The End OF The World

WWF Names World's Top 10 Rivers at Greatest Risk

GLAND, Switzerland, March 21, 2007 (ENS) ? Ten of world's largest rivers are drying up due to "the wanton waste of freshwater resources, poor governance, and a disregard for the needs of local people that frequently exacerbates poverty," finds a new report by the global conservation organization WWF. 

The report, "World's Top Rivers at Risk," released ahead of World Water Day on March 22, lists the top 10 rivers that are dying as a result of climate change, pollution and dams. 

Five of the 10 rivers listed in the report are in Asia. They are the Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Ganges and Indus. 

Europe’s Danube, the Americas’ La Plata and Rio Grande-Rio Bravo, Africa’s Nile-Lake Victoria and Australia’s Murray-Darling also make the list. 

"All the rivers in the report symbolize the current freshwater crisis, which we have been signalling for years," says WWF Global Freshwater Programme Director Jamie Pittock. 

"Poor planning and inadequate protection of natural areas mean we can no longer assume that water will flow forever," Pittock said. "Like the climate change crisis, which now has the attention of business and government, we want leaders to take notice of the emergency facing freshwater now not later." 

The report summarizes the findings of eight wide-ranging and authoritative global assessments and identifies the threats mentioned with the greatest frequency - water infrastructure such as dams, over-extraction of water, climate change,invasive species, over-fishing, and pollution. 
The 10 rivers highlighted are either those that already suffer most under the weight of these threats or are bracing for the heaviest impacts. 

There are some rivers on the list that are so damaged that without serious restoration efforts they could be lost, and others that are relatively intact, but face massive degradation unless action is taken now to conserve them. 

Yangtze: Pollution. The Yangtze River rises in the mountains of Qinghai Province on the Tibetan plateau, and fl ows 6,300 kilometers to the East China Sea, opening at Shanghai. Its catchment covers one-fifth of the land area in China. 

The Yangtze river basin accounts for 40 percent of China’s freshwater resources, more than 70 percent of the country’s rice production, 50 percent of its grain, more than 70 percent of fishery production, and 40 percent of the China’s GDP. 

The river is inhabited by 350 fish species, including the giant Yangtze sturgeon, of which 112 are found nowhere else. This basin is the sole habitat of the critically endangered Chinese Paddlefish, the endangered Finless Porpoise, and the now believed to be extinct Chinese River Dolphin, the most critically endangered cetacean in the world. The most threatened crocodilian species in the world, the Chinese Alligator, is only found in the lower reaches of the Yangtze. 

This basin is inhabited by the giant panda, the largest salamander in the world, Audrias davidianus, the critically endangered Siberian crane, and the once-extirpated Pere David’s deer now re-introduced from captive stock. 

Over the last 50 years, there has been a 73 percent increase in pollution levels from hundreds of cities, in the main stem of the Yangtze River, WWF reports. The annual discharge of sewage and industrial waste in the river has reached about 25 billion tons, which is 42 percent of the country’s total sewage discharge, and 45 percent of its total industrial discharge. 

The major pollutants in the Yangtze mainstem are suspended substances, oxidizing organic and inorganic compounds, and ammonia nitrogen. This has reduced drinking water quality and contributed to eutrophication, the process by which the excess nutrients stimulate excessive plant growth and decay. 

After 13 years of construction, the Three Gorges Dam is now built and will be fully operational in 2008. The Three Gorges Dam exacerbates water pollution by impounding waters, trapping sediment and increasing eutrophication. 

Efforts to reduce pollution in the Yangtze River have been slow but promising, WWF says. Community pressure has successfully increased local enforcement activities such as fi eld inspections and increased pollution fees. 

Mekong-Lancang: Over-fishing. The Mekong river basin is the largest in Southeast Asia. Rising in the mountains of China’s Qinghai province near Tibet, it flows south. It forms the border between Laos and Myanmar, most of the border between Laos and Thailand, and moves across Cambodia and southern Vietnam into the South China Sea.

Unlike many major rivers in Asia, this river and its flood regime are relatively intact, and the lower Mekong basin is the most productive river fishery in the world. 

The basin is home to at least 1,200 fish species, the highest fish diversity in any basin after the Amazon and Congo. Sixty-two fish species are found nowhere else in the world. This river harbors more species of giant fish than any other as well as the largest freshwater fish known to science, the Mekong giant catfish. The basin is inhabited by the Irrawaddy Dolphin, the Mekong population of which is critically endangered. 

The Mekong River fishery is based on the annual wet season flood of its extensive floodplain, particularly the back flow of the river into the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. 

The scale of this beneficial flooding is threatened by the present and potential impoundment of floodwaters behind 58 existing and 149 proposed large dams, and by roads in the floodplains. 

Despite the productivity of the Mekong, WWF reports, the threat of over-fishing is high because of the huge scale of subsistence fishing, the majority of which goes unrecorded, as well as poor fishing practices. 

People illegally use small-meshed mosquito nets, which catch juveniles as well as adult fish, electro-shock fish with car batteries, and increasingly over-harvest fish with poison, WWF reports. 

Salween, Nujiang or Nu River: Infrastructure, dams. The Salween flows from the Tibetan Plateau adjacent to the Mekong and the Yangtze rivers, in the "Three Parallel Rivers” World Heritage area, at the epicentre of biodiversity in China. 

Dam construction poses the single greatest threat to the Salween River. China plans up to 13 large hydropower projects in a cascade that would transform the free-flowing river in upper basin into a series of channels and reservoirs. 

Shared by China, Thailand, and Myanmar, formerly Burma, six million people live in the Salween watershed. They share the watershed with 92 amphibian species, and 143 fish species of which 47 are found nowhere else in the world, and the world’s greatest diversity of turtles. 

The Salween delta and associated wetlands support populations of the unique fishing cat, the Asian small-clawed otter and the Siamese crocodile. The golden eye monkey, small panda, wild donkey of Dulong and wild ox still flourish in this basin. 

...Environment News Service
To access the report, "World's Top Rivers at Risk," click here.