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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] EarthTalk: Access to fresh water likely to be future issue
  • Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:53:24 -0600



EarthTalk: Access to fresh water likely to be future issue
http://www.azdailysun.com/articles/2008/10/27/news/local/20081027_local_184115.txt
Monday, October 27, 2008

DEAR EARTHTALK: I saw a cover line on a magazine that said, "The next world
war will be over water." Tell me we're not really running out of water!

-- Nell Fox, Seattle, WA Today one-sixth of the world's human population
lacks access to clean drinking water, and more than two million people --
mostly kids -- die each year from water-borne diseases. The U.S. Agency for
International Development, an independent organization that provides
economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support
of the foreign policy goals of the United States, predicts that by 2025,
one-third of all humans will face severe and chronic water shortages.

Needless to say, water is of primary importance to our survival, and
protecting access to and the quality of fresh water supplies will likely
become more and more of a challenge in the coming years. According to the
nonprofit World Water Council, the 20th century saw a tripling of the world's
population while freshwater use grew by a factor of six. With world
population expected to increase as much as 50 percent over the next half
century, analysts are indeed worried that increasing demand for water,
coupled with industrialization and urbanization, will have serious
consequences both for human health and the environment. Access to freshwater
is also likely to cause conflicts between governments as well as within
national borders around the world.

According to USAID, the world's "water crisis" is not so much an issue of
scarcity as it is of poor management and inequitable distribution. The
hardest hit regions have been countries in the Middle East, North Africa and
sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide demand for water is presently doubling every 21
years.

Water-related problems are not the sole purview of the developing world
though. We here in North America have polluted and diverted our fresh water
supplies far beyond nature's capacity to restore the flows, notably in the
West where sprawling, thirsty metropolises have grown up in deserts where the
only way water can be provided is to siphon it from other regions.

So how do we fix the world's water woes? The key lies in using water more
efficiently -- especially in agriculture and industry, which together account
for over 90 percent of the world's total freshwater use. But changing the
practices of millions of farmers and businesses around the world is a
Herculean task.

Irena Salina, director of the award-winning documentary film, FLOW, about the
world's dwindling water supplies, thinks it can be done if world leaders,
international banks, the United Nations and other governmental organizations
establish cooperative agreements for the use of bodies of water, including
groundwater, and economic mechanisms to make sure those who need access to
water can get it.

As for the developed world -- where we use 10 times the water as do
developing countries -- Salina remains pessimistic. "If our own leaders were
serious about solving problems, we would not allow corporations to discharge
pollutants into our water sources," she says. "Instead of spending billions
on technologies that clean up pollution, we would be using resources to
prevent water pollution in the first place."

CONTACTS: World Water Council, www.worldwatercouncil.org; USAID,
www.usaid.gov; Flow the Film, www.flowthefilm.com. GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL
QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box
5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at:
www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e- mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com.
Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.





  • [Livingontheland] EarthTalk: Access to fresh water likely to be future issue, Tradingpost, 10/28/2008

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