Prof. (Dr.) Sohan Raj Tater
GLOBAL water consumption rose six fold between 1900 and 1995 more than double the rate of population growth – and goes on growing as farming, industry and domestic demand all increase. As important as quantity is quality – with pollution increasing in some areas, the amount of useable water declines. More than five millions people die from water-borne diseases each year, ten times the number killed in wars around the globe. Seventy per cent of water used world wide is used for agriculture, much more will be needed if we are to feed world’s growing population – predicted to rise from about six billion to 8.9 billion by 2050. Consumption will star further as more people expect western – style lifestyle and diets – one kilograms of grain fed beef needs at least 15 cubic meters of water, while a kilo of cereals needs only upto three cubic meters.
The poor are the ones who suffer most. Water shortage can mean long walks to fetch water, high price to buy it, food insecurity and disease from drinking dirty water. But the very thing needed to raise funds to tackle water problems in poor countries, economic development – requires yet more water to supply the agriculture and industries which drive it. The UN-backed World commission on water estimated in 2000 that an additional $100 billion a year would be needed to tackle water scarcity world wide. Even if the money can be found, spending it wisely is a further challenge. Dams and other large – scale projects now affect 60 per cent of the world’s largest rivers and provide millions with water. As ground water is exploited, water tables in part of China, India, West Asia, the former Soviet Union and the Western United States are dropping – in India by as much as three meters a year in 1999.
Global warming is melting glaciers in every region of the world, putting millions of people at risk from floods, draughts and lack of drinking water. Glaciers are ancient rivers of compressed snow that creep through the landscape, shaping the planet’s surface. They are the Earth’s largest fresh water reservoir, collectively covering an area the size of South Antarctica. Glaciers have been retreating worldwide since the end of the little Ice Age (around 1850), but in recent decades glaciers have began melting at rates that cannot be explained by historical trends.
One in three people is enduring one form or other of water scarcity, according to a new report from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). The report says that about one- quarter of the world’s population lives in areas where water is physically scare, while about one – sixth of humanity over a billion people – live where water is economically scares, or places where “Water is available in rivers and aquifers, but the infrastructure is lacking to make thick water available to people.”
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