Richard Ingham Yahoo News 11 Mar 09;
PARIS (AFP) – Surging population growth, climate change, reckless irrigation and chronic waste are placing the world's water supplies at threat, a landmark UN report said on Wednesday.
Compiled by 24 UN agencies, the 348-page document gave a grim assessment of the state of the planet's freshwater, especially in developing countries, and described the outlook for coming generations as deeply worrying.
Water is part of the complex web of factors that determine prosperity and stability, it said.
Lack of access to water helps drive poverty and deprivation and breeds the potential for unrest and conflict, it warned.
"Water is linked to the crises of climate change, energy and food supplies and prices, and troubled financial markets," the third World Water Development Report said.
"Unless their links with water are addressed and water crises around the world are resolved, these other crises may intensify and local water crises may worsen, converging into a global water crisis and leading to political insecurity at various levels."
The report pointed to a double squeeze on fresh water.
On one side was human impact. There were six billion humans in 2000, a tally that has already risen to 6.5 billion and could scale nine billion by 2050.
Population growth, especially in cities in poor countries, is driving explosive demand for water, prompting rivers in thirsty countries to be tapped for nearly every drop and driving governments to pump out so-called fossil water, the report said.
These are aquifers that are hundreds of thousands of years old and whose extraction is not being replenished by rainfall. Mining them for water today means depriving future generations of liquid treasure.
Fuelling this is misuse or abuse of water, through pollution, unbridled irrigation, pipe leakage and growing of water-craving crops in deserts.
Applying pressure from the other side is climate change, said the report.
Shifts to weather systems, unleashed by man-made global warming, will alter rainfall patterns and reduce snow melt, scientists say.
The water report was first issued in 2003 and is updated every three years. The latest issue, entitled "Water in a Changing World," is published ahead of the fifth World Water Forum, taking place in Istanbul from March 16 to 22.
The mammoth document made these points:
-- DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH is boosting water stress in developing countries, where hydrological resources are often meagre. The global population is growing by 80 million people a year, 90 percent of it in poorer countries. Demand for water is growing by 64 billion cubic metres (2.2 trillion cubic feet) per year, roughly equivalent to Egypt's annual water demand today.
-- In the past 50 years, EXTRACTION from rivers, lakes and aquifers has tripled to help meet population growth and demands for water-intensive food such as rice, cotton, dairy and meat products. Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of the withdrawals, a figure that reaches more than 90 percent in some developing countries.
-- ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION from water pollution and excessive extraction now costs many billions of dollars. Damage in the Middle East and North Africa, the world's most water-stressed region, amounts to some nine billion dollars a year, or between 2.1-7.4 percent of GDP.
-- The outlook is mixed for key UN MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS, which in 2000 set the deadline of 2015 for halving the number of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The target on drinking water is on track but the tally of people without improved sanitation will have decreased only slightly by 2015, from 2.5 billion to 2.4 billion.
-- Water stress, amplified by climate change, will pose a mounting SECURITY CHALLENGE. The struggle for water could threaten fragile states and drive regional rivalry.
"Conflicts about water can occur at all scales," the report warned, adding: "Hydrologic shocks that may occur through climate change increase the risk of major national and international security threats, especially in unstable areas."
-- Between 92.4 billion and 148 billion dollars are needed annually in INVESTMENT to build and maintain water supply systems, sanitation and irrigation. China and developed countries in Asia alone face financial needs of 38.2-51.4 billion dollars each year.
-- CONSERVATION and reuse of water, including recycled sewage, are the watchwords of the future. The report also stressed sustainable water management, with realistic PRICING to curb waste. It gave the example of India where free or almost-free water had led to huge waste in irrigation, causing soils to be waterlogged and salt-ridden.
Action Needed To Avoid World Water Crisis, U.N. Says
Patrick Worsnip, PlanetArk 12 Mar 09;
UNITED NATIONS - The world needs to act urgently to avoid a global water crisis due to increased population, rising living standards, dietary changes and more biofuels production, the United Nations warned on Thursday.
By 2030, nearly half of the world's people will be living in areas of acute water shortage, said a report jointly produced by more than two dozen U.N. bodies and issued ahead of a major conference on water to be held in Istanbul next week.
The report, "Water in a Changing World," made "clear that urgent action is needed if we are to avoid a global water crisis," said a foreword by Koichiro Matsuura, head of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
"Despite the vital importance of water to all aspects of human life, the sector has been plagued by a chronic lack of political support, poor governance and underinvestment."
"As a result, hundreds of millions of people around the world remain trapped in poverty and ill health and exposed to the risk of water-related disasters, environmental degradation and even political instability and conflict," Matsuura said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly identified water shortage as a major underlying cause of the conflict in Darfur, western Sudan, which began with a rebellion against the central government six years ago. Water is also a major issue between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
The world's population of 6.6 billion is forecast to rise by 2.5 billion by 2050, with most of the growth in developing countries, many in regions where water is already scarce.
The growth rate means demand for fresh water is increasing by 64 billion cubic meters a year, the report said. Authors told a news conference that most of North Africa and the Middle East had already reached the limits of their water resources.
BIOFUELS RISK
Migration from the countryside to cities was also increasing water use, the 318-page report said, as was growing consumption of meat -- the production of which requires more water than vegetables -- in China and elsewhere.
The report added to recent U.N. warnings about the downsides of developing biofuels to replace heavily polluting hydrocarbons as an energy source, because of the water needed to grow crops like corn and sugar cane to produce ethanol.
Saying about 2,500 liters of water is needed to make 1 liter of biofuel, it said implementing all current national biofuel policies and plans would take 180 cubic kilometers of extra irrigation water and 30 million hectares of cropland.
"The impact could be large for some countries, including China and India, and for some regions of large countries, such as the United States," it said. "There could also be significant implications for water resources, with possible feedback into global grain markets."
When oil prices peaked at over $140 a barrel last year, "the kneejerk reaction was 'well, we are going to grow our energy - biofuels.' But nobody took account of how much water it was going to require," William Cosgrove, coordinator of the report, told journalists.
On the positive side, the report pointed to successful water policies in Uganda and Turkey and said a U.N. goal of halving the population lacking access to safe drinking water by 2015 would be achieved except in sub-Saharan Africa.
But it said in many countries water policies failed to make any impact because key decisions affecting water were made in other sectors of the economy.
Government and business leaders needed to act now to boost investment in water infrastructure, it said, adding, "Unsustainable management and inequitable access to water resources cannot continue."
