Water export
Encyclopedia
Water exports involve export
ing freshwater
from one country to another. Large increases in human population
and economic growth
throughout the world during the twentieth century placed a huge stress on the world’s freshwater resources. Combined with climate change
, they will place an even greater demand on water resources in this century. Water shortages have become an international concern, and freshwater has been described as “blue gold” and “the oil of the 21st Century.”
In the south-western US, growing populations and lifestyles that consume large amounts of water have caused most of the aquifer
s and rivers in the region to be overused. The water in the Oglala Aquifer, which serves much of the west-central US, is being used eight times faster than it is being replenished. Demands for this freshwater will increase as the climate warms.
In Canada
there have been concerns about exporting water to the United States since the 1960s, when states in the south-western US experienced their first water shortages and began to seek water sources to augment their overstretched supplies. Canada has 7% of the world’s renewable supply of freshwater. Large-scale removal of water from lakes would negatively affect their ecosystem
s, increasing pollution concentrations and harming plant and animal communities
.
Freshwater export between Canada and the US currently takes place at a small scale, mostly as bottled water exports. The bottled water
industry exports water in containers usually no larger than twenty litres.
Many states in the US have experienced water shortages in the past few decades, creating a market for freshwater that would be profitable for Canada. Numerous proposals about transferring large amounts of freshwater from the Great Lakes Basin
into the US have been made. This would involve inter-basin
transport of water across the international boundary between Canada and the US using a man-made reservoir
. None of these proposals have as yet been implemented, mainly due to environmental and financial obstacles. It should be noted, however, that since 1850 the Americans have been diverting much of the water of the Chicago River
, which would naturally flow into Lake Michigan
, into the Mississippi
basin over Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
. In that case, though, the goal was not taking possession of the water that would otherwise end up in the Great Lakes / St. Lawrence system, but directing Chicago's effluent away from Lake Michigan.
Schemes to export water from Canada to the US on a large scale have been proposed in the past. These schemes include the Great Recycling and Northern Development (GRAND) Canal
scheme to dam James Bay
to create a freshwater reservoir and divert the water from the 20 rivers that flow into it to Georgian Bay
. The water would then be flushed through the Great Lakes
into pipelines to the south-western US. The North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) project proposed to divert the Yukon
, Liard, and Peace
rivers into the Rocky Mountain Trench
to create an 800 km long reservoir that would transfer water into the US.
During the 1990s schemes to export water by ocean-going tankers were proposed to three Canadian provinces. In 1991, Sun Belt Water Inc. of Santa Barbara, California, in partnership with Snowcap Waters Ltd., of Fanny Bay, British Columbia, was selected by the Goleta Water District, of California, to enter a contract to supply bulk water by marine tanker but the government of British Columbia reversed its water export policy and introduced a prohibition on the issuance of water export licences leading to an arbitration claim against Canada under Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement
filed by Sun Belt Water Inc. in 1999. The arbitration remains unresolved.
In 1999 Nova Group Ltd. obtained a permit from the Ontario
government to export water 600 millions litres of water annually from Lake Superior
to Asia. Political controversy in Canada and the US caused the government to cancel the permit.
Water has been classed as a commodity under the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) since the 1980s. This has increased tensions in the debate about exporting water. Although none of the NAFTA rules force Canada to begin to export its water in bulk, if Canada voluntarily decides to begin exports it would be very difficult to later halt them.
The Federal government of Canada passed the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act in 2002. This banned the removal of more than 50 million cubic meters of water from a water basin in the Great Lakes in one day. The Boundary Waters Treaty is limited to waters on the Canadian-US border and does not apply to freshwater in other parts of Canada. This means the about 85 percent of Canada’s water is susceptible to export. As human populations and industries grow and the climate change takes place, greater pressure will be placed on water-rich countries like Canada to export their water to countries that have a water shortage.
Since Canada has taken a strong position against water exports, companies are shifting their focus to Alaska
. Alaska was the first jurisdiction in the world to permit the commercial export of bulk water, and has a large potential for water exports. One scheme proposes transporting water from Alaska to China
by tanker. This water would be used to assemble computer wafers
by China’s relatively cheap labour force. Computer wafers require extremely pure freshwater. This makes the cost of desalination
of saltwater prohibitely expensive, making schemes like this, that would not be profitable for domestic purposes, profitable for industrial purposes.
{UBAID}
and adjacent Central Asian states occupy somewhat similar position with respect to Russia
's Siberia as the south-western United States do with respect to Canada. Siberian rivers, as well as rivers of northern European Russia flow "uselessly" into the seas of the Arctic Ocean, while that water could be much more profitably used for irrigated agriculture by Russia's southern neighbors. Not surprisingly, proposals
for large-scale transfer of water from the Ob River
in Siberia to the Aral Sea
basin in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
have been seriously considered by the Soviet federal government already in the 1960-80s, when all republics involved were members of the USSR. While welcomed by many in Central Asian republics, the project received severe criticism from many scientists as well as prominent writers and journalists in Russia, such as Valentin Rasputin
and Sergey Zalygin
, sometimes known collectively as the "Siberian environmental lobby"
Shelved in 1986 for both economical and environmental reasons, the idea of international water transfers has been raised again in the 21st century in the ruling circles of the now independent states.
Both the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev
and the Uzbek President Islam Karimov expressed interest in such a water transfer scheme. While the Russian federal government so far remains non-committal on the issue, the plan met enthusiastic response from Moscow mayor and Russian presidential hopeful, Yuri Luzhkov.
The canals that would have to be constructed to transfer water require huge investment and operation costs. This would make the cost for consumers of the water expensive. In contrast, the technology needed to desalinise seawater has improved dramatically and has an acceptable cost for urban markets. Whether or not pressures for large-scale water exports continues to increase depends mostly on future advances in desalination technology. If the cost of desalination drops enough, it will be cheaper to generate freshwater from saltwater than to import freshwater from another country. The cost of desalination is currently less than US$1 per cubic meter. The World Water Commission has suggested that desalination will become the favoured method of procuring drinking and industrial-use waters. However, the need for extremely pure water for particular industrial uses would still require freshwater imports.
Export
The term export is derived from the conceptual meaning as to ship the goods and services out of the port of a country. The seller of such goods and services is referred to as an "exporter" who is based in the country of export whereas the overseas based buyer is referred to as an "importer"...
ing freshwater
Fresh Water
Fresh Water is the debut album by Australian rock and blues singer Alison McCallum, released in 1972. Rare for an Australian artist at the time, it came in a gatefold sleeve...
from one country to another. Large increases in human population
Population growth
Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....
and economic growth
Economic growth
In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...
throughout the world during the twentieth century placed a huge stress on the world’s freshwater resources. Combined with climate change
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, they will place an even greater demand on water resources in this century. Water shortages have become an international concern, and freshwater has been described as “blue gold” and “the oil of the 21st Century.”
Water exports from Canada to the US
Aquifer
An aquifer is a wet underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials from which groundwater can be usefully extracted using a water well. The study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology...
s and rivers in the region to be overused. The water in the Oglala Aquifer, which serves much of the west-central US, is being used eight times faster than it is being replenished. Demands for this freshwater will increase as the climate warms.
In Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
there have been concerns about exporting water to the United States since the 1960s, when states in the south-western US experienced their first water shortages and began to seek water sources to augment their overstretched supplies. Canada has 7% of the world’s renewable supply of freshwater. Large-scale removal of water from lakes would negatively affect their ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
s, increasing pollution concentrations and harming plant and animal communities
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
.
Freshwater export between Canada and the US currently takes place at a small scale, mostly as bottled water exports. The bottled water
Bottled water
Bottled water is drinking water packaged in plastic or glass water bottles. Bottled water may be carbonated or not...
industry exports water in containers usually no larger than twenty litres.
Many states in the US have experienced water shortages in the past few decades, creating a market for freshwater that would be profitable for Canada. Numerous proposals about transferring large amounts of freshwater from the Great Lakes Basin
Great Lakes Basin
The Great Lakes Basin consists of the Great Lakes and the surrounding lands of the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in the United States, and the province of Ontario in Canada, whose direct surface runoff and watersheds form a large...
into the US have been made. This would involve inter-basin
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
transport of water across the international boundary between Canada and the US using a man-made reservoir
Reservoir
A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...
. None of these proposals have as yet been implemented, mainly due to environmental and financial obstacles. It should be noted, however, that since 1850 the Americans have been diverting much of the water of the Chicago River
Chicago River
The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of the same name, including its center . Though not especially long, the river is notable for being the reason why Chicago became an important location, as the link between the Great Lakes and...
, which would naturally flow into Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
, into the Mississippi
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
basin over Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, historically known as the Chicago Drainage Canal, is the only shipping link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system, by way of the Illinois and Des Plaines Rivers...
. In that case, though, the goal was not taking possession of the water that would otherwise end up in the Great Lakes / St. Lawrence system, but directing Chicago's effluent away from Lake Michigan.
Schemes to export water from Canada to the US on a large scale have been proposed in the past. These schemes include the Great Recycling and Northern Development (GRAND) Canal
Great Recycling and Northern Development Canal
The Great Recycling and Northern Development Canal of North America or GCNA is a water management proposal designed by Newfoundland engineer Thomas Kierans to alleviate North American freshwater shortage problems...
scheme to dam James Bay
James Bay
James Bay is a large body of water on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. Both bodies of water extend from the Arctic Ocean. James Bay borders the provinces of Quebec and Ontario; islands within the bay are part of Nunavut...
to create a freshwater reservoir and divert the water from the 20 rivers that flow into it to Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay is a large bay of Lake Huron, located entirely within Ontario, Canada...
. The water would then be flushed through the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
into pipelines to the south-western US. The North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) project proposed to divert the Yukon
Yukon River
The Yukon River is a major watercourse of northwestern North America. The source of the river is located in British Columbia, Canada. The next portion lies in, and gives its name to Yukon Territory. The lower half of the river lies in the U.S. state of Alaska. The river is long and empties into...
, Liard, and Peace
Peace River (Canada)
The Peace River is a river in Canada that originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows to the northeast through northern Alberta. The Peace River flows into the Slave River, a tributary of the Mackenzie River. The Mackenzie is the 12th longest river in the world,...
rivers into the Rocky Mountain Trench
Rocky Mountain Trench
The Rocky Mountain Trench, or the Trench or The Valley of a Thousand Peaks, is a large valley in the northern part of the Rocky Mountains. It is both visually and cartographically a striking physiographic feature extending approximately from Flathead Lake, Montana, to the Liard River, just south...
to create an 800 km long reservoir that would transfer water into the US.
During the 1990s schemes to export water by ocean-going tankers were proposed to three Canadian provinces. In 1991, Sun Belt Water Inc. of Santa Barbara, California, in partnership with Snowcap Waters Ltd., of Fanny Bay, British Columbia, was selected by the Goleta Water District, of California, to enter a contract to supply bulk water by marine tanker but the government of British Columbia reversed its water export policy and introduced a prohibition on the issuance of water export licences leading to an arbitration claim against Canada under Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...
filed by Sun Belt Water Inc. in 1999. The arbitration remains unresolved.
In 1999 Nova Group Ltd. obtained a permit from the Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
government to export water 600 millions litres of water annually from Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
to Asia. Political controversy in Canada and the US caused the government to cancel the permit.
Water has been classed as a commodity under the North American Free Trade Agreement
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...
(NAFTA) since the 1980s. This has increased tensions in the debate about exporting water. Although none of the NAFTA rules force Canada to begin to export its water in bulk, if Canada voluntarily decides to begin exports it would be very difficult to later halt them.
The Federal government of Canada passed the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act in 2002. This banned the removal of more than 50 million cubic meters of water from a water basin in the Great Lakes in one day. The Boundary Waters Treaty is limited to waters on the Canadian-US border and does not apply to freshwater in other parts of Canada. This means the about 85 percent of Canada’s water is susceptible to export. As human populations and industries grow and the climate change takes place, greater pressure will be placed on water-rich countries like Canada to export their water to countries that have a water shortage.
Since Canada has taken a strong position against water exports, companies are shifting their focus to Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. Alaska was the first jurisdiction in the world to permit the commercial export of bulk water, and has a large potential for water exports. One scheme proposes transporting water from Alaska to China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
by tanker. This water would be used to assemble computer wafers
Wafer fabrication
Wafer fabrication is a procedure composed of many repeated sequential processes to produce complete electrical or photonic circuits. Examples include production of radio frequency amplifiers, LEDs, optical computer components, and CPUs for computers...
by China’s relatively cheap labour force. Computer wafers require extremely pure freshwater. This makes the cost of desalination
Desalination
Desalination, desalinization, or desalinisation refers to any of several processes that remove some amount of salt and other minerals from saline water...
of saltwater prohibitely expensive, making schemes like this, that would not be profitable for domestic purposes, profitable for industrial purposes.
{UBAID}
Water exports from Russia to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
Arid but densely populated southern KazakhstanKazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
and adjacent Central Asian states occupy somewhat similar position with respect to Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
's Siberia as the south-western United States do with respect to Canada. Siberian rivers, as well as rivers of northern European Russia flow "uselessly" into the seas of the Arctic Ocean, while that water could be much more profitably used for irrigated agriculture by Russia's southern neighbors. Not surprisingly, proposals
Northern river reversal
The Northern river reversal or Siberian river reversal was an ambitious project to divert the flow of the Northern rivers in the Soviet Union, which "uselessly" drain into the Arctic Ocean, southwards towards the populated agricultural areas of Central Asia, which lack water.Research and planning...
for large-scale transfer of water from the Ob River
Ob River
The Ob River , also Obi, is a major river in western Siberia, Russia and is the world's seventh longest river. It is the westernmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean .The Gulf of Ob is the world's longest estuary.-Names:The Ob is known to the Khanty people as the...
in Siberia to the Aral Sea
Aral Sea
The Aral Sea was a lake that lay between Kazakhstan in the north and Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan, in the south...
basin in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
have been seriously considered by the Soviet federal government already in the 1960-80s, when all republics involved were members of the USSR. While welcomed by many in Central Asian republics, the project received severe criticism from many scientists as well as prominent writers and journalists in Russia, such as Valentin Rasputin
Valentin Rasputin
Valentin Grigoriyevich Rasputin is a Russian writer. He was born and lived much of his life in the Irkutsk Oblast in Eastern Siberia. Rasputin's works depict rootless urban characters and the fight for survival of centuries-old traditional rural ways of life...
and Sergey Zalygin
Sergey Pavlovich Zalygin
-External links:*...
, sometimes known collectively as the "Siberian environmental lobby"
Shelved in 1986 for both economical and environmental reasons, the idea of international water transfers has been raised again in the 21st century in the ruling circles of the now independent states.
Both the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev
Nursultan Nazarbayev
Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev has served as the President of Kazakhstan since the nation received its independence in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union...
and the Uzbek President Islam Karimov expressed interest in such a water transfer scheme. While the Russian federal government so far remains non-committal on the issue, the plan met enthusiastic response from Moscow mayor and Russian presidential hopeful, Yuri Luzhkov.
Alternatives to large-scale water exports
In the short run, better allocation of resources and more efficient water conservation technology may keep demand for water in the some countries under control. However water crisis may occur in the near future that would make bulk water export a more favourable plan.The canals that would have to be constructed to transfer water require huge investment and operation costs. This would make the cost for consumers of the water expensive. In contrast, the technology needed to desalinise seawater has improved dramatically and has an acceptable cost for urban markets. Whether or not pressures for large-scale water exports continues to increase depends mostly on future advances in desalination technology. If the cost of desalination drops enough, it will be cheaper to generate freshwater from saltwater than to import freshwater from another country. The cost of desalination is currently less than US$1 per cubic meter. The World Water Commission has suggested that desalination will become the favoured method of procuring drinking and industrial-use waters. However, the need for extremely pure water for particular industrial uses would still require freshwater imports.