Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the International Water Issues Category
Click here to view all posts

Special Reports: Water resources: Efficiency and conservation – Swimming in dwindling waters; As the planet’s once plentiful blue resource gets used up, companies are acting to secure supply and be more efficient users of water

Posted by: Maven on November 10, 2008 at 5:44 am

From Ethical Corporation Magazine, this special report:

Kazakhstan’s mapmakers have their work cut out. No sooner do they chart the boundaries of the Aral Sea than they have to take out their pens and redraw it. Once the world’s fourth largest inland sea, this massive expanse of water has shrunk to a tenth of its original size due to a huge irrigation project introduced in the 1960s. The fishing industry is now floundering, the flora and fauna perishing and the summers becoming hotter and hotter.

The fate of the Aral Sea is not unique. The world’s water supplies are drying up. Half of the planet’s wetlands have disappeared over the past century. In Europe, six in every 10 cities with more than 100,000 people are using their groundwater supplies at a faster rate than they are being replenished, the European Environment Agency reports.

Water experts have coined the phrase “water stressed” to describe the scenario. It’s reckoned that countries require 4,654 litres of water per year per person to meet citizens’ needs. If they fall short, they are said to be stressed. Today, the term covers about 440 million people, including the inhabitants of European states such as Denmark and Poland. In much of the Middle East and some parts of Africa the situation is even worse.

The outlook is not encouraging. By 2075, the number of people in regions with chronic water shortages is estimated to be between three and seven billion, according to the Stockholm International Water Institute.

Little wonder, therefore, that the normally moderate United Nations recently defined the world’s water crisis as “one of the largest public health issues of our time”. So what’s behind the water scarcity? In short: man. The world’s population has tripled over the past century and is expected to increase by about 50% to more than nine billion by 2050.

Read more from Ethical Corporation Magazine by clicking here.

November 10, 2008 · Filed Under International Water Issues

Comments

Leave a Reply