A hard, dry future for the planet
by Sarah Morrison
The world is wasting water on a truly colossal scale, according to
the United Nations. More than 80 percent of the used water on Earth is
neither collected nor treated - the equivalent to the planet leaving the
taps full on and the plugs out.
This and other equally worrying realities will be presented to around
35,000 people from 180 countries at the World Water Forum, a gathering
held every three years, which will hear the most disturbing reports yet
on the state of the world's rivers, lakes and aquifers.
Demand for water is expected to increase by 55 per cent over the next
four decades, according to a new study to be presented at the forum in
France.
Urbanisation
Framing the Water Reform Challenge, from the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), points out that rapid
urbanisation, climate change and the altering global economy are putting
growing pressures on water supplies. In around 40 years' time, more than
40 percent of the world's population - 3.9 billion people - are likely
to be living in river areas in the grip of severe "water-stress". The UN
warns this could also be felt in parts of Europe, affecting up to 44
million people by 2070.
Anthony Cox, head of a water program run by the OECD, said the world
is experiencing a water "crisis." He added: "More people in cities now
don't have access to water than back in 1980. In developing countries,
especially, there is a tremendous economic and human cost to this."
Since 1900, more than 11 million people have died because of drought,
according to the UN, and more than two billion have been affected by it
- more than any other physical hazard.
The OECD is calling for "urgent reform" of water management and
suggests using economic instruments, such as taxation, tariffs and
transfers, to encourage greater "water efficiency".
Challenges
Olcay Unver, co-ordinator of the United Nations World Water
Assessment, said it would be a "game-changer" if the world could tackle
environmental challenges without using water-wasting technologies, such
as biofuels. "Water underpins all aspects of development," he said.
"It is the only medium through which all crises can be jointly
addressed. It should be seen as an explicit element in any
decision-making framework."
Unver is lead author of a UN report published tomorrow which warns
that unprecedented growth in demand for water is threatening global
development goals and will exacerbate inequality between countries,
sectors and regions. Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk shows
that, while 86 percent of the population in developing regions are
expected to have improved access to safe drinking water by 2015, there
are still nearly 1 billion people without such access and, in cities,
the numbers are growing.
Water management can no longer be seen as a local issue, said Unver;
it has to be treated as a global one.
"Water is not only what we drink, what we wash with, or what we use
to irrigate; it is also embedded in the products that we eat, consume
and use," he said.
"This gives us a totally different perspective to water - it is
subject to trade policies, and one nation, or one corporation, can have
an impact on water shortages somewhere else."
Shortages
His warning backs up analysis by the Royal Academy of Engineering,
which found that Britain and other developed countries depend heavily on
importing hidden or "virtual" water from places prone to droughts and
shortages.
In a 2010 report, the academy estimated that two-thirds of all water
that Britain needs comes embedded in imported food, industrial products
and clothes such as cotton. In 2008, a study published by the
conservation group WWF found that about 60 per cent of Britain's water
footprint is felt outside the UK.
Ashok Chapagain, WWF's senior water adviser said: "Water scarcity
affects at least 2.7 billion people in 201 river basins for at least one
month a year.
International trade and the globalisation of the supply chain... make
water scarcity a global issue."
But the need is not expected to lessen. Increasingly, underground
water sources have been tapped to respond to growing demand and, under
what the UN report called a "silent revolution", this process has
tripled over the past 50 years.
Transnational land acquisition, where countries acquire land outside
their jurisdiction to get access to water, has risen from 20m hectares
in 2009 to more than 70m today.
To illustrate the political, technical and financial solutions to the
world's water problems, a 400 square metre Village of Solutions will be
built inside the Water Forum this year, housing a school, library, town
hall, factory and bank. Different funding mechanisms and technologies
will be explained.
However, the forum, organised by the French government, the World
Water Council and the City of Marseille, where it is being held, has
been criticised for being merely a "talking shop".
"They will have the big debates there, but it's not where change
happens," said Daniel Yeo, WaterAid's senior policy adviser for water
security.
"The real situation is that dirty water kills more kids in
sub-Saharan Africa than TB, malaria and AIDS combined.
We have the technology to change this; what we need is the political
will and the internal capacity to deliver it in developing countries."
- The Independent |