Water streams in mainstream media
The "water issue" has been particularly well covered this Spring in a couple of well-regarded international magazines, a sign that the tide of water awareness is rising. Water has still a long way to go to reach "international stardom", as climate change did in only a couple of years, helped along the way by an ex future American President (Al Gore), the creation of a dedicated international body (the IPPC), Hollywood blockbusters and the overall fear that we are all in the same boat in the face of a global, unstoppable event such as climate change.
Granted, it takes an economist to refer to The Economist as mainstream media, but I am pleased to say that their special survey on water does a very good job at presenting the delicate balancing act between water supply and demand in an interesting and compelling way. Although the article gets slightly engrossed in the details of rising evapo-transpiration (does it not all condense down after all?), it rightly highlights the specificities of water which is unlike any other commodity: there is a finite quantity of it, which does not change, and it cannot be moved easily. The article even deals with sanitation, although not in its own right and much could still be said on this. The only mistake I spotted was in a passing comment about the Cochabamba concession, which according to the article failed because of exposure to exchange rate risk: this is giving the concession too much credit, as it failed much before it was exposed to any such risk - the "street protest" risk is what brought it down to its knees and contributed to fuelling a rather sterile international debate about the role of the private sector in water services. Such debate has pretty much died out since (largely because international private operators have drastically reduced their ambitions in the developing world) and it is telling that a magazine like the Economist only deals with it in passing in this special survey. Going back 10 years, this debate might have been at the heart of such an article. It is no longer the case in an era of growing scarcity, when groundwater tables are being so severely depleted in India or China that all are likely to be affected, rich and poor, public and private companies alike.
For a more graphic but equally serious and fascinating foray into the world of natural water, one can turn to National Geographic's special Spring issue on water. Of particular interest was the article recounting the elaborate water transfers which have underpinned California's economic growth. The prestigious magazine has vowed to make a long-term commitment to the water issue: this includes nominating Sandra Postel as the first National Geographic Freshwater Fellow, a promise to provide information, interactive tools, and success stories on the National Geographic's website and to raise awareness through films, books, and presentations. So all I would say is "watch this space".
