Water Wars ? 
      
As the need for freshwater escalates, planetary reserves are becoming undependable. Today’s water technologies are presently capable of averting the global water crisis if put use now without delay.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Drought Is Here and Now !                                         

Providing adequate water is especially challenging in drier, underdeveloped and developing nations with large populations, because demand in those areas is high and supply is low. Rivers such as the Ganges, Jordan, the Nile and the Yangtze are not simply over burdened; they also now find themselves depleted for long periods annually.  The world is facing a freshwater crisis. People already use over half the world's accessible freshwater, and may use nearly three-quarters by 2025. Over 1.5 billion people lack ready access to drinking water and, if current consumption patterns continue, at least 3.5 billion people - nearly half the world's projected population - will live in water-stressed river basins in just 20 years.

On top of this, contamination denies some 3.3 billion people access to clean water, and 2.5 billion people have no water sanitation services. In developing countries an estimated 90 per cent of wastewater is discharged without treatment into rivers and streams. Each year there are about 250 million cases of water-related diseases, with some 5-10 million deaths.

It is not only people who are threatened by water shortages and pollution. Freshwater ecosystems, which harbor the world's greatest concentration of species, are amongst the most vulnerable on Earth. Half the world's wetlands have been destroyed in the last 100 years. Two-fifths of the world's fish are freshwater species and of these, 20 per cent are threatened, endangered, or have become extinct in recent decades. The WWF Living Planet Report for 2002 shows that the continuing decline of animal species is greater in freshwater than in any other habitat signaling that one of the underlying causes of the freshwater crisis is the continuing degradation of land and water ecosystems.

WWF's Living Planet Index indicates a loss of over half it's the world's freshwater biodiversity since 1970. Despite this, the freshwater ecosystems continue to disappear or be altered at an alarming rate. Threats to these ecosystems include conversion of wetlands to other uses - many countries are under pressure to develop floodplains and other wetlands for agriculture or industry; large infrastructure projects such as dams and canals which threaten to alter river flows. Misuse and over exploitation of water resources, sucking rivers dry and often resulting in depletion of aquifers and falling water tables. Introduction of non-native species, which can choke waterways and become health hazards by providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Asia's rivers average 20 times more lead than rivers in the industrialized world. Also 50 times more bacteria from human feces than the World Health Organization guidelines allow.

The lack of basic environmental resources can exacerbate racial and ethnic tensions, raising the prospect of water wars. Major water sources, such as the Euphrates in the Middle East and the Limpopo in southern Africa, have the potential to ignite conflict. Those nations up stream choose to divert water for their own resources at the expense of those living downstream.

 

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