Significance of the Silent Revolution of intensive groundwater use in world water policy

Abstract

A series of fairly new factors such as virtual water, the rise of desalination technologies and intensive groundwater use currently look as though they will exert a strong influence on future water policy. This chapteris concerned with the latter of the three: the Silent Revolution of intensive groundwater use in arid and semi-arid countries. Over the last half century, millions of farmers have independently drilled their own wells in the pursuit of the socio-economic advantages of groundwater irrigation. This has been due to fairly recent advances in well drilling and pumping, which together with the development of hydrogeology as a solid body of science, have made groundwater more widely available. The intrinsic benefits of groundwater irrigation in relation to traditional surface water systems, such as the ready availability of the resource or the resilience of aquifers against drought, constitute the main reason behind the spectacular groundwater development of many arid and semi-arid countries worldwide. Despite these undeniable benefits, certain problems (mainly related to groundwater quality degradation and water table depletion) have also arisen in some places. While no two cases are the same, a pattern of events can be observed in many of these regions, thus leading to the conceptualisation of this intensive groundwater-based development. Thus, five stages can be distinguished: Hydroschizophrenia, changes in water policy due to the Silent Revolution, Farmer Lobbies, Conservation Lobbies and Social Conflict. In any case, despite the significant role groundwater development is already playing in the eradication of poverty as well as towards fulfilling the United Nation's Millennium Goals, it cannot be seen as a panacea to solve all the world's water problems. These need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, in order to achieve an adequate conjunctive management of surface and groundwater resources. Finally, there is a real need to assess and correct the traditional imbalance in favour of conventional surface water systems that exists in most water agencies, and which is the main cause behind important social conflicts.