Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

2 3 8 / C H A L L E N G E S T O L I F E A N D W E L L - B E I N GPromoting Cleaner Industry for Everyone’s Benefit■ Consumption of water for cooling thermoelectric plantsrepresents a considerable proportion of water abstracted in thehigh-income group of countries.■ The data have been measured in different ways, in differentyears or have been estimated from other economic statistics.Information on the industrial degradation of water quality throughemissions of organic water pollutants is given in section 3.6 of WorldDevelopment Indicators 2001. This provides BOD data, the widest andmost reliably measured indicator, for a range of countries togetherwith the estimated shares contributed by various industry sectors.The data also indicate the change in BOD loadings with time.Comparisons of data for 1980 and 1996 indicate that while BODloadings for high-income countries have been reduced, those inmiddle- and low-income countries have risen substantially. The dataalso indicate that the contributions of two developing countries –India and China – are statistically significant within the overall data,with China contributing 32 percent and India 8 percent of estimatedMap 9.1: Water withdrawals for manufacturing industries according to drainage basinsglobal emissions of organic water pollutants in 1996.Many actions to restrict inter alia industry impacts on waterhave been undertaken by the international community and have ledto multinational environmental agreements such as the Global Planof Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from LandBased Activities (GPA), the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), theBasel Convention and the Stockholm Convention.Reducing industry impacts at a basin scaleMap 9.1 shows the distribution, by river basin, of water withdrawalsfor manufacturing industry. Assessing demand-side concerns in thisway, rather than subdivided by political boundaries, enablestransboundary risks and conflicts to be identified and managed onthe basis of natural hydrological units. The map demonstrates thecorrelation between levels of industry withdrawals and areas of highpopulation density; in particular, parts of India, much of easternChina, the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada, much ofEurope and central Russia, the Nile basin in Africa, and the Middle East.The water bodies in many of these areas suffer from water stress.(mm/year)0 0.01 0.1 1 10 100 [max 1,340]This map demonstrates the correlation between levels of industry withdrawals and areas of high population density, such as India, eastern China, the eastern seaboard of theUnited States and Canada.Source: Map prepared for the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) by the Centre for Environmental Research, University of Kassel, based on data from WaterGAP, Version 2.1.D.