The High And Low Of It: Looming Water Issues In Bhutan

By: Tashi Dorji on December 15th, 2008

Even as Bhutan puts in place plans to manage its water resources, climate change has already reduced water levels in hydel-power driven nation’s rivers.

“Water scarcity is going to grow and it is high time for Bhutan to think about managing its water resources,” the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, told BT along the sidelines of the UN conference on climate change in Poznan, Poland.

The climate change scientist received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC together with co-recipient, former US vice president Al Gore. The Nobel was given to the IPCC and Al Gore for their efforts to address climate change.

“It is absolutely essential that Bhutan has to think in terms of more efficient use of water for a variety of purposes,” Dr Pachauri said.

The IPCC head said Bhutan, “needs to change the storage infrastructure whereby water would have to be stored for longer periods and in larger quantities.”

Attending the last two days of the conference, which concluded Friday, the deputy minister of the Bhutanese National Environment Commission, Dasho Nado Rinchen, said his nation is increasingly witnessing the impact of climate change. He agreed that it [climate change] has already reduced water levels in the rivers. He said plans are in place to manage water resources in the country.

Harvesting rain water is one of the nine-point priority projects identified by Bhutan to adapt to the impact of climate change, the deputy minister said.

Earlier, in a press conference, Dr Pachauri said the impact of climate change on the Himalayan region will affect 500 million people in South Asia and about 250 million in China.

Erratic rainfall will be one of the different ways in which it will impact the Himalayan region. The receding glacial cover would not only mean less supply of water to the rivers but would also cause a reduction in the level of ground water, which will trigger a shortage of water from all possible sources, he said.

Regarding Bhutan’s high dependence on hydropower, Dr Pachauri cautioned: “Bhutan needs to look at how the hydropower projects are likely to be impacted by the changes in the water flow in the future.”

Minister Rinchen said Bhutan is already bearing the brunt of the fluctuating river levels in the hydropower sector. In winter, when the river level is low, production at the 336-megawatt Chukha hydropower project decreases to less than 100 megawatt, and the Tala project produces between 400 and 500 megawatts, less than half of its 1,020 megawatt capacity.

He also added that the Department of Energy is thinking of managing river water by building water storage dams that will help production at the power plants when the water level in the rivers is low. “Water from the dams can also be used for other purposes,” he said.

Water is just one of the impending issues Bhutan will face as a result of climate change. “There is a whole range of adaptation (to climate change) measures that need to be taken (by Bhutan) at hand,” he said.

Apart from the glaring threat posed by possible glacial lake outburst floods, climate change has also affected Bhutan’s bio-diversity by impacting the migration of species. Dr Pachauri explained that species that existed in low regions are moving higher as a result of increasing temperature.

Forestry officials at home have found that some pine trees that grew best at certain altitudes in the past are now growing only at much higher temperatures, confirmed the director of the NEC, Sonam Yangley, who led the five-member Bhutanese delegation to the UN conference in Poznan.

Dr Pachauri said Bhutan is also likely to experience more landslides, and a major reason for this was the change in the precipitation pattern.

Yangley said that Bhutan has begun experiencing erratic rainfall. The increasing frustration of civil servants in Thimphu every winter, waiting for the first major snowfall, which is declared a holiday by the government, is also valid.

Dr Pachauri said the agricultural sector, which is the main source of livelihood in Bhutan and the region, will be widely affected.

He recommended change in agricultural practices and changes in crops, and also the development of new crops that are more resilient to the impact of climate change.

Dr Pachauri also said that individuals can contribute to saving the planet in all capacities. The bearded man joked that rearing beards could also reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere as electric shavers emit carbon.

Earlier, in a press conference, he said being vegetarian also helps the cause. Selling meat at an industrial scale emits a lot of carbon through machines used in abattoirs, and also through refrigeration used in transporting meat. “All I ask is for people to eat less meat,” he said. “One can even contribute by switching off a bulb after using it.”