The Threat to Tibet’s Fresh Water

The most precious resource on earth is not fossil fuels such as gas or oil, not precious metals and not gems; it is water. 97% of the earth’s water is salt water, found in the seas and oceans; leaving only 3% which is fresh and of this, 2% is frozen so only 1% of the earth’s water is actually usable for us.

Water is a finite resource and exists in a perpetual cycle of evaporation – turning water on the surface of the land into gas and then being deposited back to earth as rain or snow. Nature’s water-recycling process – the water cycle – has kept the amount of water on Earth about the same for millions of years.

Water is an especially important resource in Tibet. The Tibetan Plateau glacial sheet feeds the largest rivers in Asia, including the Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Yellow River, Mekong, Ganges and the Indus and is often referred to as ‘The Water Tower of Asia’. The Plateau is the largest river run-off from any single location in the world.  It is estimated that 1.3 billion people live in the watersheds of these major rivers and beyond that are the additional millions who depend on monsoon rains drawn inland by the Tibetan Plateau. For many generations, this Plateau has met the basic necessities to sustain life and enabled human civilizations to flourish beyond its border.

The Tibetan plateau environment is now being degraded by a range of factors: global warming, overdevelopment of the land, deforestation, damming of rivers and pollution, all of which will have devastating consequences for Tibet itself and for the countries which rely upon the plateau for their fresh water.

 Perhaps the most significant factor affecting water supply is global warming which is increasing temperatures and changing the rainfall patterns of the region. Glaciers melting in the Himalayas are expected to lead to the overflow of 200 glacial lakes with widespread flooding downstream and attendant problems of soil erosion, landslides, reduced river health (as nutrients are flushed downsteam) affecting fish stocks, and an increase in water borne diseases. In the longer term there will be less water because the glaciers will have disappeared and this will lead to drought and desertification across most of South and South East Asia. The supply of fresh water will then be a major challenge affecting agriculture and livestock maintenance as well as the sustainability of the human population.

Another major factor affecting water supply has been environmental degradation caused by industrialisation of the landscape. Until the Chinese invasion in 1949, the Tibetan population was largely nomadic, herding sheep, goats and yaks across the great plains and living in harmony with the environment. However, China sees Tibet as its ‘Xizang’ (meaning ‘the western treasure house’) because of all the rich natural resources it contains, especially precious metals and rare minerals which are needed to support China’s rapid transition to a technologically advanced country. China is therefore doing everything needed to facilitate their mining by building highways, railway lines, hydropower plants and huge house building programmes to accommodate the influx of workers needed to accomplish this transformation. There is a double impact on water supplies as a result.

First, the building programme results in large areas of man-made surfaces which prevent the absorption of water by the land. Water flows from these impervious surfaces very quickly and then cannot refurbish ground water reservoirs and streams. This damage to the natural water cycle alters the amount of water flowing from the plateau – causing flooding, soil erosion and disruption to the breeding cycles of freshwater fish and other animals.

Of equal concern is the fact that many of the mining organisations are not well regulated, have outdated practices and equipment and pay little heed to any damage they are doing to the environment. Water supplies have been polluted by the chemicals used in the industry and assessments have indicated that Tibetan open-pit mines produced 100 million tons of wastewater in 2007 and nearly 20 million metric tons of solid waste in 2009, all of which polluted the fresh water sources. With the recent announcement of more than 3000 potential mining sites and many more precious mineral deposits in Tibet, it is highly likely that there will be even more damage in the future. Since most of this activity is taking place at the sources of the great rivers which feed the rest of Asia, the impact of this industrialisation on the fragile ecosystem of the plateau is severe.

A further threat to water supplies is the widespread and increasing incidence of dams on Tibetan rivers. So far China has dammed every major river and its tributaries and has unveiled plans to construct even more dams in the coming years to supply new hydropower plants. These plants are needed to achieve China’s goal of ensuring that at least 15% of its electricity comes from non-fossil fuel. Dams interrupt the free flow of water, converting once fast rivers into stagnant backwaters, detrimentally impacting the aquatic ecosystem including water flows, water quality, fish habitats, wetlands, and the livelihood of people relying on it. Dams also cause heavy loss of water through evaporation, and contribute to global warming because the rotting organic matter from the vegetation, soil and detritus that flows in the reservoirs contribute to green house gas emissions. It is interesting to note  that the Tibetan plateau is one of the world’s best locations for solar electric power, second only to the Sahara Desert, and is capable of generating 200Kcal/cm with far less impact on the environment.

A more sinister threat to fresh water supplies in the region is that of nuclear contamination. Although it had long been suspected that China was dumping nuclear waste in Tibet, it was only in 1995 that a report from Xinhua (the Chinese State Press Agency) confirmed the presence of a 20sq metre dump of radioactive pollutants near the shores of Lake Kokonor – the largest lake on the Tibetan plateau. The report also suggested that as China’s Nuclear Industry was offering western countries nuclear waste disposal facilities, about 4000 tonnes of such waste could be sent to China by the end of 1999. Since that report there has been no factual information released by China and so we can only speculate about the current situation.

Finally, primarily as a result of inward migration from China, the plateau now houses about 9 million people – three times the population of 1951, when the Communist Chinese took over. This urban boom is generating more human and industrial waste than the region’s facilities can handle, and a much greater need for more fresh water.

To summarise then, increasingindustrialisation, population growth, pollution and higher levels of consumption are placing extraordinary demands on the Tibetan water resources which provide vital support for the livelihood of millions of people outside its borders.

What can be done? First there is adaptation – better management of the available water. This will depend on the use of better technology and infrastructure which is expensive, therefore controversial, especially for poorer nations, but is increasingly being seen as a necessity.

Of even greater importance is the need for a multinational approach, encompassing Tibet and all the countries which depend upon its water. To date South Asian governments have signed few bilateral water agreements and no regional ones.  Currently, there is no regional framework or forum for South and East Asian nations to discuss or negotiate over water resources, other than the Mekong River Commission which does not include China. The blockers to agreements appear to be mainly sovereignty issues, mutual distrust and energy security taking priority over environmental concerns.

There is time to take preventative and mitigation measures and the general view is that water treaties between countries are more likely to develop successfully than other relationships so that even treaties which partially address the problems are better than nothing at all. However we cannot afford to be complacent and the Governments concerned must be urged to address the question of water supply to ensure the Tibetan plateau can continue to provide South Asia’s fresh water.

Written by: Denise Thompson (Scientific Officer Retired)

Volunteer and Researcher at Lha Charitable Trust