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RR RUEHAST RUEHHM RUEHLN RUEHMA RUEHPB RUEHPOD RUEHTM
DE RUEHBR #1341/01 2831930
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 091930Z OCT 08
FM AMEMBASSY BRASILIA
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INFO RUEHZN/ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COLLECTIVE
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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