North American Future 2025 Project and Fresh Water

My friend Elaine Hebard, a fellow water wonk, just told me about the North American Future 2025 project, which can be downloaded here:

Download NA_Future_2025.pdf

The project, proposed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS; www.csis.org) in Washington, DC, will focus on detailed examination of future scenarios in six areas: labor mobility; energy; the environment; security; competitiveness; and border infrastructure and logistics.

Obviously, fresh water supply is important. Here is a snippet of what the report says about fresh water.

"Fresh Water: Fresh water is running out in many regions of the world—be it the water in rivers, lakes, basins, aquifers, or watersheds. Therefore, communities throughout the world will be seeking alternative water sources, and North America will by no means be exempt from this looming problem. North America, and particularly the United States and Mexico, will experience water scarcity as a result of arid climates coupled with growing populations and increased water consumption.

      Juxtaposed to the relative scarcity of water in the United States and Mexico, Canada possesses about 20 percent of the earth’s fresh water. [My note: they got it wrong again - what they mean is "20% of the earth's fresh unfrozen surface water".] Cognizant that water will become a strategic resource, Canada’s federal and provincial governments have undertaken measures to protect the nation’s water supply. This task is particularly challenging, given that Canada and the United State share many basins along their border, such as the Great Lakes as well as multiple rivers. Because water availability, quality, and allocation are likely to undergo profound changes between 2006 and 2025, policymakers will benefit from a more proactive approach to exploring different creative solutions beyond the current transboundary water management agreements that the United States has reached with both Mexico and Canada. One such option could be regional agreements between Canada, the United States, and Mexico on issues such as water consumption, water transfers, artificial diversions of

fresh water, water conservation technologies for agricultural irrigation, and urban consumption.

       Even though several agreements pertaining to surface water and water quality are in place between the three countries, little or no policy has been formulated regarding groundwater. The United States and Mexico share at least 18 aquifers, and a significant portion of these countries’ population is already experiencing problems with the availability and contamination of water.

      Water control presents even greater challenges, because international water policy is primarily rooted in decentralized state laws in the United States and in provincial statutes in Canada. Consequently, the federal governments of these two countries have limited jurisdiction over water control issues. Conversely, in Mexico, issues involving water are within the purview of the federal government, even though the strengthening of Mexico’s federalism during the past five years has resulted in the

steady escalation of the role of state governments in these issues. The three nations will have to overcome the bureaucratic challenges posed by their different political systems and legal regimes, particularly if the overriding future goals of North America are procedures that will help avoid or resolve differences over water in the face of ever-increasing

pressures over this priceless resource.

        As part of the North American Future 2025 project, CSIS will examine surface water and groundwater trends in North America up to the year 2025 as well as their overall implications for the stability and security of the hemisphere. A better understanding of projected trends in the global and North American hydrologic cycles will enable policymakers in Canada, the United States, and Mexico to be better positioned to think more strategically about this resource."

"There's no stopping the future." -- Yogi Berra

Comments

[Global Activist]

A Wall Street Journal Article from March 24th, 2008 had this to say about global scarcity problems: "One danger is that governments, rather than searching for global solutions to resource constraints, will concentrate on grabbing share.” The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America has been established to allow Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. to share resources amongst each-other, as a common customs union, etc. It is a way of shoring up power, especially for the United States, whose position in the world is no longer so dominant. The reason that military harmonization and "security" are so central to the SPP and the plans of North American Countries is because the SPP is all about "grabbing share." It is a preparatory step for global conflict escalation. The policy elite, the wealthy, want all the grabbing share at any cost and they are going to defend it by force. The poor be damned. We need to stop the SPP and get the world on track for a participatory process that can solve our sustainability problems.

[Eric]

It might behoove the United States to start behaving towards Mexico the way we hope Canada will behave towards us when crunch time arrives. After all, fair's fair.