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Asians should not be fighting each other; but should work out common strategies to fight their common and more dangerous enemy – water-related disasters
By K.C. Somaratna
I was reading in the news media, a few weeks back, reports regarding the tense situation which was prevailing along Pakistan’s border with India. My mind went back 14 years to this time of the year 2001, when again there was tension along this same border, I 
believe.
At that time we, my two director sons and I, were providing consultancy services to the Jhelum and Akora Khattak factories of Pakistan Tobacco Co. Ltd and we used to travel to Pakistan every month. Pakistan Airlines refrained from flying over India and we had to fly through Dubai. Even then we were sad that these two friendly neighbours of ours do have disagreements of this nature.
Then my mind goes back about one year to the first week of September 2014 when both these countries were heavily engrossed in fighting the unprecedented rain that had come down on both these countries. Millions of people were displaced, millions of acres of farmland were under water, and 3 to 5 September saw torrential rains with Rawalkot receiving more than 900mms of rain during those three days. Many areas received close to 500mms of rain. The death toll was about 550 for India and 360 for Pakistan and India mentioned that the loss to the economy was close to Indian Rs. 1 trillion.
It was only last month that cyclone Solider hit Taiwan and then it went on to hit some areas of China; at one stage it was expected to hit both Korea and Japan as well. Around the same time India, Nepal, Myanmar and Vietnam all were experiencing floods. These natural disasters associated with water do not spare one country or another because it is not in good terms with yet another; but they will hit both warring countries the same way and this is why I say that Asians should not be fighting each other; but should work out common strategies to fight their common and more dangerous enemy – these water-related disasters.
An insight for policy makers
These facts are nothing new to the policy makers of Asia. In fact in 2009, two researchers, named Yoganath Adikari and Junichi Yoshitani, at International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM) carried out a research study and published a document titled ‘Global Trends in Water Related Disasters – An Insight for Policy Makers’.
The statistics they provide are frightening, to say the least. Between 1986 and 2006, the percentage of Asian fatalities out of global fatalities due to different natural disasters has been as follows: Floods 64.4%, Wind Storms 84.6%, Land Slides 64.0%; Waves & Surges 68.9%, Droughts 0.9%, Epidemics 27.7%. Average for all disasters was 45.6%. Africans had an average of 46.1% mainly due to a very high 99.1% due to droughts and 58.0% due to epidemics. The other three continents had 8.3% only.
During the same period out of a total of 2,592 million affected by floods, 2,506 million had been Asians. The report summarises their findings by saying that between 1980 and 2006, 71% of natural disaster fatalities had taken place in Asia of which more than 81% has been flood related. Average global financial loss between 2000 and 2008 due to natural disasters was estimated at $90 billion a year and if this loss is also distributed in the same ratio as the fatalities then Asia would have lost $40 billion every year.
It is in light of this data I say that the most dangerous enemy all Asians have is definitely water related disasters. In fact, I have been mentioning – writing to the papers – about Asians been more vulnerable to these water related disasters since 2010. Even the Asian Development Bank has estimated that (i) Asia – Pacific can expect stronger storms, (ii) one third of the tropical cyclones occur in the Western Pacific region and (iii)Vietnam, China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia have all been hit by large storms and most of these are called the worst ever storms to hit that particular area.
What can we do about it?
We hate to believe that there is nothing that we can do about it. We strongly believe that if there is a phenomenon which has a root cause, we can always stop/prevent that phenomenon. Then this implies that we need to identify what this root cause is. Of course the flooding is due to excessive rainfall on land which cannot be accommodated within the established water ways on land.
According to US EPA Website, on 27-08-2015, precipitation has been increasing at the rate of 0.15 inches per decade in the lower 48 states of USA and at the rate of 0.09 inches per decade for the whole world. In a situation where the average annual rain fall is about 1000mm, this increase of 0.09 inches per decade may appear to be insignificant.
What needs to be considered in evaluating this is to (a) compare it with what additional rainfall that could occur due to the global warming as explained in the classical climate change theories, (b) estimate how much of spatial and temporal accumulation should take place before this level of increase could lead to a disaster and (c) compare this change relative to the average precipitation with the relative changes that take place year over year in respect of heat flow rates given in the Kiehl & Trentbirth’s Mean Energy Budget diagram.
When one compares this with what additional rainfall that should take place according to the classical climate change theories, the comparison would be as follows: This 0.09 inches per decade increase in precipitation amounts to an increase of total global annual precipitation of 112.5 Giga tons and how it compares with the other increases mentioned above will be as follows:
So the total amount of water vapour which would have got into the atmosphere due to the combustion of different fossil fuels in the year 2011 would have been 41.9Gt, which is close to 40% of the increase in precipitation as per US EPA pronouncements.
It is true that this increase of 0.09inches/decade is negligible when compared to the 1000mm per year average global precipitation. But if you look at the annual changes that do take place in respect to the energy flow rates – including the outward bound infrared radiation which gets reflected by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – all these annual changes are at the same level of magnitude.
On the other hand, if this change of 0.09in/decade increase in precipitation or even the 41.9 Gt per year calculated earlier happens in a uniformly distributed fashion over the entire year over the earth’s total surface we would not even notice it. But unfortunately both spatial and temporal accumulation take place and then this leads to unbearable flooding and related disasters. When such spatial and temporal accumulation do coincide with a location and a time which would anyhow see heavy rain, ( there are more reasons as to why it should coincide than as to why it should not), the ultimate result will be nothing but a catastrophe.
If one compares this amount to what happened during 3 to 5 September 2014 in India and Pakistan – i.e. 500 mm of rain, then this 41.9Gt would be enough to fall on 20 million acres. At the rate of 2.5 million acres per incident, it could happen 8 times a year of three days duration each. If we take the total of 112.5Gt mentioned by US EPA, it could happen twenty times per year or nearly twice a month. Water when it comes down it does not remain static, but it flows. This could affect a much larger area.
Then we need to find out why these disasters do take place in Asia so much. We studied this at two levels of detail. Firstly we find that the Earth rotates in the eastward direction and Asia is an East-West distributed continent. The CO2 and H2O vapour that is been generated in Asia due to fossil fuel combustion remain inside a reasonably narrow East-West band. Asia is developing very fast during this century and throws out a lot of greenhouse gases CO2 and H2O. In fact if China and India were to get closer to the level of US development, one should not be surprised if precipitation were to increase at the rate of 0.15 in per decade, like in USA, instead of the 0.09 in per decade which we have used so far.
If one were to go deeper into the reasons behind this accumulated disasters in Asia, one would find the Hadley and Walker circulations to provide the needed explanation. According to the sketches of these two circulations provided in Chapter 1 of “Frontiers of Climate Modelling” by J.T. Kiehl and V. Ramanathan, Hadley circulation shows how the air streams generated between 100S and 300N latitudes do remain inside that particular latitudinal region without getting distributed across the entire latitudinal range from 900S to 900N.
According to this model moist air generated close to the 100S moves to higher altitudes and northwards and drops its moisture so that by the time it reaches 300N the air is completely dry. So all the water vapour generated in this band comes down in this region itself. Then the sketch of Walker circulation showing the air streams across different longitudinal areas show that the region between 600E to 1600E are again having circulations within the region. These two aspects of Hadley and Walker circulations indicate that the products of combustion of fossil fuels generated within 100S and 300N latitudes and between 600E and 1600E longitudes do accumulate within the same area which happens to be Asia.
So when Asia develops fast – when Asia with the two countries having the highest populations with each having more than one billion people – and they want to be on par with USA in respect of level of development, Asia would be generating an unprecedented amount of CO2 and water vapour which would be circulating within its own areal space without getting distributed into spaces belonging to other continents. According to the International Energy Agency’s document – ‘Redrawing Energy – Climate Change Map,’ the shares of China, India and Japan of the world’s emissions of CO2 in 2012 were 25%, 6% and 5% and this would have led to more than 35% of that extra rainfall of 42 Gt/year mentioned earlier.
A possible solution
There is no point in studying climate change if all we can do would be to explain what climate change is and what climate change would do to mankind. It is still worse if we promote a solution which would make things worse like in the case of promoting natural gas in place of coal.
So the only possible solution for the excessive water related disasters in Asia would be to take mitigation action against climate change rather than take adaptation measures now itself. Those enterprises which benefit from the business of adaptation measures would love such activities like building those three high walls at New York, New Orleans and San Francisco costing about $ 20 billion. Asians can’t afford that sort of expenditure.
So what Asians need to do is to identify suitable mitigation action for the generation of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels. Asians can’t afford to develop their economies using the same forms of energy used by their predecessors in industrial/economic development. Fortunately for Asians, there are enough and more techniques available for generating energy. Solar energy is the most abundantly available – Rs. 3 trillion [at the rate of Rs. 9 per kWhr] worth of solar energy a day is received by Sri Lankans – source of energy which could be used to power the development in Asia.
Of course those who would like to prolong the usage of fossil fuels – come what may – would talk about it been (i) not available in the night, (ii)a distributed source of energy, (iii) in need of storage and (iv) expensive. But when such a precious asset is available, what a sensible human being – not necessarily a great planner nor an excellent professional – would do is to exploit the strengths of that asset and make the weaknesses irrelevant.
In fact there was a two part paper by Prof. Mark Daluchchi and Prof. Mark Jacobbsson published in Energy Policy – August, 2011 Journal which shows how the total energy needs of mankind could be fulfilled by an infrastructure based on Wind, Water and Sun – they call it WWS infrastructure – with all the relevant capacities of different forms, requirements of all uses of energy, areas of land that would be required, etc. So what the Asians need to do is to plan their individual infrastructure needs and capabilities of the resources available and plan their matching initiatives. WWS Infrastructure will never fail them.
Most countries would have already exploited their water and wind components; but the penetration of the solar component may be slow. In fact unlike water and wind components, solar component also demands large land area which could lead to deforestation. With UN climate summit establishing an objective for reducing deforestation by 50% by 2020 and 100% by 2030, the solar infrastructure planners need to identify suitable places to establish the solar plants while meeting UN climate summit objectives.
It is here that we find our proposal to lay these solar panels above and along the highways to be not only addressing the objectives of climate summit, but also eliminate the absorption of solar radiation by the blackish asphalt surface of the highways which leads to global warming. This Highway Solarisation will have many other advantages as follows:
(i) It will generate energy where energy is been used for the most expensive usage – i.e. transportation where for each 1 kWhr of energy actually used, 4 kWhrs of energy will be wasted which also happens to be the most damaging in respect of climate change when this damage is expressed as kgs of greenhouse gases generated per actual kWhr of energy used. Moreover this would be a predominantly a day time requirement.
(ii) New Highways are been constructed all the time in the developing world.
(iii) Highways cannot be used for agricultural purposes - so the food security is not impaired due to energy generation.
(iv) Highway Solarisation can be implemented very fast as land clearance, access road preparation, etc. do not need to be carried out.
(vi) Rainwater also could be harvested in a distributed fashion.
Action plan
As such what the Asians need to do is to stop fighting with each other over an additional few square miles and prolong their agony of facing water related disasters one after another; but be united in their effort to face these disasters with well-defined mitigation action and ensure that Asia would be devoid of any increasing trends in water related disasters – increase in respect of frequency, area of farmland damaged, number of people affected, deaths and so on.
Asian leaders should pool their scientific resource personnel and ask them to study the currently available data on water related disasters and their impact on Asian community, identify specific reasons for any identified increases in these and recommend suitable mitigation action for the same. In case they come out with other suitable technically feasible and financially viable solutions, consider them seriously and implement them. If they don’t, get them to study the solution proposed here and if they think this is a suitable solution, implement it fast enough so that we, Asians could avert the onslaught of these disasters.
World history – Asian history is no exception – is full of situations where countries have fought bitter wars with each other over the possession of a water way or water resource. We believe that the time has come for the Asian leaders to make water - water vapour up in the air – the most important driving force behind unity of Asian nations. It would be as if water vapour up in the air is watching whether the Asian leaders start fighting with each other and deserve to be punished or they unit and implement suitable solutions to prevent their countrymen from the suffering associated with these water related disasters.
We could call this ‘Water Vapour Diplomacy’ because the basis, rather the driving force, behind this mode of diplomacy is water vapour up in the air and what it could do to the individual countries and their citizenry.
Asian leaders need to notice that if the most important commodity for development – Energy – were to be obtained using fossil fuels as the West has done in a previous era, the result may be something furthest from their dream of making this 21st century “the Century of Asia”, mainly due to the manner in which Asia is positioned. So it is their challenge to think above the mind sets of their ordinary countrymen and do something really great which would undoubtedly be praised unconditionally by the Asians of the 22nd century.
How the current Asian leaders from Abe to Jingping to Modi to Sherif etc. would unite and react to the many fact based pronouncements on the seriousness of how water related disasters would be impacting their countrymen would determine whether there would be a need for an Abe or Jingping or Modi or Sherif, etc. in the 22nd century.
Conclusion
Precipitation world over increases at the rate of 112Gt/year is a fact. Combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation by burning forests make the biggest contribution towards this is a fact. When this increase in precipitation is accumulated over time and space it could lead to unprecedented water related disasters.
Asians, in their quest for development/industrialisation, do contribute to more than 35% of the global greenhouse gases is a fact. These greenhouse gases do get accumulated within the same air space due to the positioning of Asia within 100S to 300N and 600W to 1500E limits is a fact. Between 1980 and 2006, more than 78.1% of natural disaster related fatalities occurred in Asia and more than 83% of these were flood related is a fact.
Highway solarisation to generate electricity and using this electrical energy for transportation, etc. is probably the most plausible solution to reduce the use of fossil fuels in the Asian continent. This will pave the way for significantly reducing the frequency and impact of water related disasters. The future prosperity of Asia – may be even the survival of Asia – will depend on whether this solution is aggressively pursued by the United Asian community.
This will also determine whether this 21st century would become ‘the Century of Asia’ or ‘the Century of Asian Destruction’ and let us hope that the collective leadership of Asia would be prudent enough to put aside their differences and pursue this path to Asian survival to be remembered as the bravest statesmen in history who have thought about survival of the Asian community rather than about the prestige of been a superior power than another Asian country.
(The writer is Managing Director of Somaratna Consultants Ltd.)
