Report: Water Crisis Looms as World Population Grows FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2pm (EST), Wednesday, August 26, 1998 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] =========================================================================== /`\ /`\ RABBIT INFORMATION SERVICE: _ _ (/\ \-/ /\) P.O.Box 30, Riverton, Western Australia 6148 (.\_/.) )6 6( http://www.wantree.com.au/~rabbit/rabbit.htm \6 6/ >{= Y =}< VEGETARIAN PAGE =\ /= /'-^-'\ http://www.geocities/RainForest/4620 /O\ / (_) (_) / \ ( | . | U U ) | |} Pity the human race its illusion of permanence (| |)/ \_/^\_/ w'-'w ===========================================================================
