Blue Planet. Rivers: %

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3 Blue Planet Rivers: %

4 *Fresh water has no substitute, and its availability has been declining sharply around the globe. Fresh water is essential to human existence. *United Nations warns that demand for fresh water is on track to outstrip supply by as much as 40 per cent within 16 years. *That means co-operation between countries sharing the same river is likely to become even more imperative. *People have always fought over water. The word rival comes from the Latin rivalis, or someone using the same stream as another.

5 Introducing: Siang River *From its source atop the sacred Buddhist site of Mount Kailaish, the River Yarlung Tsang Po flows nearly a 1000s miles across the barren tundra of the Tibetan plateau. *A pinch between two towering peaks, 7,782-meter Namcha Barwa and its little sister, Gyala Peri, forces the river southward around the Great Bend, where it plunges nearly ten thousand feet in less than a hundred miles through the Tsangpo Gorge. *Tumbling into the jungle territory of the indigenous Adi in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India, the river takes an Adi name, the Siang.

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7 *Known as the Yarlung Tsang Po river in China. *The river enters India at Shuomatan Point, becoming the Siang. *Siang joins the Lohit after flowing for 230 km. *At Pasighat, the Siang (also known as Dihang in India) spreads out to flow downstream into Assam and becomes the mighty Brahmaputra. *Main tributary of the Brahmaputra river.

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10 *2003: Opened to foreign travelers. *Siang remains one of the least explored gorges on the planet to anyone other than the 100,000 Adi who inhabit the corridor, which sustains the last surviving rainforest in India. *The Adi subsist much as they have for thousands of years in the steep, forested Siang River Valley, hunting; fishing; foraging; cultivating rice and wheat; and lodging in picturesque bamboo, cane, and thatch homes, which dot the landscape. *Fifty species of mammals, including eight primates and several species of leopards, thrive in the surrounding jungle. *Professional kayakers compare the quality of the whitewater among the greatest in the world, ranking with the Zambezi, the Grand Canyon, the Futaleufu, and the White Nile.

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12 *Nature of Siang: It is not an unpredictable river like other rivers. *Matter of concern A. Change in colour B. Receding water level *June 2000 Floods: Siang had turned muddy throwing up various dead species but the river cleared up within a week. *1950 Earthquake: same had happened but the river soon cleared up then too.

13 In news because *Pasighat-based Ninong Ering, Lok Sabha member representing Arunachal East, had last week written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi sniffing a Chinese hand behind the waters of Siang turning excessively muddy. * I have grown up in Pasighat, and I know Siang (water) is so clear in November that you can see the riverbed. Now, the water is not only muddy, it seems there s cement in it, which could be from the tunnel that China is probably constructing, the Congress leader said. *State Water Quality Testing Laboratory (SWQTL) has declared the water is unfit for human consumption. *Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU) content of the water sample was 482, while the iron content was recorded at 1.65 mg/litre beyond permissible limits.

14 Not enough information *Experts: Lack of info. to ascertain the reasons behind the phenomenon. * Arunachal is seeing hectic highway construction, so maybe it s just that, - Tage Rupa, Geomorphologist, Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar *Central Water Commission: 18 th November s 6.3 magnitude *This was also mentioned by Arjun Ram Meghwal, Union minister of state for water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation, as a possible reason.

15 Losses *November-December is the peak rafting season. *But this year it is not the grade IV rapids that are scaring away enthusiasts it s the extreme muddiness of the river. * We have not been able to raft at Siang. It is scary to put the rafts in, said Oken Tayeng of Abor Country Travels, which organises rafting expeditions. *All rafting activities have been put on halt.

16 *Siang Valley is known as one of the rice bowls of the state and several villages are directly dependent on the river. *It will severely impact agriculture production in the area *The effects are already being seen in Assam and Arunachal in aquatic life loss and livelihood issues *Fishes have been dying *Even buffaloes who consumed the water dying. *Drinking and domestic use water problems

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18 *Given the limited information sharing across the India-China border, though, there has been enormous suspicion by Indian politicians of alleged Chinese activities that may have led to the polluting of the river. *The chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh, Pema Khandu, asked the central government to take up the matter with Beijing after inspecting the river in Yingkiong, near the Indo-China border. * Exploitation of the upper reaches of Siang (Tsangpo) has already begun. China has probably started constructing the 1,000km tunnel to divert the river to Xinjiang, he said. *News reports: Chinese government s purported plan to build a tunnel to divert water from the Yarlung Tsangpo in southern Tibet to the parched Taklamakan desert area in the province of Xinjiang.

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20 * It is highly disturbing that for days together we have not been able to ascertain what the cause is, said environmentalist Dulal Chandra Goswami, who has studied the Brahmaputra extensively. It shows how vulnerable people in the downstream are because of the whims of our politicians. *Goswami said the current atmosphere of suspense and confusion was symptomatic of the government s failure to govern an international river like the Brahmaputra. Ideally, this was a phone call away, but then the basin partners just don t interact, he said. When they do, they argue. This is just no way to handle an international river. This current crisis exposes that there is no framework to negotiate and solve problems so far as the Brahmaputra is concerned.

21 *Others contend this is the result of willful ignorance on the part of the government, considering that the Indian state has claimed in the past that it has an extensive surveillance mechanism to monitor any hydraulic interventions on the Yarlung Tsangpo. *Back in 2011, the Ministry of Space had said in response to a question in the Lok Sabha that it had satellite images of construction activities along the entire course of river Brahmaputra. *The reply stated, Government keeps a constant watch on all developments having a bearing on India s national interest and takes all necessary measures to safeguard it.

22 *Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman, a senior research fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology in Guwahati who is working on riverine matters in the North East, asked, What is preventing the Ministry of Water Resources and the Central Water Commission from coming up with a strong clarification and clearing the air once and for all? Or do conspiracy theories help push Delhi s agenda of big dams if the Chinese are building, we must too? *Rahman said it was time Delhi stopped holding back information on such matters that affect the lives and livelihoods of people in the region. We need to develop institutionalised responses to crises like these instead of deploying the dams, dredging and China bogeys all the time, he added. There ought to be more transparency in information flow from the central agencies.

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25 *Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said the ministry was coordinating with the Water Resources Ministry while referring to existing mechanisms between India and China to deal with issues pertaining to waters. * Naturally, it is a matter of concern to us. We are coordinating with water resources ministry. We have ascertained certain facts, Kumar said. *Data, however, is not easy to come by. In India, flow data of rivers in the Indo-Gangetic and Brahmaputra basins is treated as classified and comes under the Official Secrets Act, often hampering research. * Our people are happy there will be no more water to make a big dam and their agricultural lands will be saved from getting submerged. Water for drinking and irrigation comes from small rivers and rivulets and not from Siang, Forum for Siang Dialogue (FSD) general secretary Vijay Taram

26 China s Profile *Nearly 20% of the world s people but only about 6% of its fresh water. *It sometimes wants to simply shift water to where it isn t. *Coal power is chocking: Hence more dams on the drawing board *22,000 large dams, almost half the global total. *Bold engineering effort to transfer electricity to power-hungry factories hundreds of kilometres further east.

27 *They block fish from migrating to their spawning grounds and, by releasing water in bursts, scour riverbeds and disrupt fish breeding patterns. *They also trap nutrient-rich silt that is needed to keep downstream deltas fertile and stop them eroding away. *Mekong, one of the world s mightiest waterways. *It would stretch all the way from Los Angeles across to New York. *Just under half the river s length is in China, which first started damming it in Yunnan more than 20 years ago.

28 *China s 13th five year plan has proposed significant hydropower expansion along rivers that also originate in the Tibetan plateau. *Although the plan does not mention any river specifically, it is anticipated that the new dams are envisaged along the Yarlung Zangbo, Lancang (Mekong) and Nu (Salween), all originating in the Tibetan plateau. *Two huge dams of China can hold enough to drown an area the size of London in water 24 metres deep

29 *The situation is exacerbated by China s deep reluctance to share information about the dams. *China has also been reluctant to negotiate the use of its rivers. *China was one of just three nations to vote against the UN s 1997 treaty governing shared international rivers. *There are no bilateral or multilateral treaties on the water. *2001: An artifical dam in Tibet collapsed and killed 26 people and damaged property of Rs 140 crore along the river Siang in Arunachal Pradesh *China believes: helps it assert claim over Arunachal Pradesh

30 *If China fails to release enough water during the dry season, most of the new downstream dams will struggle to generate power at that time of the year. *Considering China s own water shortages, it is possible Beijing could decide to prioritise water over energy production and withhold some of the flow for its use. *Dams, canals, irrigation systems can turn water into a political weapon to be wielded in war, or during peace to signal annoyance with a coriparian state

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