you mad? Most likely. And if you were a country whose water supply was being siphoned off by another, threatening your national economy, health and security, would you go to war over it? That question sits heavily on the shoulders of nations who have that very problem:
For example, part of the reason Israel wants to keep the occupied territories is because these lands provide forty percent of its water needs. But the Palestinians, and the adjoining Arab countries, are equally desperate for water and want the lands back. --James Leutze, Troubled Waters Bangladesh, which depends heavily on rivers that originate in India, is suffering terribly now because India has diverted and dammed so many of its water sources. In Africa, relations between Botswana and Namibia are severely strained by Namibian plans to construct a pipeline to divert water from the shared Okavango River. Ethiopia plans to take more water from the Nile, although Egypt is heavily dependent on those waters for irrigation and power. And as water tables fall steadily in the North China Plain (which yields more than half of China's wheat and nearly a third of its corn) as well as in northwest India's Punjab region, experts are bracing for a highly combustible imbalance between available water supplies and human needs. --http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0234/otis.php Now four of the world's greatest rivers (the Ganges, Yellow River, Nile, and Colorado) routinely dry up before reaching the ocean... --http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0234/otis.php When the former Soviet Union diverted the Ama Dariya and the Syrdariya - the rivers which fed the Aral Sea - to grow cotton in the desert, they created an ecological and human disaster...What was the fourth biggest inland sea is now mostly desert. What appears to be snow on the seabed is really salt. The winds blow this as far as the Himalayas. ---http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/678898.stm The main conflicts in Africa during the next 25 years could be over that most precious of commodities - water, as countries fight for access to scarce resources. Potential 'water wars' are likely in areas where rivers and lakes are shared by more than one country, according to a UN Development Programme (UNDP) report. --http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/454926.stm So scarce are the water supplies of the region that some have predicted that it will be water, not oil or land, that triggers the next Middle East war. --http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/from_our_own_correspondent/596039.stm Blood on the streets was probably the last thing anyone would link to privatization of a water system. But three years ago in a small Bolivian town the perceived water related needs and rights of local citizens collided with the interests of a multinational company and open warfare broke out. --Impact Magazine, March, 2003, p. 21. (http://www.awra.org/impact/0303impact.pdf) 2. With your findings, you should develop a physical product that will be a public way to educate the community about the problems of sharing river waters (i.e. brochrue, video, publicity campaign, etc.). Although this is a global problem, you should find a way for your product to emphasize the local nature of the problem as well. 3. You will maintain a portfolio of your research. You may include photographs, maps, text, drawings, etc. that illustrate the quality and depth of your research. 4. You will make an oral/visual presentation of your research findings to a panel for review. The approach to the presentation is up to you as long as it adequately covers your research and the beliefs or changes that the experience has engendered in you.
http://www.serve.org/seniorproject/index.html
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