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dam-l New water report/J.Hopkins/LS
This describes a new report on the world's looming water crisis. I have
downloaded much of it from the web, there is quite a bit of information
there in excerpts. I will also send one of the sections I downloaded.
>Hopkins Report: Water Crisis Looms as World Population Grows
>
>Nearly half a billion people around the world face water shortages
>today. By 2025 the number will explode fivefold to 2.8 billion
>people--35% of the world's projected total of 8 billion
>people--according to a new report from The Johns Hopkins University
>School of Public Health.
>
>"To avoid catastrophe...it is important to act now" to reduce demand for
>water by slowing population growth, according to the Population Reports
>issue, Solutions for a Water-Short World, published by the Johns Hopkins
>Population Information Program. At the same time, warns the Hopkins
>report, countries must conserve water, pollute less, and manage supply
>and demand better.
>
>TO SEE AN ADVANCE OF THE FULL REPORT GO TO:
>http://www.jhuccp.org/popreport/m14edsum.stm
>
>By 2025, according to the report, one in every three people will live in
>countries short of water. Today, thirty-one countries are facing water
>stress or water scarcity. By 2025 population pressure will push another
>17 countries, including India, onto the list. China, with a projected
>2025 population of 1.5 billion, will not be far behind. A country faces
>water stress when annual water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters
>per person. Water-scarce countries have annual water supplies of less
>than 1,000 cubic meters per person.
>
>Much of the world is caught trying to meet a growing demand for
>freshwater with finite and increasingly polluted water supplies,
>according to Population Reports. But the situation is worst in
>developing countries, where some 95% of the 80 million people added to
>the globe each year are born, and where the competition between
>industrial, urban, and agricultural use for water is mounting.
>
>"Freshwater is the liquid that lubricates development," says Don
>Hinrichsen, lead author of the report and a Consultant with the United
>Nations Population Fund. "In many developing countries lack of water
>could cap future improvements in the quality of life. Populations are
>growing rapidly in many of these countries, and at the same time per
>capita use must increase--to grow enough food, for better personal
>health and hygiene, and to supply growing cities and industries.
>
>"Meanwhile, there is no more freshwater on earth than there was 2,000
>years ago, when population was 3% of its current size, " says
>Hinrichsen.
>
>Even in the United States, where there is plenty of water on a national
>basis, in some areas "people are depleting groundwater reserves at a 25%
>greater rate than nature can replenish," adds Hinrichsen.
>
>Regional conflicts over water are brewing and could turn violent as
>shortages grow, warns the Hopkins report. In Africa, Central Asia, the
>Near East, and South America, some countries are already bickering over
>access to rivers and inland seas. Even within a country competition for
>use can be fierce. The water in China's Yellow river, for example, is
>under so much demand that the river has dried up before reaching the
>ocean. In 1996, when there was enough water, the government ordered
>farmers not to use it; a state-run oil field further downstream needed
>the water to operate.
>
>
> Overuse and Pollution
>
>In 1996, people used an estimated 54% of all accessible freshwater. The
>next 30 years of population growth will raise the number to 70%--and by
>much more if per capita water use continues to rise at its current pace,
>write Hinrichsen and co-authors Bryant Robey and Ushma D. Upadhyay. As
>people use more water, less is left for vital ecosystems on which humans
>and other species depend. Globally, over 20% of all freshwater fish
>species are endangered or vulnerable, or recently have become extinct.
>In Egypt diverting water from the Nile has virtually wiped out some 30
>of 47 commercial species of fish. Africa's Lake Chad has shrunk from
>25,000 square kilometers to just 2,000 over the past 30 years through
>overuse and drought. In Europe the Rhine River is so polluted that 8 of
>its 44 fish species have disappeared and another 25 are rare or
>endangered. In Colombia, South America, annual fish production in the
>Magdalena River has plunged from 72,000 metric tons to 23,000 metric
>tons
>in 15 years; a similar drop occurred in Southeast Asia's Mekong River.
>The US state of California has lost over 90% of its wetlands, resulting
>in two-thirds of the state's native fish becoming extinct or in decline.
>
>Even in the face of impending shortages, water pollution continues to
>spoil this essential resource. Agriculture is the biggest polluter,
>even more than industries and municipalities, according to Hopkins
>researchers. "In virtually every country where agricultural fertilizers
>and pesticides are used, they have contaminated groundwater aquifers and
>surface waters," they write. Europe and North America confront enormous
>pollution problems. Over 90% of Europe's rivers have high nitrate
>concentrations, mostly from agrochemicals. In developing countries, on
>average, 90% to 95% of all domestic sewage and 75% of all industrial
>waste are discharged into surface waters without any treatment. All of
>India's 14 major rivers are badly polluted and over three-quarters of
>China's 50,000 kilometers of major rivers are unable to support fish.
>
>Polluted water causes major public health problems worldwide, killing
>millions of people each year and preventing millions more from leading
>healthy lives. About 2.3 billion people in the world suffer from
>diseases that are linked to water, such as dysentery, cholera, typhoid,
>and schistosomiasis.
>
>The authors call for a "Blue Revolution" to conserve and manage
>freshwater supplies but concede that "it may already be too late for
>some water-short countries with rapid population growth to avoid a
>crisis." They argue that a blue revolution will require politically
>difficult coordinated responses to the problem at the local, national,
>and international levels. They conclude development agencies need to
>focus more on assuring the supply and management of freshwater resources
>and on providing sanitation as part of development and public health
>programs.
>
>Don Hinrichsen is a Consultant with the United Nations Population Fund
>and author of the recently-published book, Coastal Waters of the
>World: Trends, Threats, and Strategies, published by Island Press.
>Bryant Robey is Population Reports Editor; Ushma D. Upadhyay is a
>research analyst with the Population Information Program. Population
>Reports is an international review journal of important issues in
>population, family planning, and related health matters. It is
>published four times a year in four languages by the Population
>Information Program at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication
>Programs for more than 170,000 family planning and other health
>professionals worldwide, with support from the US Agency for
>International Development (USAID). USAID administers the US foreign
>assistance program, providing economic and humanitarian assistance in
>more than 80 countries worldwide.
>
>For more information contact: Stephen Goldstein at Johns Hopkins Center
>for Communication Programs, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore,
>Maryland 21202, USA. Tel: 410 659-6300; Fax: 410 659-6266; e-mail:
>PopRepts@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu
>
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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