STWR - Share The World's Resources

Oceans splash across most of the earth's surface. But they contain saltwater, unfit for human consumption. Only a tiny fraction of the world's water – about 2.5 percent – is drinkable. That still would be an ample supply if it were clean and available where needed. It's not. Today some 1.2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion lack proper sanitation (adequate sewage disposal).

25th March 08 - Greg Lamb, Christian Science Monitor

As a result, tainted water supplies are blamed for the worldwide deaths of 1.8 million children, according to the United Nation's Human Development Report for 2006. That's 4,900 children per day under 5 years old (the number of children under 5 who live in New York and London combined).

What's more, children worldwide miss 443 million days of school each year because of water-related illnesses. The UN also estimates that half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases.

Beyond that, millions of people (almost always women) wearily spend hours per day carrying water up to several miles for their family's needs because no source is close at hand.

Since 1992, the UN has sponsored World Water Day, this year being observed Saturday, March 22, to raise awareness of the need to protect and improve access to clean water supplies.

"When the well is dry, [then] we know the worth of water," said Benjamin Franklin, long before today's water challenges.

It's clear that competition for water "will intensify in the decades ahead," said Kemal Dervis, administrator of the United Nations Development Program in its 2006 report. "[W]ater is the ultimate fugitive resource, traversing borders through rivers, lakes, and aquifers – a fact that points to the potential for cross-border tensions in water-stressed regions."

Growing populations, which spur demand for more industries and farmland, are draining water resources. And climate change is expected to exacerbate the problem as it alters rainfall patterns (see page 17). A new UN study shows that as temperatures have warmed, the world's glaciers have begun retreating at accelerating rates and may disappear entirely within a few decades. China, India, and the West Coast of the United States are among populous places that rely on glacial meltwater for their water supply. Glaciers feed some of the world's great rivers, such as the Ganges, Yellow, and Mekong, which serve 1.5 billion people.

One of the UN's Millennium Development Goals, established in 2000, is to cut in half by the year 2015 the proportion of people unable to reach or afford safe drinking water.

Achieving that goal is "critically important," says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. "When you look at the health and development challenges faced by the poorest of the world's population – diseases like malaria or TB, rising food prices, environmental degradation – the common denominator often turns out to be water."

Governments and private groups are working hard to address the problem as well. One promising initiative in India uses ancient reservoirs, called erys, to collect rainwater.

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Water will be source of war unless world acts now, warns minister

25th March 08: Ben Russell, The Independent (UK)

The world faces a future of "water wars", unless action is taken to prevent international water shortages and sanitation issues escalating into conflicts, according to Gareth Thomas, the International Development minister.

The minister's warning came as a coalition of 27 international charities marked World Water Day, by writing to Gordon Brown demanding action to give fresh water to 1.1 billion people with poor supplies. "If we do not act, the reality is that water supplies may become the subject of international conflict in the years ahead," said Mr Thomas. "We need to invest now to prevent us having to pay that price in the future."

His department warned that two-thirds of the world's population will live in water-stressed countries by 2025. The stark prediction comes after the Prime Minister said in his national security strategy that pressure on water was one of the factors that could help countries "tip into instability, state failure or conflict".

The coalition of charities has appealed for a global effort to bring running water to the developing world and supply sanitation to a further 2.6 billion people. It said international action was needed to prevent competition for water destabilising communities and escalating into conflicts.

In their letter, the campaigners say: "Tackling the water and sanitation crisis is essential if the 'Millennium Development Goal Call to Action' is to be a success, otherwise progress on health, education and environmental sustainability will be undermined. Each year 443 million school days are lost globally to diarrhoea and 1.8 million children die unnecessarily from these diseases.

"Investing in sanitation and water brings the greatest public health gains of any single development intervention and delivers huge economic returns. The G8 would do well to heed the development history of east Asian countries that put tackling these issues at the forefront of their national development efforts."

Ministers agree the world needs to take urgent action to avoid missing Millennium Development Goals to halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015. That target should be met, although progress has been limited in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mr Brown's security strategy said "rising temperatures together with extreme weather will increase pressures on water supplies". It went on: "A growing and increasingly urbanised global population will increase demand for food and water, at the same time as climate change and other trends put greater pressure on their supply.

"Already well over 1 billion people suffer from water shortages and 30 countries get more than a third of their water from outside their borders. With climate change, those figures are likely to grow, increasing the possibility of disputes."

Charlie Kronick, senior climate adviser at Greenpeace, said the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, most of south Asia and western South America were at risk of water shortages if global warming continues.

"There is no doubt that climate change is going to be potentially the biggest source of water stress," he said. "If average global temperatures go more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels you are looking at 2 to 3 billion people potentially suffering water shortages. It's a pretty serious business."

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