Water and Sanitation Looms Behind Food, Energy and Climate Crisis
August 25, 2008 by admin
Filed under World's Water
UNITED NATIONS-The World Water Week in Stockholm concluded this week with 2400 scientists, leaders from governments and civil society declaring that slow progress on sanitation will cause the world to badly fail the Millennium Development Goals while weak policy, poor management, increasing waste and exploding water demands are pushing the planet towards the tipping point of global water crisis.
Action is crucial, stakes are high and time is running out were key messages coming from the World Water Week in Stockholm.
Sanitation and hygiene, climate, water management, ecosystems and business issues were prominent programme focal points throughout the week.
SIWI itself released new research that showed half of food is lost after it is produced and called for governments and individuals around the world to reduce by half the amount of food that is lost to ease pressure on water and land resources.
The World Water Week, which included 200 co-convening organisations, witnessed the launch of a number of new and groundbreaking studies, reports and initiatives designed to improve a global situation where billions of people are without sustainable access to safe drinking water or suffering ill health due to poor sanitation, where bio-energy demands are diverting water from food production, and where global climate change is shaking the overall water balance.
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Source: Maxims News
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Billions suffer in Asia from Acute Water Crisis
August 25, 2008 by admin
Filed under World's Water
BALI, INDONESIA-Billions of people in Asia are suffering from the acute water crisis caused by the adverse impact of climate change and China’s ambitious hydro engineering projects that divert river water cascading from the Tibetan highland the source of almost all the major rivers of Asia.
Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research was speaking at the seminar “The Strategic Importance of Water in Asia”, held at Bali, Indonesia, by Singapore-based Media Programme Asia of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.
Chellaney said that after reviewing the environmental situation in Asia, he found the water crisis in Asia is being aggravated both by climate change and by manmade environmental degradation in the form of shrinking forests and swamps that foster a cycle of chronic flooding and drought through the depletion of nature’s water and absorption cover.
Citing the survey conducted by the Remote Sensing Department of the China Aero Geophysical Survey, he said it had warned that the Himalayan glaciers could be reduced by nearly a third by 2050 and up to half by 2090 at the current rate. The glacial melt would further deplete Tibet’s water resources, which are the lifeline for the people of southern and southeastern Asia and China.
He explained that the Tibetan plateau is a source of almost all the major rivers of Asia. Tibet’s vast glaciers, huge underground springs and high altitude, have endowed it with the world’s greatest river systems.
Its river waters are a lifeline to the world’s two mostpopulous states China and India as well as to Bangladesh, Burma, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam. These countries make up 47 per cent of world population.
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Source:The Nation
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