WATER—Will There Be Enough?

Is The World Running Out of Water?

Access to a secure, safe and sufficient source of fresh water is a fundamental requirement for the survival, well-being and socio-economic development of all humanity. Yet, we continue to act as if fresh water were a perpetually abundant resource. It is not."—KOFI ANNAN, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL.

AT MIDDAY every Thursday for the past thousand years, a unique tribunal has sat in the Spanish city of Valencia. Its job is to resolve disputes over water.

Local farmers in the fertile Valencian plain depend on irrigation, and irrigation requires lots of water—which has always been in short supply in this part of Spain. The farmers can appeal to the water tribunal whenever they feel that they are not getting their fair share. Disputes over water are nothing new, but they are rarely resolved so equitably as in Valencia.

Nearly 4,000 years ago, a violent dispute erupted among shepherds about access to a well near Beer-sheba in Israel. (Genesis 21:25 http://biblize.com/search?q=Genesis+21:25&q_scope= ) And water problems in the Middle East have become much worse since then. At least two prominent leaders in the region have said that water is the one issue that could lead them to declare war on a neighboring State.

In the semiarid countries of the world, water has always aroused strong feelings. The reason is simple: Water is vital to life. As Kofi Annan pointed out, "fresh water is precious: we cannot live without it. It is irreplaceable: there are no substitutes for it. And it is sensitive: human activity has a profound impact on the quantity and quality of fresh water available."

Today as never before, both the quantity and quality of our planet's fresh water are under threat. We should not be misled by the apparently abundant supply in some fortunate parts of the world.

The Shrinking Reservoir

"One of the great contradictions in human nature is that we value things only when they are scarce," points out UN Under-Secretary-General Elizabeth Dowdeswell. "We only appreciate the water once the well runs dry. And the wells are running dry not just in drought-prone areas but also in areas not traditionally associated with water scarcity."

Those who face water scarcity every day understand the problem only too well. Asokan, an office worker in Madras, India, has to get up two hours before dawn every morning. Carrying five buckets, he goes to the public water tap, which is a five-minute walk away. Since there is water only between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., he needs to get in line early. The water he takes home in his buckets will have to last all day. Many fellow Indians—and one billion other people on the planet—are not so fortunate. They have no tap, river, or well near their home.

Abdullah, a boy who lives in the Sahel region of Africa, is one of those. The road sign announcing his small village describes it as an oasis; but the water has long since disappeared, and there is hardly a tree in sight. Abdullah has the job of fetching the family's water from a well over half a mile [1 km] away.

In some parts of the world, the demand for fresh, clean water has already begun to outstrip the supply. The reason is simple: A large portion of mankind live in arid or semiarid areas, where water has long been scarce. (See the map on page 3.) According to the Stockholm Environment Institute, a third of the world's population already live in areas that suffer moderate to severe water shortage. And demand for water has risen at more than twice the rate of the population increase.