essay格式范文：地下水的治理使用问题

essay格式范文：地下水的治理使用问题

Governance issues in managing groundwater use

 

水是生物生存的重要资源，包括人和人类。超过71%的地球表面被水覆盖。不同地区的淡水分布不均匀。淡水资源被认为是一种稀缺资源，其质量随着使用和治理结构的不合理而日益恶化。世界面临的主要问题不是水量，而是世界的有效管理和安全配置。特别是，地下水由于它的性质和在世界许多地区的密集使用，因而更容易受到污染，消耗和许多其他问题。地下水构成约97%的所有淡水有可能供人类使用（1999）。在世界的许多地方，地下水资源是人类需要的清洁饮用水的主要来源，因为可以用相当低的成本来利用它。他们利用地下水来满足他们的饮用水、生活、工业、灌溉和其他一些需要。过度开发，快速的工业化，农业的做法不当化学浸出到地下水储量和对地下水的不当治理已经恶化了世界许多地方的地下水质量。一旦污染，对地下水的补救是非常昂贵的。在世界许多地方，为了灌溉而过度使用地下水已经贫化了地下水位。

 

简介-Introduction

 

Water is a vital resource for the survival of all living beings including man and mankind. More than 71 % of the earth's surface is covered with water. The distribution of freshwater is non-uniform in the different parts of the continents. The freshwater resource is considered as a scarce resource as its quality is getting deteriorated with the increasing use and improper governance structure. The main problem that the world faces is not the water quantity but its effective management and safe allocation worldwide. Particularly, groundwater is much more vulnerable to the pollution, depletion and many others problems due to its nature and intensive use in many parts of the world. Groundwater constitutes about 97% of all freshwater potentially available for human use (Foster, 1999). In many parts of the world, groundwater resources are the main source of clean and potable water for human needs as it is can be exploited with quite low cost. They use groundwater to fulfill their drinking, domestic, industrial, irrigation and several other needs. Overexploitation, rapid industrialization, improper agricultural practices with chemical leaching into the groundwater reserves and poor groundwater governance has deteriorated the quality of groundwater in many parts of the world . Once polluted the remedy of pollutants from the groundwater is extremely expensive. The excessive use of Groundwater for irrigation purpose has also depleted groundwater table in many parts of the world.

 

The main objective of this paper is to understand the characteristics of the groundwater and the issues of groundwater governance and its management. The paper tries to give an overview of the important elements of the groundwater governance and the challenges and opportunities of institutionalizing the groundwater development. Groundwater governance in Nepal has been taken as an example to represent the situation of current groundwater management in South-Asian countries. It tries to deal with the question: why groundwater development has remained at infancy in Nepal despite of having tremendous groundwater potential? Policies, institutions and structure of groundwater governance and economics of groundwater are also dealt in the following sections, terminating with the overall conclusion of the paper.

 

地下水体系的本质-Groundwater system in nature

 

The freshwater in the earth comes from the precipitation in different forms such as rain, snowfall, melting ice etc. Precipitation then by means of stream flow or runoff reaches to the rivers and finally flows to the sea or ocean. A part of precipitation infiltrates into the soil through subsurface routes and accumulates in the form of aquifers or groundwater above the impermeable bed of earth's crust. The water contained in the aquifers also contributes to the base flow in many rivers, wetlands and oceans. Therefore the groundwater system can be considered as an important part of the hydrological cycle. The groundwater aquifers are often well protected by the layers of soil and sediment, which effectively filter rain water as it percolates through and removes the particulate matters, pathogenic microbes and several chemical constituents. Hence, it is normally considered to be safe for drinking and other household purposes in many parts of the world. Groundwater is termed as 'hidden sea'- sea because of large quantity and hidden because it is not visible, thus pollution pathways and processes are not readily perceived (Chapelle, 1997; Schmoll et.al, 2006). The replenishment of the groundwater occurs at relatively slow rates and varies between different locations so that overexploitation readily brings serious quality concerns (Schmoll et.al, 2006).

 

Once an aquifer is seriously polluted, it may be difficult, costly or even technically impossible to reverse or remedy this so that timely governance solutions of a precautionary nature are very important (Scheumann, 2008). Due to distinctive nature and presence of groundwater inside the earth's surface there is little awareness among the people about the pollutant transport and flow into the groundwater. This leads to the serious health problems to the people depending on quality of groundwater consumed. Worldwide, a large population depends on the ground water for drinking purpose and the trend of increasing dependence of growing population on groundwater is continuously rising.

 

地下水的使用及影响-Use of groundwater and its implications

 

Groundwater has been considered as a common pool resource with extremely high use value as well as inherently vulnerable (Myint, 1999). Groundwater resource has a complex flow nature with little or no reliable information on the quality, quantity and extent of contamination. It can be easily exploited by using the simple equipments and tapping procedures for e.g. using wells and pumps. The individual users are unaware about the actual value of this resource as they do not have to pay additionally for the water derived from the underground reserves positioned in their land. The poor understanding of the groundwater aquifers among the users has put this resource under extreme vulnerable condition and contamination by various pollutants.

 

About 20% of all the global water use comes from groundwater resources and over 60% of the world's population depends on groundwater for their drinking and domestic water uses. Agriculture sector, which consumes over 80% of the total water used by man, is depending increasingly on groundwater resources (Upadhyay, 2008). Groundwater is mainly used for drinking and other household purposes, irrigation, industrial purposes, nourishing and maintaining fragile ecosystem (e.g. wetlands), various domestic purposes, as well as recreational activities. Its use for irrigation is rising tremendously for increasing the agricultural production to meet the food demand of world's population. People find groundwater as easier and cheaper freshwater resource to exploit than using the surface water because of simple drilling technologies for extraction of water from groundwater reservoirs. Especially for the poor people living in rural areas, groundwater is only a source of freshwater needed for various purposes including drinking, irrigation and other household purposes. Several such existing examples can be observed in the rural villages of the South-Asian countries. About 1.5 billion people depend on groundwater for drinking purpose (www.groundwater.org). Worldwide 1.2 billion people lack safe, sanitary and secure water supplies and approximately 5 million people die yearly from water borne diseases, and the water demand is increasing three times as fast as the world's population growth rate. (Durant et. al., "w.y.").

 

groundwater is susceptible to contamination by several harmful pathogens such as bacteria, viruses from septic and landfill systems and various source of pollutants such as toxic compounds from pesticides, chemicals, fertilizers, industrial effluents, road salts, gasoline, mining sites, motor oil, hazardous waste sites etc. that may seep or percolate into groundwater and make it unsafe for human use causing different health hazards. Therefore, it is very important for human welfare to protect the groundwater reserves from getting contaminated. Smaller communities could be prepared to conduct a contaminant source inventory (CSI) using various techniques, such as geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS) which allow communities to accurately obtain, manage, and update data that help identify potential contaminant sources within a source water protection area(www.groundwater.org). There is need for the effective implementation of the groundwater policies and institutions and good groundwater governance.

 

While withdrawing groundwater it is important to ensure no disturbance in the natural environment such as balanced wetlands and groundwater table. At the same time, quality and quantity of water in the adjacent wells, streams, lakes, rivers, springs etc. must be maintained. Because the movement of groundwater does not respect municipal boundaries, it makes sense that the state is the entity that can regulate or restrict groundwater use by effective implementation of adequate groundwater acts (Anonymous, 2007).

 

#p#分页标题#e#地下水资源的治理问题-Governance issues in groundwater resources

 

The term water governance encompasses the political, economic and social processes and institutions by which governments, civil society, and the private sector make decisions about how best to use, develop and manage water resources. (www.undp.org). Appropriate governance structure could provide technical solutions to the existing and future water problems. But the problems of water governance have often been neglected by governments, the public, donors and the development agencies as being too intractable to deal with (Bucknall et. al. 2006). Water governance of the particular country is influenced by the governance state-of-affairs of that country or local area. Various characteristics of groundwater make water governance as a challenge for any corporation or public service. It is necessary to deal with the issues of institutional objectives, incentives and motivation, skills, tools and partnerships, staff performance management, corruption and political interference, financial autonomy, accountability, and benchmarking in a systematic manner, to complement the focus on investments. However, instead of waiting for the improvement in the governance environment, the water managers could bring significant progress in the groundwater governance by local and small-scale initiatives. Addressing water governance at any scale could address the aspirations and frustrations of the emerging world and allow water resources and related services to meet the challenges of the next century (Bucknall et. al. 2006). According to (Kulkarni, „w.y.") groundwater governance is understood to have components such as augmentation (recharge), energy links, efficiency measures (micro irrigation), integration of rainwater harvesting-surface-groundwater and responses to groundwater quality deterioration. Unlike surface water, groundwater has different characteristics so that its governance faces more challenges depending on the extent of exploitation in different regions, varied land-topography and the level of water-table underneath the earth's surface. State's other governance structures like property right stabilization, existing policies and regulations could also help to strengthen the groundwater governance.

 

尼泊尔的地下水管理-Case study - groundwater governance in Nepal

 

This part of paper deals with the assessment of groundwater resources of Nepal and the governance issues related to its management. It is presented here as a general case study from South-Asian region. The problem of management, effective allocation and sustainable groundwater development as well as structure, institution, economics, policies and important elements of groundwater governance are also discussed.

 

Background

 

Considered to be very rich in water resources, Nepal is a South-Asian landlocked country, located in between two giant countries India in the South, East and West and China (Tibet) in the North. It has an area of 147,181 square kilometers (56,827 square miles) and a population of approximately 30 million (Wikipedia.org). It has varied topography with elevation ranging from greater than 8000 meters (Mount Everest range) in the north to 70 meters (m) above the sea level (Kanchan Kalan, Terai region) in the south. The landscape of Nepal is divided into Himalayan region (4,877 m to 8,848m), Hilly region (600 -4877m) and Terai (70 - 300m). The Himalayan region in the north contains world's eight out of ten highest mountains, including the highest peak Mount Everest. These snow covered mountains are the source of origin to many fast flowing rivers that make its way towards the southern plains. The important source of water in Nepal includes rainfall, snow covered mountains, glaciers, streams, springs and groundwater. Majority of the Ganges river basin lies in Nepal. The ecological belts of Nepal runs from east to west but these are vertically intersected by Nepal's fast flowing river system that runs from north to south direction (Wikipedia.org). There are more than 6000 rivers and 600 lakes (greater than 1 hectare area) in Nepal. The annual rainfall varies from 500 mm/year in some western areas to more than 4,000 mm/year on the southern slopes of the Himalayan range, with 70-80% occurring in monsoon season (June to September) (Tuinhof & Nanni, 2004). Although freshwater resource is considered as Nepal's largest known resource, majority of people does not have access to safe drinking water because of ineffective management and governance system.

 

Groundwater potential in Nepal

 

The groundwater potential of Nepal is about 2000 billion m³ with per capita availability of 11000m³ for today's population (Myint, 1999). The water availability on different parts of Nepal varies according to the different seasons as most of the rivers are summer-monsoon rain-fed and their water level significantly decreases during dry seasons. There is no definite record about the quantity and quality of groundwater resources in the hills and mountains region. The annual groundwater reserve in these regions is estimated to be at least 1,713 MCM (Kansakar, 2001, Upadhyay, 2008). The Terai plain (stretching across 30 km along the south) of Nepal has an estimated potential of about 12 billion m³ of groundwater with projected annual recharge of 5.8 to 9.6 billion m³ (the maximum that could be extracted annually without any adverse effect). Presently groundwater extraction is only about 0.52 billion m3 per year (Sah, 2001). The groundwater rich aquifers in the Terai could be exploited beneficially, at low cost to meet overall water demand by local peoples. Groundwater could potentially be used to provide year-round irrigation to about 75% of the cultivated soil in the Terai. However, the water is differentially available in different districts and during different seasons so that many people are facing harsh water deficiency. In Nepal, groundwater is mainly found to occur in unconsolidated sedimentary deposits in the tectonic valleys such as Kathmandu, Dang among others, in river terraces (Tars) and fractured rocks in the Hills and Mountains. Groundwater is stored for short time period in Hilly regions and is discharged into the streams in the form of springs and hot water springs, but in the mountain valleys, groundwater is stored for longer periods, and can be developed for beneficial uses (Upadhyay, 2008).

 

Groundwater use in Nepal:

 

About 50% of the people, who are living in Terai region of Nepal, are completely dependent on the groundwater resources for their domestic water supply and a majority of people living in the hills and mountains also meet their domestic water demands from spring water sources, which are the natural discharges of groundwater (Upadhyay, 2008). Groundwater in Nepal is mostly being used for drinking, domestic, industrial and irrigation purposes. Currently groundwater is extracted using over 800,000 shallow drinking water wells (DWSS), 70,000 government assisted shallow irrigation tube wells (STWs), another 30,000 STWs in private sector, about 20,000 Treadle/Rower pumps and about 1,000 deep tube wells (DTWs) are in operation for irrigation and drinking water supply (Upadhyay, 2008). Agricultural sector remains the largest user of water, with irrigation accounting for 75% of the consumptive use (Myint,1999). More than 20% of the irrigated area in Nepal and over 30% of that in Terai is irrigated by groundwater resources through tube-well systems only (CBS 2001 and DoI 2008). Groundwater is an important source of water for animal husbandry and poultry in hilly and Terai regions and most industries in Terai (Upadhyay, 2008). Groundwater use through shallow tube wells (STWs) owned by individual farmers has been an important source of irrigation in the region. However, small and uneven land holding by most farmers has restricted effective utilization of groundwater for irrigation through STWs. Strong Nepali traditional habit of collective irrigation development and private groundwater irrigation development through group owned and managed approach has good possibilities for expansion of both shallow and deep tube wells (Myint, 1999). There is high possibility that rural people can extremely benefit through the development of adequate GW irrigation system.

 

Structure of groundwater governance in Nepal

 

Including Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, Nepal is also a member of Indo-Gangetic basin. Very few studies have been carried out on the groundwater resource potential and its development in Nepal. Due to poor understanding of the groundwater characteristics, quality and quantity, the users, technicians and policy makers are not able to deal properly with the governance issues relating to groundwater management strategies, adequate policy formulation and implementation. The major institutions of Nepal which are involved in the groundwater development and management for irrigation are the Department of Irrigation (DOI) and Agricultural Development of Nepal (ADB/N) as well as many NGOs, private companies, workshop owners, individual farmers and equipment suppliers. Although there are many government institutions dealing with groundwater but none of them have authority to deal with issues like resource inventory, planning and allocation (Tuinhof & Nanni, 2004).

 

Groundwater resource is usually extracted on an individual basis with no any institution to govern its use. The groundwater development board which is formed to regulate the groundwater use does not have distinct authorization. In South Asia, including Nepal the government policies encourage the development of groundwater without foreseeing the future consequences of overexploitation. The pump irrigation and energy sources are highly subsidized and various extension programs are launched to increase the number of tube wells without any proper planning and consideration of the resource base. Moreover the organizations are more focused on promoting resource exploitation, rather than management (Bhandari and Shivakoti, 2005). On removing the subsidy by the government, the number of tube well installation also reduced because resource-poor farmers were unable to fully utilize the tube well capacity. According to Bhandari and Shivakoti, (2005), this problem can be solved through "groundwater markets", where tube well owners sell water to neighboring farmers having too small farms. According to the activists, groundwater in Terai is constantly revived by rivers and rain fall. But it is important to consider that the overexploitation of groundwater could lead to acute water crisis as observed already in many parts of South Asia. Overexploitation of the groundwater results in severe adverse irreversible impacts, such as increase in pumping costs, agricultural yield reduction due to sinking water tables, land subsidence, water logging, salt water intrusion in the coastal areas, pollution due to agricultural, industrial and other human activities and other land quality degradations ( Foster et.al., 2000; Bhandari and Shivakoti, 2005).#p#分页标题#e#

 

Positive and negative aspects of groundwater development

 

Groundwater resource development is flexible, more reliable, less costly, equitable, productive and important tool for poverty alleviation on the other hand it has some negative aspects such as depleting water quality and quantity due to overexploitation and unlimited use. Groundwater overexploitation is mainly facilitated by energy and capital subsidies, open access due to limited or non-existent licensing and lack of regulatory mechanisms. These positive and negative aspects of groundwater development and management are the two areas of debate (Bhandari and Shivakoti, 2005). Potential exploitation of groundwater in many parts could bring several opportunities for the poor while its depletion, contamination and overexploitation would bring a serious warning to all the living beings. Therefore it is very important to ensure sustainable utilization of groundwater in a way that could meet the need of all peoples including poor farmers as well as there would not be any threat to the environment and people from its exploitation. It is very imperative to implement effective institutions and policies so as to guarantee the fair utilization of groundwater by all people to the extent that groundwater can be recharged periodically in a sustainable manner.

 

Policies related to groundwater governance

 

Policy instruments are classified as regulatory, economic and voluntary/advisory. These are ideal types of instruments and no policy option relies purely on one type of instrument (Stone, 2005; Theesfeld, 2008).

 

Regulatory policy instruments like tube well listing, regulations and user right allocation. Top-down approach of groundwater management and monitoring becomes difficult and more expensive in case of large number of small groundwater users. Therefore these policy instruments are compulsory.

Economic policy instruments utilize the monetary inducements like tax, subsidy, cost of groundwater, and pollution allowance.

Voluntary/advisory policy instruments induce voluntary actions or behavioral changes through no requirement of any financial incentives. Collective action, a specific hybrid form of governance structures, is of particular interest in managing a common-pool resource like groundwater (Ostrom 1990; Theesfeld, 2008). Usually collective action is assisted by voluntary/advisory policy instruments by presenting systematic information, practical experience, and information that convince the participants.

Institutional features relating to Groundwater governance

 

According to Theesfeld, (2008) following policy instruments are related to and crucial for groundwater governance.

 

Role of voluntary compliance in groundwater governance

Continuous supervision of groundwater users is expensive due to characteristics of the groundwater resource system's and high number of water users. Therefore, voluntary obedience is very important issue, especially when water users break or pay no attention to restrictions imposed on them (Pistor, 2002). While talking about the groundwater management in California as an example, according to Blomquist (1992, 302), the rate of acquiescence with given rules was found high as a result of a) development of the groundwater management agenda and rules by water users themselves and b) appropriate monitoring of the management programs made the actions of each user transparent among other fellow users in the entire user group.

 

Role of traditional practices in groundwater governance

Most of the time, the traditional local action implementation along with modern scientific management system and techniques do have important role in groundwater governance. For instance, in Eritrea, the traditional system of sharing and protection of well water is very helpful for locals to conserve water throughout drought seasons.

 

Role of administration in groundwater governance

The clear, reasonable and strong institutional arrangements according to the nature of existing aquifer systems do play an important role for the successful implementation of the decentralized water resource management. Poorly defined boundaries may impair collective decision making by including actors or communities who are not actually stakeholders of the particular resource system, or excluding others who have a stake (Ostrom, 1990; Theesfeld, 2008).

 

Role of conflict resolution mechanisms in groundwater governance

The existing armed conflicts for aquifer management in any region need to be resolved by negotiation processes. When rivaling ethnic groups are involved in the aquifer management, becomes a challenge so appropriate diplomacy is very important.

 

Role of Political economy in groundwater governance

The newly introduced or restructured legislation is difficult to implement due to social pressures on water users and their political acquaintances. Especially in developing countries this has negative impact when groundwater resource management is under the control of rent-seeking stakeholders. Well-organized special interests in such cases promote self- serving policies in the absence of a transparent governmental and information system which would allow other stakeholders to counterbalance their influence (Burke et al. 1999, 52).

 

Role of information in groundwater governance

The actual scientific facts, actual data and information on the groundwater resource and human impact on it, is generally uncertain, unreliable or inaccessible. The understanding of the groundwater system is quite complex and limited due to its nature. Therefore measures to protect this aquifer from urban, industrial and mining pollution have thus far been ignored by the local water users (Burke et al. 1999, 48; Theesfeld, 2008).

 

Irrigation through Groundwater in Nepal: Economic perspectives with Farm-Level Facts

 

Taken from Bhandari and Pandey, 2006, this part of the paper scrutinizes the economics and impact of groundwater irrigation on productivity and income level of farmers. The study was based on the statistics composed from 324 households. Choice to possess shallow tube wells (STWs) for the groundwater irrigation was found to be influenced mainly by the size of the farm, land holding, access to credit and electricity. The groundwater market was found quite advantageous for poor farmers although it was too small and monopolistic. There is requirement of some adequate reforms in the existing policies to ensure the availability of groundwater to all including the poor through investments in rural electrification, credit schemes, and appropriate groundwater extraction technologies.

 

Groundwater irrigation for agriculture

 

According to many studies and findings, adequate irrigation system plays very important role to enhance agricultural growth. Surface irrigation in Nepal contributes to only about 40% of the net cultivated land and most of the remaining agricultural land is dependent on the rainfall. Groundwater irrigation is potential substitute to the surface irrigation due to low investment requirements and better control of groundwater use in a timely manner. Among various machineries for groundwater extraction such as deep tube wells (DTWs), artesian wells, STWs, dug wells etc; STWs are the most efficient tools for groundwater extraction in the regions where the water table is not too deep. Therefore, through different programs, government is also supporting the development of STWs in the Terai belts of Nepal which has high potential to secure groundwater exploitation for irrigation and other uses. Only few studies have been carried out to understand the economics of groundwater use and to identify constraints that have so far limited the expansion of groundwater use in Nepal (Bhandari, and Pandey, 2006).

 

Logical framework of water market

 

When the farmers are unable to construct the STW due to limited resources or any other problems, they have possibility to buy water from the neighboring farmers who own it. Hence, a farmer becomes owner of a STW. But the owner of the STW would like to sell water only when his water requirements are completely met. During drought periods, the owners would firstly irrigate his crops only after that they would sell the residual water. This makes water market as a "residual market". The owners get higher benefit whereas the purchasers are subjected to insecurity and to get the unreliable water supply. However, in a case study, both owners and groundwater purchasers were found benefited from the use of STWs for irrigation to improve cropping intensity and overall agricultural production yield.

 

Conclusion on economics of groundwater Irrigation in Nepal

 

Although Nepal has tremendous potential to use groundwater irrigation for increasing agricultural production thus improving income level and reducing rural poverty, inadequate irrigation facilities and heavy reliance on rainfall has remained as principal causes of low agricultural productivity (Kayastha, 2001). Such trend is also similar in many other South-Asian countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan. Regardless of high potential and government's priority for the groundwater development and its use for irrigation, groundwater irrigation accounts for only 19% of the irrigated area (Bhandari, 1999 and Bhandari and Pandey 2006). There is much more to do for the effective utilization of abundant groundwater reserve for improving irrigation system in Nepal. This study showed the considerable positive effects of STW irrigation system on input productivity, overall yield and income level through framing. Water markets that are in their infant stage in Nepal could also play an important role to benefit the small-holder farmers whose farm sizes are too small for the ownership of pumps to be cost-effectively practicable. (Source: Bhandari and Pandey, 2006)#p#分页标题#e#

 

结论-Conclusion

 

Groundwater has been important source water for various human needs through direct or indirect uses. In many parts of the world such as rural areas in South-Asia, people do completely rely on groundwater for drinking and other household purposes as well as for irrigation. Unlike freely flowing surface water it has unique characteristics that create difficulty in assessment of its quality and quantity. As it flows under the ground and cannot be observed directly, there is very less awareness among the people about the contamination and pollutant transport into the groundwater reserves. Due to lack of alertness and the inadequate knowledge about the groundwater characteristics, the governance of groundwater management has become complicated. As a result very weak groundwater governance structure is existing in many countries. For instance in Nepal and other South-Asian countries, there is no control over the exploitation of the groundwater, even in the water scarce region. As many parts are already facing water scarcity due to groundwater table depletion and pollution there is urgent need to address the problem of groundwater use and the governance issues.

 

However, due to absence of suitable technologies, resource scarcity and poor governance structure, vast potential of groundwater resource in some places is underutilized. For example, the Terai (plain) belt of Nepal contains an abundant groundwater reserve which has high potential for irrigating the agricultural land and thus increasing the productivity of land. This would help to uplift the living standard of rural people and alleviate poverty by increasing their income level. Many studies have claimed that water privatization could solve the problem of water scarcity as well as prevent the overexploitation of the groundwater resource. Study carried out by Bhandari and Pandey, 2006, has mentioned that STWs ownership and water markets could solve the problem of inaccessibility of groundwater to small-holder farmers as well. As groundwater table depletion has been already observed in many parts of South-Asia, it must be ensured not to exploit groundwater to the extent that lowers water table. Groundwater must be efficiently utilized in a way to meet the need of all people as well as sustaining the groundwater table through annual recharge. This requires further understanding of the local groundwater characteristics and strong and efficient policies implementation of governance in managing groundwater.