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World Faces New Threats of Water Scarcity
STOCKHOLM - The world is on the verge of "a new and more serious era of water scarcity" than ever before, is the ominous warning coming out of an international water conference here.
The physical availability of water is being endangered by a rash of new threats, including climate change, increase in global population and the sudden growth of the water-hungry bioenergy sector.
Addressing the 17th annual World Water Week, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) Anders Berntell warned that 1.4 billion people now live in regions where there is a real, physical water scarcity, and an additional 1.1 billion live in regions where there is water stress due to over-consumption.
"Clearly, these figures will increase in the future, due to population growth, intensified agriculture and climate change," he told a meeting of over 2,000 water professionals, technicians, scientists and policy makers.
The annual five-day meeting, to conclude Friday, is described as the world's largest single gathering of water experts, including officials from more than 150 organisations.
"We are not prepared to deal with the implications this has for our planet. There is a security component in this that is not fully understood or addressed internationally yet."
"And I am not talking about water security," he said. "I mean political security."
Berntell blamed both international aid donors and governments for their skewed priorities on development spending -- with water and sanitation getting the least.
He contrasted this with the phenomenal 37 percent increase in military expenditures globally during 1997-2006, reaching close to $1 trillion annually.
"When we look at these figures, I think it is time that we ask ourselves 'Why?'. Why don't governments in developing countries, donor agencies and financiers prioritise water higher? Why are other issues, other sectors higher on the political agenda?" he asked.
In a report released here, the London-based WaterAid has blamed international donors for undermining the development priorities of recipient countries.
"If donors are serious about achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), they must balance their investments more evenly across all the essential services: water, sanitation, health and education."
Besides a proposed 50-percent reduction of poverty and hunger by the year 2015, the MDGs, agreed at the 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit, also include universal primary education; promotion of gender equality; reduction of child mortality and maternal mortality; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a North-South global partnership for development.
WaterAid has called for "urgent changes to the aid system to ensure that donor policy responds to the needs of the poor and tackles the most critical obstacles to development."
The study, titled "How the aid system is undermining the Millennium Development Goals", says progress in health and education is dependent on access to affordable sanitation and safe water.
"And yet both donors and developing country governments have failed to recognise the interrelationship between health, education, water and sanitation," says WaterAid.
Global aid spending on health and education, the study notes, has nearly doubled since 1990 while the share allocated to water and sanitation has contracted.
There are many possible explanations for the marginalisation of the sector, the study points out. "The sector is certainly more complex than health or education, with responsibility often split across several ministries."
Addressing the meeting Monday, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said the vital truth is "if there is no water, there is no life."
Today, more than 1 billion people are said to lack access to safe drinking water and more than 2.4 billion lack access to basic sanitation.
Every day, he said, "we see around 34,000 people die in diseases related to deficient water and sanitation."
"I don't think that anyone on our planet can stand untouched by these facts. The question is: what can we do?"
The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, agreed on an ambitious goal: that by 2015 the number of people without access to drinking water and essential sanitation should be cut in half.
Between 1990 and 2002, there were some positive results. The number of people with access to safe water rose, from 71 percent to 79 percent.
"If this development continues," the Swedish prime minister predicted, "the goal can be achieved when we write 2015."
But the bad news, he said, is that the goals of essential sanitation are lagging far behind.
"If we see to Africa and several countries in Asia, the future is especially dark."
Reinfeldt singled out his own country as having a long tradition of giving priority to water within the framework of its foreign aid budget.
He said Sweden has continued to provide strong support to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) -- three important actors in the international fields of water and sanitation.
He pointed out that Sweden has also given specific support to platforms where the water issue can be discussed and where actors can meet to change points of views or share scientific results.
The World Water Week is one good example, as well as its organiser, the Stockholm International Water Institute.
© 2007 Inter Press Service
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Show Allcheencheen thanks for saying that ~ for one bottle of coke, 4 bottles of water are required. Don't drink that stuff! And remember that coke also produces sprite and other things. Also, they deliver and bottle Dr. Pepper.
The World Bank, as I recall, was promoting water privatization as a means of encouraging conservation: higher prices and the world's poor will use less of it. Perfectly reasonable and fair, certainly, as long as you happen to be rich.
But I see no reason to stop with half-way measures. Someone should file for a patent on the chemical formula H20, such that when anyone makes use of the chemical, they have to pay a royalty to the patent holder.
What could possibly be more reasonable and more in keeping with the capitalist tradition?
We have had a number of ages which we call by some notable general characteristic like the stone age, bronze age or iron ages. We had the middle ages, the golden age of sail and the industrial age. We call our own age the electronic age and enjoy this age of computers.
What follows...us? The Misery age. Whether the glass is half full or half empty...one still didn't get a whole glass of water. When you are thirsty such verbal distinctions hardly matter.
'Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink'? Nor a coin to buy any? The age of misery advances upon us swiftly as our age of plenty ...dries up.
At its height, Enron had a big plan to push privatizaton of international water sources. It had a water subsidiary that was ready to snatch up all the strategic water reserves. Imagine how much worse this problem would be if Enron had made good on its ambitions.
There could be more regional conflicts over water than over oil in the near future. Oil can bring money to a country, water means survival for its people.
There are very few places where you can access virgin drinking water. Think about all the chemicals our towns, cities and states use in our drinking water to prevent bacterial and viral outbreaks.
Investigate water filters. There are some really good ones available that you can hook up to the kitchen sink or your entire house. You can also get counter-top models that will generate distilled water.
If we allow our water resources to be privatized, you might as well bend over and kiss your ass goodbye. The prices will become far greater for water than they are or will be for oil.
Investigate water filters. There are some really good ones available that you can hook up to the kitchen sink or your entire house.
Yeah, but what if the water tap fails? Do you live near a creek or river? Do you live near a well? You have to begin to think "Beyond Thunderdome"
Ask the Iraq people how bad it can get. Thank you GWB.
Welcome to neocon America.
I find it interesting that this article doesn't even mention privatization as a part of the problem. In San Cristóbal in Mexico there are neighborhoods that get filthy water pumped to water faucets in their streets only every three days, while Coca-Cola has exclusive access to the only pure water aquifer lying under the city. Coca-Cola pays the federal government a modest fee to pump as much water as it wants, bottle it, and sell it back to the residents (but mostly to tourists) at extremely high prices.
I keep a 55 gallon barrel of water full and refill it with fresh water annually. 2 gallons/person/day is the minimum recommended for disaster reserves.
There are 3 people in my family, so that's about 9 days.
I lived in North India for 2 years at the turn of the millenium. Often there was no water flowing in the pipes for days. I used a water barrel there also.
Even now in Seattle, we very often recycle water...after washing dishes by hand, pour the left over water into the toilet tank. It's easy to conserve water and never too late to start.
We also use a water filter, and avoid plastic bottles which leach phthalates into the water. Stainless steel water bottles are much safer in my opinion.
I keep a 55 gallon barrel of water full and refill it with fresh water annually. 2 gallons/person/day is the minimum recommended for disaster reserves.
There are 3 people in my family, so that's about 8 days.
I lived in North India for 2 years at the turn of the millenium. Often there was no water flowing in the pipes for days. I used a water barrel there also.
Even now in Seattle, we very often recycle water...after washing dishes by hand, pour the left over water into the toilet tank. It's easy to do and never too late to start.
As a technical writer, I visited many of Williams Company's sites. At one of the sites the plant director said that the people in that area would be up in arms if they knew how much water they used in just a week, let alone a year (millions of gallons to process the crude oil). The area, he said had been in a drought for seven years. Our dependence on oil consumes billions and billions of gallons of water per year. To paraphras a Native American saying, when all of the trees, plants and water are gone, then will people realize they can't eat money.
CHEENCHEEN__ There was a recent article here on CD about Coca~Cola doing the same thing in India. I cannot believe your governments would allow it to continue, unless some were being paid off. Is that possible?
Ninety percent of all of the world's fresh water is frozen in the ice in Anarctica. 90% sounds to be an impossibility when one considers the vast ammount of fresh water in all of the world's lakes and rivers combined. Nevertheless it is a fact.
If the ice in the Anarctic keeps melting as it is currently doing, that fresh water will be in our oceans. I will never understnad why with our technology, we do not build wind and solar energy power plant along coast lines of our continents and power distilleries to convert sea water to fresh. It works on aircraft carriers and atomic submarines. The fuel costs for the power plants would be zero.
Hi KEM PATRICK. Yes, that's exactly the problem... governments are being paid off. The Mexican federal government gets the money that Coca-Cola pays for the water rights in San Cristóbal - so they don't care what consequences the city of San Cristóbal is paying, because they don't live there. And those who are in the San Cristóbal government live in the wealthy neighborhoods that have access to clean water.
Also, Coca-Cola will do "charity" work like building a school for a community that resides over an important water source, so that later down the line they can convince the local officials to give them the water rights of that area dirt cheap. And, yes, they do these things in India and other places all over the world. So it's largely the elected officials receiving benefits who approve policies that harm the majority of the population, who are poor.
Big Business waits in the wings , having smelt blood. ( They've already 'tested the waters' and got millions hooked on bottled water.)
When the time is right ( thanks to their impeccable , finely-honed sense of timing ) they will pounce. In one fell swoop (with the active connivance of the Establishment ) they will expropriate the bulk of the freshwater supplies.
Then expect to see water ,of any and every kind, costing more than gas . (Once Murdoch and Halliburton get into the act though , water should be more than worth its weight in gold.)
Ever tried tender coconut water. Perrier and the rest can't even begin to hold a candle to it. There could well be a slight window of opportunity here for us ordinary folk .That is ,until Murdoch , Halliburton and friends ,scent the opportunity ,and get their grubby paws on the all world's coconut palms .
Ah - the sweet scent of money . To Murdoch , Halliburton and cronies , that is.
The evils of unchecked corporate communism are everywhere. Preditory Capitalism, that monopolizes a sector and owns governments and intentionally pursues profit motive at the constant endangerment of the public is allowed by us to go on. It's quite shocking. The beef supply in the U.S: 99% hormone injected. The water supply: full of unbroken-down anti-biotics. Never mind the air, it's melting the poles..... We are screwed. And we are screwed because we do nothing to address the real problem: overpopulation. And since, corporate multinationals are all about market share, they are not interested in reducing our world wide population.
Oh well, My friend who is a palentologist is fond of saying: "no species has ever dominated the earth for more than a few million years; and homo sapien is not going to be the first."