The very goal of this web page is to confront you with a few water-related facts. To show you how it's hot, how it's big, and why you should care more about this than the next U2 album release!!

Alarmism for dummies

Let's start with a simple exercise:

• World's population is expanding
• Human societies are polluting freshwater sources
• Possible consequences?
• Less available freshwater available to grow food and domestic uses
• More people hungry
• More people not wanting to starve while a few others eat too much McDonald's!

Okay, I know, it's not that simple! :-) Then let's go through a little deeper examination!

 

The world's population

The world's population is bigger than ever! Now 6 billion souls wondering why they live! Here's a graph showing national growth rates:

From our occidental vantage point, it's definitely easy to overlook this fact: it's happening somewhere else! How far will expansion go? Will wars and epidemies counterbalance? What can we do about this? Is reproduction a personal right?

 

Freshwater resources

So where's that glass of water?

About 0,007% of the world's water is freshwater accessible for direct human uses. 70% of freshwater is located in Antartica and Greenland (5).

Nothing's lost, nothing's gained? Wrong! Our current use of water «is not sustainable, not only because of high withdrawals but also because of increasing pollution [...]» stated Kuylenstierna & al., 1997, 5. «[...] polluting water is easy, fast and long-lasting, while cleaning the water environments is a long-range, difficult and costly endeavor» wrote Yevjevich & al., 1996, 11.

 

Drink This!

Who's drinking so much? Figures from Arnell, 1999, 1 tells us that water consumers are:

• 70% - Irrigation (growing food ya know)
• 22% - Industry
• 8% - Domestic uses

Actual withdrawals are sometimes a little too high...

Climate and my friend Chaos

Droughts. Floods. Weird winters. Erratic summers. It's easy to blame global warming, El Niño, Marilyn Monroe and such.. Is climate really different from what it was when Ceasar was ruling? Yes. Can technology and our countries good will fix weather excesses within the next years? Guess again!

A battle against carelessness and overconsumption... but is that a battle against mother nature too? We changed weather dynamics for many decades. Will it go better? Probably. But I'm not predicting an end to actual industrial behaviors for tomorrow!

Climate is a lot like ourselves. A very complex and dynamic system constantly evolving into something ever full of surprises...

 

Hungry and angry?

Read carefully: right now, about A THIRD of humanity is facing moderate to severe stress on their water resources (5)! Models predict that figures could raise to 2/3 of all humans sufering water scarcity as soon as 2025! (Arnell, 1999, 1)

International James Bond conflicts? Yeah. As suggested by Sid-Ahmed, 1998, (7), and Gleick, 1998 (3), water resources are becoming a major source of skirmish in many regions. The Hunger Site (9), a website associated with U.N.'s World Food Program, claims that someone dies from hunger every 3.6 seconds.

Who knows what 2 billions hungry people can do?

 

Solutions please?

Sure, you can panic. It won't help you, neither anyone else. Worst: it won't drive anyone happier! Life is full of surprises. Here's a few possible solutions. Note that new technologies can -easily- scramble the playing deck and partially nullify freshwater rarefaction effects. Still hoping for Elvis?

• Desalination of ocean's water
• Mass water importations (the Aral sea area actually imports 20 km³ a year (Kindler, 1998, 4))
• Artificial bassins
• Better irrigation techniques
• Mist collector (already in use in some regions such as Ecuador & Peru)
• ... anything your imagination allows!

Shall we tax water? How can we keep water away from mercantilism? Are problems evolving faster than solutions? Does the end sometimes justify the mean?

Think Different! Changing the world starts with changing yourself!

Do you leave the water running while you brush your teeth? Are lights frequently left opened in your house even if there's no one in the room? How much food goes in your garbage can? What's your excuse and what are you waiting for? ... the sleeper shall awake!

Conclusion

More lemmings. Less limonade. Less food. Where will it lead? I could drown you with stats and studies, but you'd be missing the point.

Will the world's water be the next great battle? No. You'll probably be concerned by water scarcity in the next few decades, whether you want it or not! Truth is (like if I know! ;-) - that this water challenge is part of the real next great battle: learning to live in harmony with our own world. Learning to deal with consumption, demography, lodging, food and water needs. Harmony with yourself, others and our world.

 

Corrections, comments, ideas, questions: alexandre@leroux.net