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Water Scarcity 
Thu Jul 23, 2009 at 15:27:24 PM PDT
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As a former chef I know too well the importance of fresh, clean water: no water, no food, no life. Water is far more vital for human life than oil as environmentalists, corporations and governments increasingly recognize its unequal distribution around the globe. A severe shortage will lead to concomitant environmental degradation and intense conflicts in the years ahead. Clean drinking water and free access to it will be as important in global geopolitics and economics in the years ahead as oil was in the post war period.
I have observed first hand the gradual soil erosion and the accompanying decimation of cattle in some parts of Australia during the great drought of the seventies and it is no accident that I chose to live in Ireland, a country blessed by generous rainfalls.
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Fri Jun 26, 2009 at 07:13:02 AM PDT
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It's time to come out of semi-retirement with a scary water diary....except that I have scoured teh internets for positive water news, if any, so it's a mixed bag: water scarcity is here and it's not going away. However there are some new developments worth noting.
Great News from CSIRO:
CSIRO summer scholarship student, Tim Warren, has developed an automated
water sampler of such high quality it is now being considered for a
provisional patent. Source
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Sat Apr 25, 2009 at 11:46:28 AM PDT
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Another blow has been dealt to the poor inhabitants of Bangladesh, where 45% of the population lives below the poverty line and only 39% have access to improved sanitation.
How did this happen? Simple. It's called climate change. And with it come the catastrophic floodings, coastal erosion and the pollution of drinking wells by natural arsenic.
Another huge problem is the rise of the salinity in groundwater, caused by a shift from traditional agriculture to commercial shrimp farming. Sure it makes a few citizens rich but for most of its inhabitants the once fertile lands turn to brackish water and access to drinking water is lost forever.
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Thu Apr 09, 2009 at 12:20:02 PM PDT
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Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and, although there is no global water scarcity as yet, an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water. According to the FAO, by 2025, up to 2 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions. Not exactly encouraging news since our world has 6.4 billion inhabitants today. More than 3 billion will potentially be added to our human family over the next 50 years.
The 5th World Water Forum was held at Sutluce Congress and Cultural Center in Istanbul from 16-22 March, 2009. The host President Gul opened the forum, stressing that "water is the most fundamental element to life and to our survival. It's clear that we have to place special importance on water since it is one of the most crucial elements that drive sustainable development." Link to what was discussed here.
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Mon Mar 16, 2009 at 15:13:00 PM PDT
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It's been a really bad week for the climate. Each day brought depressing news as scientists meeting in Copenhagen told us global warming is taking place more rapidly than expected: the seas are rising faster than predicted and the polar ice caps are melting quicker than you can say dodo. Oh, and the Amazon rain forest is doomed unless urgent action is taken.
Water conflicts can arise in water stressed areas among local communities and between countries because sharing a very limited and essential resource is extremely difficult. The lack of adequate legal instruments exacerbates already difficult conditions.
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Wed Jan 28, 2009 at 16:25:12 PM PST
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Water. Without it there is no life. To put it simply the amount of water in the world is finite as the number of earthlings is growing rapidly and our water use is growing even much faster. The alarming extent of water scarcity across the world does not seem to worry too many politicians as yet, and yesterday's graph of the Pew Research Center (see below) lends credence to the fact that most people do not take Global Warming seriously particularly in the context of the current cold front in the Northern hemisphere; (IMHO, there ought to be a movement to use a different terminology, like Climate Change, which conveys just that, or Climate Crisis as Al Gore rightly calls it).
The poor and the vulnerable are the ones who will suffer most. Water shortages mean long walks to procure water, high prices to purchase it when not available, food insecurity and diseases from drinking contaminated water.
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Tue Dec 30, 2008 at 12:20:34 PM PST
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This is my last Water News diary for the year and I'd like to take the opportunity to remind all the fighting I/P posters that the Middle East, where a few great waterways are the major source of water for a large area of dry lands spanning a number of national borders, the scarcity of water has played a central role in defining the political relationships in the region for thousands of years. Its ideological, religious, and geographical disputes go hand in hand with water-related tensions and it is becoming abundantly clear that the incoming administration of Barack Obama will have to deal swiftly with the powers of the region as the water crisis is not limited to the Jordan basin, but extends throughout the Middle East, encompassing also the watersheds of the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates. Because of water's preeminent role in survival (Israel depends on fresh water resources originating in the occupied territories for about one-third of its total supply) the parched and volatile Middle East must be dealt with because the fact is that the region is running out of water. The people who have built their lives on what was once a reliable source of fresh water are now seeing a shortage of this vital resource impinge on all aspects of their increasingly fragile relations.
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Thu Nov 06, 2008 at 16:05:46 PM PST
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I'm not sure of which the two I am more worried about: food shortages or water scarcity. A lack of water to meet daily needs is a reality for many people around the world and has serious health consequences. I have read that it affects 4 out of 10 people in the world as water demand has more than tripled over the last half-century. Signs of water scarcity have become commonplace. As for the food situation this year, once again world grain harvest is projected to fall somewhat short of consumption due to a number of factors and the new bete noire, ethanol. United States department of agriculture (USDA) data said that in 2007, production of food grain in world was 22 million metric tonnes short of consumption. This year is projected to be a better harvest but by how much? Will there be enough to store? The price of rice has risen by three-quarters in the past year, that of wheat by 130%, and this economic crisis could not have come at a worst time for developing countries as foreign aid is rapidly dwindling to a trickle.
Fortunately Obama will be in charge, the current WH idiot will be a distant memory and better agricultural policies will be put in place.
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Tue Aug 26, 2008 at 12:55:07 PM PDT
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You'd think living in Ireland I'd be safe against say, drought? Well, think again. There was an article yesterday in the Irish Times. Unseasonal monsoon weather conceals the fact that eastern population centres are only one drought away from water rationing, writes Harry McGee, Irish Times contributor.
The twin pressures - dwindling resources and an increased demand from population growth - makes water a premium product that could be considered analogous to oil. "Just from population growth alone, Dublin city needs to find alternative sources of supply. It will need an extra 350 million litres a day to be brought to Dublin by 2015,"
In a previous water diary I related the UN prediction: by 2025, two thirds of the global population will experience water shortages, with severe lack of water affecting the lives and livelihoods of 1.8 billion.
Cross-posted on the Big Orange
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