World heading for ‘water bankruptcy’

Sustained economic growth, human security and political stability over the next two decades depend on how water is managed, warns the World Economic Forum in a report urging governments and businesses to address consistent under-charging, waste and overuse of water.

Discussed last week at the forum’s annual meeting in Davos, the report on managing future water needs argues that “we are now on the verge of water bankruptcy in many places, with no way of paying the debt back”.

Many of the “regional water bubbles” are already bursting in parts of China, the Middle East, the southwestern US and India, and “more will follow”, with serious consequences for regional economic and political stability, the report continues.

Climate change further adds to the urgent need to manage water efficiently, the report notes. In many parts of the world, glaciers act as “water banks”. For example, melting glaciers in the Himalayas and Tibet alone will cause serious water supply problems for more than two billion people, it predicts.

Referring to a UN-sponsored 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment , the report underlines that 70 of the world’s major rivers, including the Colorado, Ganges, Jordan, Nile and Tigris-Euphrates, are ”near [their] maximum extraction levels to supply water for irrigation systems and for reservoirs”.

Meanwhile, growing global demand for food is set to place more pressure on water resources for agriculture. ”The volatility in food prices in 2008 should be treated as an early warning sign of what is to come,” the report warns.

Discussing the findings, Davos participants noted that while economic stimulus plans include huge investments in improving agriculture, infrastructure, clean energy and trade, politicians “unfortunately rarely invest in improving the resource on which those outcomes depend: water”.

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Source: EurActiv