A world full of people dying to get a drink

By MICHAEL McCARTHY

Population growth, pollution and climate change are likely to combine to produce a drastic decline in the world's water supply in a few decades.

The World Water Development report, published yesterday, says 1.1 billion people, nearly all in developing countries, do not have clean water and 2.4 billion lack proper sanitation.

Yet the world has not realised the extent of the problem, or that these figures are likely to worsen remorselessly, says the Unesco-backed report.

"Inertia at the leadership level and a world population not fully aware of the scale of the problem" mean the global water crisis will reach unprecedented heights.

And that means hunger, disease and death.

The report predicts that by 2050, up to 7 billion people in 60 countries may be short of water.

If the right policies are followed this could be reduced to 2 billion people in 48 nations.

The report is intended as an alarm call, published before the World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan this month, when it is hoped governments and policy-makers will make a new commitment to get to grips with the world water problem.

But that seems unlikely, especially if the United States and Britain have just invaded Iraq and the world is convulsed by war.

A big difficulty with water is that, at least in the rich West, it is largely taken for granted.

Water is the commonest substance on Earth, but only 2.53 per cent of it is fresh. The rest is salty. Of the fresh water, two-thirds is locked up in glaciers and snow.

What is available, in lakes, rivers, ground water and rainfall run-off, is now increasingly coming under pressure from several directions.

Population growth is the main factor. The world's population reached 6 billion in 2000, and water consumption almost doubled in half a century.

Between 1970 and 1990 the amount of water available for each person dropped by one-third.

Birth rates are now slowing, but world population is still likely to increase by half as much again, to 9.3 billion by 2050.

Demand for water does not come only from the need to drink, the need to wash and the need to deal with human waste, enormous though these are.

The great calls on water supply come from industry in the developed world, and agriculture in the developing world. Irrigating crops in hot countries takes 70 per cent of the water used in the world.

Pollution adds another fierce pressure. About 2 million tonnes of waste are dumped every day into rivers, lakes and streams. One litre of waste water will pollute about 8 litres of fresh water.

The report says the world has about 12,000 cubic kilometres of waste water, more than the total amount contained in the world's 10 largest river basins. If pollution keeps pace with population growth, the world will lose 18,000 cubic kilometres of water by 2050 - almost nine times the amount all countries now use for irrigation.

Further increasing the stress on water supply will be climate change, which UN scientists calculate will probably account for about a fifth of the decrease in water supplies.

Yet another difficulty will be the growing drift to towns and cities.

Forty-eight per cent of the Earth's population lives in towns and cities; by 2030 this will be 60 per cent.

Urban areas often have more readily available water supplies than rural areas; their problem is that they concentrate wastes.

The direst, direct effects of water scarcity will be on health.

Water can be a bane as well as a benefit. Water-related diseases are among the commonest causes of illness and death. Gastric infections leading to diarrhoea are caused by drinking contaminated water; diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis are spread by the mosquitoes and small snails that breed in water.

In 2000, the number of people estimated to have died from water- or sanitation-associated diseases was 2.2 million, a million of them from malaria. Most victims were aged under 5.

But the one hopeful note the report strikes is on the much-discussed possibility of "water wars".

It says: "While water scarcity will intensify conflicts between states, there is little evidence to suggest that these will explode into water wars."

Yet the main picture is a distinctly gloomy one.

"Of all the social and natural crises we humans face," said Unesco Director-General Koichiro Matsuura, "the water crisis is the one that lies at the heart of our survival and that of our planet Earth."

- INDEPENDENT