WATER P-NOTES ISSUE 19 OCTOBER 2008 46471 Groundwater in Rural Development Facing the Challenges of Supply and Resource Sustainability S ome 200 million people lived on Planet Earth at It is naturally drought resilient and can be applied the start of the modern era. That number rose to exactly when plants need it. But large-scale use 2.5 billion by 1950. At mid-2008, the popula- of groundwater for irrigation is a relatively recent tion is now 7.0 billion and is expected to reach 9.0 phenomenon, introduced only after the develop- billion by 2040. It thus took 1,950 years for the ment of powerful and low-cost well-drilling rigs and global population to grow ten-fold--but only an pumps, and after rural electrification was extended additional 58 years to nearly triple. And throughout to supply the energy needed to drive the new equip- this period the global availability of water resources ment. Even more recent, and still far from universal, has remained more or less constant. is careful attention to the rates of replenishment of Growing ever more food to feed rising popula- the aquifers that provide the groundwater being tions will be possible only with increasingly large pumped. The sustainability of groundwater abstrac- amounts of water being used for agricultural irriga- tion now hangs over great swathes of the world's tion, even allowing for further advances in plant ge- agriculture like the Sword of Damocles. netics. Groundwater--widely developed by private Individual well owners and widely scattered initiative but often stimulated by "soft loan" finance, cooperatives have managed to provide affordable, guaranteed crop prices, and rural energy subsi- good-quality groundwater for irrigating crops across dies--will be a very important source of irrigation vast areas of relatively arid and drought-prone land water. At the same time groundwater will continue in Asia, and to lesser extent in Latin America and to be the predominant source of household water Africa. And with ever-more powerful technology at for the rural population in developing nations. their disposal, their ability to do so has been magni- fied to such an extent that individual decisions can affect their neighbors in unforeseen ways. Agricultural irrigation, the The enormous demand for groundwater re- predominant groundwater quires us to find a balance between the immediate consumer benefits of groundwater use for irrigation and ensur- ing the sustainability of the resource base for tomor- As a source of water for irrigation, groundwater row's use. The imperative of achieving that balance offers advantages that surface water sources can- must be posed at the outset of every investment not match--foremost among them dependability. plan related to groundwater use in agriculture. Excerpted from Groundwater in Rural Development: Facing the Challenges of Supply and Resource Sustainability by Stephen Foster, John Chilton, Marcus Moench, Franklin Cardy, and Manuel Schiffler (World Bank Technical Paper 463, March 2000)--a GW-MATE publication. Visit www.worldbank.org/gwmate/ for more information. The publication is available in PDF format from www.worldbank.org/water. WATER P-NOTES India: the trap set by subsidized and of associated reductions in water tables. Thus electricity the full economic cost of groundwater abstraction and of the electrical energy required to power it at India offers a clear demonstration of the major socio- ever-decreasing efficiency (as a result of the falling economic advances produced by intensive pumping water table) was not considered. Typically, only a of groundwater to irrigate crops, but also of its nega- portion of the full cost of groundwater abstrac- tive impact and grave concerns about sustainability. tion is being paid by the users (figure 1), leaving today's taxpayers and tomorrow's generation to Through the use of groundwater from the 1980s foot the rest of the bill. Subsidizing electrical power onwards, many rural areas of India have flourished, for groundwater pumping certainly achieved the with major increases in crop production that have policy goal of raising crop yields, especially for contributed greatly to improving national food se- relatively well-off farmers who could afford to drill curity. More than 50 percent of India's irrigated deeper in pursuit of the falling water-table. But it agriculture depends on groundwater, and crop yields also caused thousands of village wells to dry up, are generally 30­50 percent higher in groundwater- with the poorest members of the rural community, irrigated areas. Concomitantly, about 85 percent of who depended on those wells for household water, the drinking water needs of rural areas are also met suffering most. from groundwater. Until relatively recently, virtually all Indian gov- But this example of sound groundwater use is ernment organizations concerned with groundwater accompanied by a well-intentioned policy that has had been established, and were sustained, to pro- gone sour. The large rural community of ground- mote resource exploitation rather than to ensure water-based farmers in peninsular India (who do resource management. India is still struggling for a not enjoy the benefits of farming within the reach of way out of that dilemma. major surface-water irrigation canals) lobbied for and achieved concessions from federal and state More troubling is that the Indian pattern has governments for rural electrification and then highly repeated itself elsewhere. That many have fallen subsidized (flat-rate) electricity tariffs for groundwa- into this trap is surprising, considering that simple ter pumping. procedures for estimating groundwater resource balances have been available since the 1970s and The country's governments failed at the outset could have been used to guide investment decisions to assess the risk of groundwater overexploitation affecting irrigated agriculture. Figure 1. Assessing the costs of groundwater abstraction Social Opportunity External Water Supply Costs Costs Costs Forgone Value In-situ Value Operation and of Alternative (cost of saline Full Capital Maintenance Resource Users intrusion, Economic Costs (O&M) Admin. (present/future) land subsidence, Costs of Costs Costs draught buffer Groundwater etc.) Abstraction Capital O&M Paid by Costs Costs Resource Users (credit normally (energy Admin. subsidized) normally Charges* subsidized) Note: Only a relative (and not absolute) scale of economic costs is implied in this figure. * frequently not levied or do not cover real costs 2 ISSUE 19 · OCTOBER 2008 Toward sustainability: conserving Hydrogeologists from China to Nigeria and from while consuming India to Mexico are realizing that recognizing the problem and acting to correct it do not necessar- Around the world, people are discovering the truth ily go hand in hand. Inaction, it seems, is generally of Benjamin Franklin's dictum: "You don't value a consequence of conflicting stakeholder claims, water till the well runs dry." Only in the most arid of wrong-headed political decisions, and powerful inter- countries is water generally recognized for the pre- est groups. Unless developing-world governments cious resource it is--and even there inefficient agri- (and the international institutions that support them) cultural use of groundwater can be widespread. can mobilize the principal stakeholders, from large agricultural producers to small subsistence farmers Figure 2. Stakeholders in rural groundwater development for agricultural irrigation Participation of Stakeholder in Development Phases Project Design & Operation & Resource Stakeholder Group Promotion Construction Maintenance Management Directly-involved Water Users Development Agencies Engineering Services & Supplies Energy Suppliers Incidently-involved Agricultural Suppliers Agricultural Markets Impacted Parties Note: The horizontal time scale shown in the figure may be from 1 to 5 decades. * other branches of government will normally be concerned with groundwater resource management 3 WATER P-NOTES (figure 2), groundwater use will not be put back on a expertise, balanced by respect for the views of those sustainable path, and sinking water tables will even- directly affected by decisions. Those who have a say tually turn crop lands into dust bowls. in groundwater use are many. Water-user associa- Clearly, what is needed most, but understood tions, village councils, and national parliaments are least, is competent groundwater resource manage- as essential to effective groundwater management ment. But what kind of management and on what as national planning ministries and regional regula- scale? Well, the participatory type of resource tory bodies. management needed in areas where irrigated ag- What is needed is an integrated approach to riculture demands large volumes of groundwater planning groundwater supply that marries stake- is in fact a social process, one more familiar to holder participation with technical expertise, togeth- politicians than to engineers. The keys to that pro- er with a broad vision of present and future welfare. cess are balance and respect--respect for technical That approach implies community involvement in design, implementation, maintenance, and financ- ing of projects, as well as reconciliation of commu- nities' wishes with their willingness to pay for water at a rate that reflects full operating and capital Figure 3. A conceptual framework for costs. In most cases, subsidies are appropriate only the management and protection of for the poorest of the community. groundwater resources The key hydrogeological and socioeconomic elements that determine the effect of water- and Hydrogeologic Factors Socioeconomic Factors land-use activities on groundwater are indicated Water Demand & Contaminant Load schematically in figure 3. Projects undertaken at the local level should be designed at an appropriate technical level (no more complex than necessary) Yeild potential Strategic planning but make maximum use of national services and supplies. Aquifier Resource Institutional systems/ sustainability framework Because water is a scarce good, decisions on ground- Water & water Susceptibility Stakeholder Land Users its allocation are bound to be contentious. For that resources to side effects participation reason, groundwater management will succeed only Pollution Economic in a robust institutional framework, one characterized vulnerability instruments by impartial expert research, careful coalition build- ing, transparent and participatory decision making, systematic monitoring of implementation, and politi- cal accountability for failure as well as success. The Water Sector Board Practitioner Notes (P-Notes) series is published by the Water Sector Board of the Sustainable Development Network of the World Bank Group. P-Notes are available online at www.worldbank.org/water. P-Notes are a synopsis of larger World Bank documents in the water sector. 4 THE WORLD BANK | 1818 H Street, NW | Washington, DC 20433 www.worldbank.org/water | whelpdesk@worldbank.org