Water problems in many parts of the world are chronic and without a crackdown on waste will worsen as demand for food rises and climate change intensifies, the UN warned.
Without good planning and adaptation, hundreds of millions of people are at risk of hunger, disease, energy shortages and poverty
Issued on the eve of a six-day gathering on world water issues, the United Nations, in a massive report, said many daunting challenges lie ahead.
They include providing clean water and sanitation to the poor, feeding a world population set to rise from seven billion to nine billion by 2050 and coping with the impact of global warming.
“Pressures on freshwater are rising, from the expanding needs of agriculture, food production and energy consumption to pollution and the weaknesses of water management,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in the report.
“Climate change is a real and growing threat. Without good planning and adaptation, hundreds of millions of people are at risk of hunger, disease, energy shortages and poverty.”
The World Water Development Report is issued every three years to coincide with the World Water Forum, which opened in Marseilles, France, yesterday.
Written by experts in hydrology, economics and social issues under the aegis of Unesco, it aims to be the world’s reference manual for water.
The document, the fourth in the series, made these points:
• Population growth and a shift to more meat-intensive diet will drive up demand for food by some 70 per cent by 2050. Using current methods, this will lead to a nearly 20 per cent increase in global agricultural water consumption.
Farming today accounts for around 70 per cent of water use, ranging from 44 per cent in rich countries to more than 90 per cent in least developed economies.
• Abstraction of aquifers has at least tripled in the past 50 years, supplying nearly half of all drinking water today. “In some hotspots, the availability of non-renewable groundwater resources has reached critical limits,” says the report.
An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing rock or soil.
The report calls for an overhaul in water management and a massive effort to curb waste. Better irrigation systems, less thirsty crops and the use of “grey”, meaning used, water to flush toilets are among the options.
• The bill for coping with climate-induced water problems will be between $13.7 billion (€10.4 billion) and $19.2 billion (€14.6 billion) annually between 2020 and 2050. This is based on the assumption UN climate talks limit global warming to 2°C.
“The current areas with water stress will be suffering more,” said Olcay Unver, who coordinated the report, pointing as examples to the Middle East, South Asia and the southwestern US
• About 2.5 billion people have no access to decent sanitation, a figure meaning that a key Millennium Development Goal for 2015 is likely to be missed. In contrast, UN estimates last week said a goal for improving access to clean water would be met.
The report places the spotlight on competition for water between cities, farmers and ecosystems, and between countries as well. An estimated 148 states have international water basins within their territory and 21 countries lie entirely within them.
Even so, there seems no major risk of water wars, Unver told journalists in Paris last week. “Countries have shown great success in cooperating in water resources than fighting over them.”
Emerging as a worrying phenomenon is the acquisition of farmland in Africa by western economies, Middle Eastern states and the emerging giants China and India to provide food or biofuels.
The risk is of simply transferring a wasteful water “footprint” elsewhere, possibly at the expense of a local ecosystem.
“The amount of water required for biofuel plantation could be particularly devastating to regions such as West Africa, where water is already scarce,” says the report.
The situation in the different regions
Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa’s many water problems are rooted in poor infrastructure, inadequate management and demographic growth. Gains in agricultural production, of two per cent annually, are being outstripped by a three per cent yearly increase in population.
Access to piped drinking water in sub-Saharan Africa remains poor, at barely 60 per cent overall. In 2008, 224 million people in the region practised open defecation, up from 188 million in 1990. Drought is the dominant climate risk but floods too are highly destructive.
Europe, North America
For Europe, the big problem is water stress induced by climate change for the centre and southern part of the continent. Citing the UN’s climate panel, the report says water scarcity will affect 44 million Europeans by the 2070s, compared with 16 million today.
For North America, a worry is waste, for Americans and Canadians are the highest per-capita water users in the world. In arid and semi-arid areas, there is growing concern for water supply as cities and farmers stake their claims.
Asia-Pacific
Around 1.9 billion people lack decent sanitation, despite the region’s rise to prosperity. Pollution from industry, farms and households is a major problem. Less than a fifth of wastewater is treated before being discharged back into rivers or lakes or back into the ground.
“Extremes of flood and drought are expected to increase in both magnitude and intensity as a result of climate change,” the report warns.
The report calls for realistic water pricing to attack waste, a strategy for which it singles out Singapore for praise, and for the new cities sprouting in Asia to be “water-sensitive” from the start.
Latin America, The Caribbean
The region has made good headway in boosting access to cleaner water and decent sanitation despite areas of entrenched poverty and a rural exodus.
The report notes “serious geopolitical problems” arising from cross-border disputes over water, typically involving hydro power.
On the plus side, the region has developed a good knowledge base for dealing with climate-inflicted drought and flood. The skills derived from dealing with periodic El Nino/La Nina weather cycles.
Middle East, North Africa
Hot and arid, with a fast-growing population, the region is prey to chronic water stress.
“At least 12 Arab countries suffer from acute water scarcity with less than 500 cubic metres of renewable water resources available per capita per year,” according to the report. It says pumping water “is increasingly expensive and unsustainable” as aquifers – underground layers of water-bearing rock or soil – are drawn down.
Insecurity over water has stoked bouts of tension among countries that share rivers and groundwater, it adds. The region is particularly vulnerable to climate change, as even small changes in rainfall patterns can have “dramatic” impacts on water availability.