Don’t take rivers for granted

DESPITE their many uses and benefits to mankind, rivers in our country are often overlooked and remain a low priority for policymakers until the next flash flood or severe drought happens. Over the recent years, Malaysia has seen a higher frequency and more intense dry spells, which have affected the availability of water resources in many parts of the country.

Residents in the Klang Valley particularly would remember the 2014 water crisis, which was reported as the worst since 1998. The substantial drop in water levels in five Selangor reservoir dams brought about scheduled water rationing that lasted for several months in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur.

Let’s look at some facts and figures about rivers in Malaysia. Our country has 189 river basins – 89 in Peninsular Malaysia, 78 in Sabah and 22 in Sarawak. About 97% of our raw water supply for agriculture, domestic and industrial needs are derived from surface water sources, primarily rivers. These rivers originate and flow from the highlands.

The average water usage per person in Malaysia is over 200 litres/ day, which is among the highest in the region, compared with the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of 165 litres per capita per day. It is clear that we use a lot of water, so why do we take our rivers for granted?

Sadly, rivers are taken for granted not just in Malaysia, but all over the world. In August 2018, WWF released the Valuing Rivers report on the opening day of World Water Week in Stockholm. It outlines how the traditionally narrow view of rivers as primary sources of water and power puts other critical benefits at risk, from freshwater fisheries to natural flood protection for cities and sediment flows that keep the world’s deltas above the rising seas. While these directly benefit hundreds of millions of people, they are often overlooked and remain a low priority for decision makers – until they disappear and a crisis occurs.

Written by my colleague Jeff Opperman, who is the WWF Global Lead Freshwater Scientist, the report shows how this short-sighted approach has proven costly across the globe and could result in even greater economic losses in the future.

Already, nearly a quarter of gross domestic product (GDP) in Asia and a fifth of the GDP in Africa lie within watersheds with high to very high water risk – water risk here referring to the possibility of experiencing a water-related challenge such as water scarcity, drought or flooding.

Meanwhile, 19% of global GDP also comes from watersheds with high to very high water risk, and most of the world’s great deltas – including the Ganges, Indus, Mekong, Nile and Yangtze – are sinking and shrinking.

Along with their central role in many cultures and religions, the report shows that healthy rivers, particularly free-flowing rivers, provide a range of extremely valuable – and increasingly vulnerable – benefits to people across the planet:

Two billion people rely directly on rivers for their drinking water;

500 million people live on deltas that can only be sustained by sediment from rivers;

25% of the world’s food production depends on irrigation from rivers;

At least 12 million tonnes of freshwater fish are caught each year, providing food and livelihoods for tens of millions of people.

With rivers under growing pressure from dam development, climate change and soaring demand for water to irrigate farms and fuel hydropower plants, the report provides a new framework for improving how societies measure, value and promote a rivers’ diverse benefits and offers solutions to support better decisions and management.

It highlights the potential role of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, remote sensing and blockchain, which offer a number of promising pathways to improve how we measure water and river systems. Improvements in methods for valuing water, quantifying ecosystem services, and evaluating tradeoffs also provide new opportunities.

Finally, the report recommends the development of effective watermanagement institutions and governance – with roles for governments, companies and financial institutions – to ensure that the best overall decisions are taken and that progress is sustainable.

A critical step in ensuring Malaysia’s water security is by first changing the way we think about and manage water on a daily basis.

As we develop our beloved country into a global powerhouse, we must never be willing to accept the loss of rivers’ diverse benefits as the unavoidable collateral damage of development. Instead, the health of our rivers must be a non-negotiable item and become a national priority.

As I reach for a tall glass of iced water to quench my thirst brought on by this sweltering heat, I hope that all of us – from communities to companies and government agencies – will work together to chart a better course for our rivers that supply us with water and so much more in Malaysia. Together, everything is possible.