ANDEAN GLACIER MELT PORTENDS SHORTAGES OF WATER AND

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BRASILIA 001341 SIPDIS DEPT PASS USAID LAC/RSD,LAC/SAM,G/ENV,PPC/ENV INTERIOR PASS USGS FOR INTERNATIONAL: JWEAVER NSF FOR INTERNATIONAL: HAROLD STOLBERG E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENVEAGREAIDTBIOECONSOCIXR SUBJECT: ANDEAN GLACIER MELT PORTENDS SHORTAGES OF WATER AND HYDROPOWER BRASILIA 00001341 001.2 OF 004 ¶1. SUMMARY. Accelerating glacier melt in the central Andean region of South America (Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Colombia) is rapidly shrinking frozen water storage reservoirs, providing short-term water surpluses that portend long-term water scarcity, with significant reductions in river flows predicted as early as ¶2030. The long-term reduction and possible disappearance of glaciers and glacial melt waters will endanger fresh water supplies for Andean populations and for the agriculture sector. It will also reduce hydropower potential in central Andean nations, threatening to destabilize energy security. In the Andean region as a whole, glacial water supplies support the lives and livelihoods of 30 million people. ¶2. Adaptation strategies are needed to address issues such as: integrated water resource management, energy diversification, alternative water supply development, engineered and alternative water storage solutions, increased agricultural irrigation efficiency, agricultural crop substitution. The U.S. Government, via USAID and the Department of State, is working to support the Andean region in developing strategies to adapt to climate-driven glacial melt. END SUMMARY THE WORSENING PROBLEM OF GLACIER MELT ¶3. Striking a continental divide between the Pacific Coast and the Amazon Basin, the Andean mountains are home to the world's largest concentration of tropical glaciers (those located between 30N and 30S degrees latitude). This region is prominent in its vulnerability to climate change, as demonstrated by accelerating tropical glacial melt and growing water scarcity. ¶4. Progressive changes in tropical Andean glaciers have been mapped for decades via field observations and satellite imagery. Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, home to 70 percent of the Earth's tropical glaciers, have recorded losses of nearly one third of glacial surface area since the 1970s. Moreover, the pace of glacial melt has accelerated since 1980, according to INRENA, Peru's National Resources Institute. ¶5. Predictive calculations made by the Earth Simulator supercomputer (Japanese Meteorological Research Institute, JMRI) indicate that lower altitude glaciers in the central Andes will disappear in the next 10-20 years; many more glaciers will disappear in the next 50 years, with serious implications for water supplies and hydropower generation. Regional and international hydrologists are predicting a dramatic decline in water availability after 2050, with significant reductions occurring as early as 2030 (CONAM, National Environmental Council Peru). CRITICAL WATER STORAGE ¶6. Andean glaciers provide fresh water and hydropower to Andean countries including Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Venezuela. ¶7. Glaciers play the important role of regulating year-round water supplies by storing water in the form of ice in the wet and cold seasons, and providing glacial melt water runoff in drier and warmer seasons. As glaciers retreat and disappear, this glacial melt regulating function will diminish and eventually be lost, resulting in greater wet season flooding, less water storage, and less dry season water availability. Decreasing water supplies and increasing water supply seasonality will have adverse impacts on agricultural production, hydroelectric production, population centers, ecosystem well-being, and the mining sector (subject of subsequent cable). ¶8. In the central Andean region of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and BRASILIA 00001341 002.2 OF 004 Ecuador, rapid glacial melt is causing short-term water surpluses that portend long-term changes in water balance. Predicted water shortages will likely reduce agricultural and hydropower productivity, jeopardizing the food and energy security of these developing nations. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY IMPACTED ¶9. Owing to twists of geography and meteorology, 98 percent of Peru's fresh waters reside on the eastern or Amazonian side of the Andean continental divide, rather than on the water-scarce Pacific Coast side where over 70 percent of the population resides, and where only 2 percent of the renewable water supply is available. In this same water-scarce coastal region, two-thirds of Peru's agricultural production occurs, completely dependent upon irrigation owing to a virtual absence of local precipitation. ¶10. In recent years, agricultural irrigation has consumed 82 percent of water withdrawals in Peru (97 percent from Andean surface waters),yet an estimated 65 percent of this water is lost through inefficient and wasteful irrigation practices. With growing water scarcity concerns, there is great incentive to improve Peru's agricultural water use practices. Under current Peruvian water law (Ley General de Aguas, 1969),water is rarely metered and fees are mostly based on hectarage rather than on the volume of water used. Whereas irrigation plays a fundamental role in increasing regional agricultural productivity (as well as rural employment and food security),inefficient irrigation practices have contributed to soil salinization problems that could imperil the long-term productivity of this vulnerable coastal land. ¶11. Future reductions in Andean river water availability to the agriculture sector along Peru's Pacific coast (and the deteriorating effects of soil salinization) will have significant impacts on future trade in agricultural products and national economic growth for Peru. In recent years, the agricultural sector employed approximately 30 percent of the Peruvian population, and accounted for 10 percent of exports, and 13 percent of GDP. CRITICAL HYDROPOWER AT RISK ¶12. In the power sector, Andean countries have become highly dependent upon hydroelectric power. In recent years, roughly 80 percent of actual supplied electricity in Peru was generated via hydropower; Colombia 73 percent; Ecuador 72 percent; Bolivia 50 percent; and Chile 43 percent, according to the World Bank and the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In the case of Chile, recent years have brought periodic droughts and water scarcity, resulting in energy supply shortfalls. Chile's efforts at energy diversification (initiated in 1990s) have resulted in construction of natural gas-fired power plants, and an increasing profile in the ranking of greenhouse gas emitters. COMMENT: Due to lack of sufficient natural gas supplies in 2007 and 2008, Chilean power plants and industrial facilities designed to burn natural gas switched to burning of diesel and coal, contributing significantly to the cost and the by-product air pollution of electricity generation. In 2007, Chile spent 7 percent of its GDP on energy production, about twice what the country should have spent, owing to the natural gas shortfall and high global petroleum prices. END COMMENT. ¶13. Whether from reduced precipitation or reduced glacial storage, diminishing water flows in Peru as in Chile have weakened recent hydroelectric power production, a trend that will likely continue. Furthermore, in Peru, the low domestic prices of Camisea natural gas are shifting the balance from hydropower towards gas-fired power generation. BRASILIA 00001341 003.2 OF 004 ¶14. To estimate economic implications of regional climate change, World Bank engineer Walter Vergara has used JMRI Earth Simulator predictions of glacial runoff and precipitation patterns to calculate future changes in hydropower potential. Using as case study the Peruvian Canon del Pato hydropower plant, economic evaluations using glacial melt runoff predictions at 50 percent of historic flows indicate that electricity production will drop 19 percent. With full disappearance of glacial melt runoff, hydropower production is estimated to decrease 37 percent. If adaptation measures are not implemented, Vergara estimates that the economic consequences of glacier retreat and disappearance could exceed one billion US dollars annually for the Peruvian power sector, accounting for costs that include forced energy rationing. In addition, capital investment will be required for construction of thermal-based power plants at a cost of US$1 billion per gigawatt installed. The Andean Community (CAN),a regional organization composed of member countries Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, estimates that climate change will cause US$30 billion in annual losses in Peru, equivalent to 4.5 percent, of GDP starting in 2025. NOTE: Local construction costs for natural gas-fired power plants may be lower than cited in World Bank report. END NOTE. ¶15. Environmental implications of a transition from hydropower to thermal-based energy production are also alarming. Increased fossil fuel burning for electricity production in the region will increase carbon emissions, transforming low emitter Andean nations such as Peru and Chile into larger players in the world of greenhouse gas emissions. DRINKING WATER DEPENDENCE ON GLACIERS ¶16. In the Andean region as a whole, glacial water supplies support the lives and livelihoods of 30 million people. Water flowing from the Andean highlands is captured to provide agricultural and urban drinking water supplies for growing coastal populations. In Peru, Andean rivers fed by glacial melt provide the predominant source of drinking and agricultural water to over half of the Peru's population. ¶17. Of the major central Andean urban centers, Quito, Ecuador draws 50 percent of its water supply from glacial basins; La Paz, Bolivia draws 30 percent from glacial melt; and Chile draws 70 percent of its national water supply from glacial melt. In Lima, a city of 8 million residents, water supplies are drawn from rivers that include glacial melt and are supplemented by ground water pumped from glacially recharged aquifers. Groundwater extraction from coastal aquifers is necessary to supplement potable water sources to Lima's increasing urban population located in this coastal desert. In fact, limited water rationing is already in effect in Lima, a city where about 36 percent of potable water is wasted through aging distribution system infrastructure. As water scarcity intensifies, disputes over water extraction, water use and water ownership will be increasingly likely. ¶18. Beyond concerns with the quantity of water supply, river water quality in coastal cities across Peru is deteriorating due to uncontrolled use of agrochemicals, mining effluents, industrial wastewater, dumping of municipal wastewater and solid waste. Peru's ombudswoman Beatriz Merino warns that a portion of Lima's river water supply is exposed to legacy mining tailings that include: arsenic, barite, mercury, cadmium, radioactive materials, hydrocarbons, cyanide and sulfuric acid. RESPONDING TO THE CHALLENGE ¶19. In light of climate change and rapid glacier melt, adaptation BRASILIA 00001341 004.2 OF 004 plans for central Andean countries need to focus on integrated water resource management, energy diversification, alternative water supply development, engineered and alternative water storage solutions, coordinated infrastructure, water demand management, increased agricultural irrigation efficiency, and agricultural crop substitution. ¶20. Peru has provided the setting for numerous climate change-related workshops in the past year, most focused on evidence presentation documenting glacial melt and water scarcity. These workshops have included the Latin American Carbon Forum (September 2007) and Andean Community (CAN) Meeting on Climate Change and Water Resources (September 2008). The World Bank is also engaged on Andean water issues. In 2009 it will initiate two Global Environmental Facility (GEF) projects in Peru focused on impacts of climate change on mountain hydrology and water resource management modernization. ¶21. As a more solution-focused approach to water security and climate change adaptation, USAID and U.S. Department of State will organize a university-based workshop with Peruvian stakeholders from academia and government titled "Adapting to Glacial Loss" in summer ¶2009. USG support for this workshop will provide institutional strengthening within Peru and the central Andean region, provide further opportunities for climate change research, and promote development of climate change adaption strategies for future planning. SOBEL