Water water everywhere...

[Bad Religion]

PARIS, March 5 — World water reserves are drying up fast and booming populations, pollution and global warming will combine to cut the average person’s water supply by a third in the next 20 years, according to a U.N. report released Wednesday.

‘THE REPORT, published ahead of the Third World Water Forum due to take place in Kyoto, Japan, from March 16 to 23, criticized political leaders for failing to take action and in some cases, disputing the very existence of a water crisis.
“Water supplies are falling while the demand is dramatically growing at an unsustainable rate,” said Koichiro Matsuura, director general of the U.N.’s cultural agency, UNESCO, home to the World Water Assessment Program, which compiled the report.
Water supplies per capita have fallen dramatically since 1970 and are set to continue declining, the report found.


The United Nations has resolved to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach, or to afford, safe drinking water. Select a category above for facts and figures on the state of the world’s water supplies.
According to the 1998 U.N. Human Development Report, three-fifths of the 4.4 billion people in the developing world lack access to basic sanitation and almost a third have no access to clean water.
By some estimates, preventable water-related diseases kill 10,000 to 20,000 children every day in the developing world.
The World Bank says that to meet the U.N.'s goal, around 300,000 people per day will have to be connected to water systems over the next 10 years. The estimated price tag: $25 billion a year.
According to the United Nations, the world’s population tripled in the 20th century, leading to a six-fold increase in the use of water resources.
The three largest water users in global terms are:
1. Agriculture: 67 percent
2. Industry: 19 percent
3. Municipal/residential: 9 percent.
Freshwater ecosystems cover less than one percent of the Earth’s surface.
Ice -- mostly in the form of glaciers -- comprises 69 percent of the world’s freshwater supplies and groundwater is 30 percent. Wetlands, which include marshes and swamps, comprise 0.3 percent, lakes 0.3 percent, and rivers 0.06 percent.
However, many experts argue that the wells are not about to run dry. They say that on a global level we have enough water but must use it more wisely and attempt to address uneven distribution around the globe which is related partly to different rainfall patterns.
The problems affecting the world’s freshwater supplies include pollution and poor infrastructure. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, 30 to 50 percent of water diverted for irrigation purposes is lost through leaking pipes and channels.
The World Bank says inefficiencies in infrastructure mean that water that does not reach customers is not only wasted but ultimately not paid for. This can lead to infrastructure decay because of a lack of funding for maintenance and improvements.
Tariffs are also often kept low by politicians seeking to woo voters.
Dams have brought huge benefits to more than 140 countries but the social and environmental costs have often been high.
Perhaps 40 to 80 million people have been displaced globally by dam projects. Dams have damaged aquatic habitats and blocked migration routes for spawning fish species such as salmon.
According to a 2000 report by the World Commission on Dams, China and India have half of the world’s 45,000 dams. Dams account for 19 percent of electricity generated worldwide, and 24 countries generate more than 90 percent of their power from dams.
According to the WWF, of the 10,000 species of freshwater fish that have been described, 20 percent are threatened or endangered because of pollution, habitat destruction, damming, overfishing and the introduction or invasion of alien species.
In addition to fish, the WWF says that four of the five species of river dolphin are at risk, two of the three manatee species, about 40 freshwater turtles and more than 400 types of freshwater crustacean.
The land-locked Aral Sea, which straddles the former Soviet Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, is actually salt, but its tragedy highlights the potentially disastrous consequences of poor freshwater use.
In the 1960s, Soviet planners built a network of canals to divert the waters of the rivers that fed the sea to irrigate cotton fields in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
As a result, the sea’s life source was reduced to a trickle, and it is now shrinking and dying.Once the world’s fourth largest lake, the Aral Sea has shrunk so much that it is now split into two separate bodies of water -- the northern or little Aral Sea and a larger southern body.
Aralsk, once a thriving port town, is now 60 miles from the coast.
China’s Three Gorges Dam project, the largest hydroelectric project in the world, was started in 1993 and is expected to be completed by 2009.
The project has faced both domestic and local criticism. More than one million villagers along the Yangtze river are being resettled to make way for the project and numerous ancient relics will be submerged.
Of China’s 668 cities, 400 are short of water. Hundreds of millions of people drink contaminated water and farmers have rioted in the countryside over precious supplies.

“Over the next 20 years, the average supply of water worldwide per person is expected to drop by a third,” Matsuura said in a statement.
More than 2.2 million people die each year from diseases related to contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation, the report said, but evidence of the problem was being ignored.
“Inertia at leadership level and a world population not fully aware of the scale of the problem means we fail to take the needed timely corrective actions,” the report said.
By 2050, water scarcity will affect between 2 billion and 7 billion people out of a projected total of 9.3 billion, depending in part on what measures political leaders take to tackle the crisis, the report said.

[Jewels]

this aint good

[Bad Religion]

I'll just never be able to understand why petty bickerings consume the world's population when there at serious problems facing us all...

[The Duggler]

Yhea this is pretty bad, but not news. The human race is drying this planet up quickly (not only with water, but with everything) And we won't do nothing until the problem affects us directly. Sad but true. We are doomed, we know it, we could stop it, but we won't.

Originally posted by Bad Religion
I'll just never be able to understand why petty bickerings consume the world's population when there at serious problems facing us all...

I don't understand what you mean there, what is "petty bickerings" and why is it consuming the world's population? Sorry, I'm french

[Bad Religion]

Originally posted by Ranzid
Yhea this is pretty bad, but not news. The human race is drying this planet up quickly (not only with water, but with everything) And we won't do nothing until the problem affects us directly. Sad but true. We are doomed, we know it, we could stop it, but we won't.

I don't understand what you mean there, what is "petty bickerings" and why is it consuming the world's population? Sorry, I'm french

Is anything ever considered "news"? LOL... 9 times out of 10 someone says "cough.. old news.. cough"... to any given topic

By the world being consumed with petty bickerings, I mean that like you said, "We won't do anything until it directly affects us" or in some cases until it's just too late. Petty bickerings being small arguements which are meaningless in the scheme of things. (at least my scheme ) . Problems like global warming, AIDS, hunger, this water issue, horrendous conditions in third world countries and overpopulation all take a back seat to border disputes, labor strikes, political pissing contests by old men , religious zeal...for example here in the US, nothing ever really gets done because the Dems and Republicans argue amongst themselves over what's the best for the "People" (like those Ivy league brats would know)... these two parties keep the commoners arguing with each other, divided and conquered! Then the Dems and Reps all go play golf together and laugh their way to the bank!

No wonder I like to lose myself in videogames!

[The Duggler]

Is anything ever considered "news"? LOL... 9 times out of 10 someone says "cough.. old news.. cough"... to any given topic

I didn't mean it in that way It's just too easy to see that we are killing this planet, but your post is great information and puts numbers on the problem. BTW do you have the source of that article? I would like to cite it elsewhere.

And for the rest of the post, well yhea I agree with pretty much what you said, The human race is what agent Smith (from the matrix ) said it was, a virus, consuming everything in it's path. I wish we where more like the Chozos...

[Jason1]

Thats not good, but hell I wont be here when it really gets bad, so why should I care? Maybe if I have some children I might care...but right now, Im not concerned.

[The Duggler]

Way to go Jason!

[Professor S]

Hey, the rate that the polar icecaps are melting we'll have PLENTY of water by then...