A thirsty planet looks for solutions to water shortage

A world without fresh water would be a world bereft of humans, and yet one in five people lacks regular access to this most basic of life-sustaining substances.

By 2025, fully a third of the planet’s growing population could find itself scavenging for safe drinking water, the United Nations has warned ahead of World Water Day on Saturday.
More than two million people in developing countries — the vast majority children — die every year from diseases associated with unsanitary water.

There are a number of interlocking causes for this scourge.

Global economic growth, population pressures and the rise of mega-cities have all driven water use to record levels.

Mexico City, Jakarta and Bangkok, to name a few, have underground water sources — some of them nonrenewable — depleting at alarming rates.

In Beijing, home to 16 million, aquifers have fallen by more than a dozen metres (40 feet) in 30 years, forcing the government to earmark tens of billions of dollars for a scheme to ferry water from the Yangzte River in the south to the country’s parched north.

Aggravating the shortages are pathogen and chemical pollution, which have transformed many primary sources of water in the developing world into toxic repositories of disease.

Desperation forces people to consume these contaminated waters.

“In the coming decades, water scarcity may be a watchword that prompts action ranging from wholesale population migration to war, unless new ways to supply clean water are found,” comment a team of researchers in a review of water purification technology published Thursday in the British journal Nature.

But even as scientists and governments look for ways to satisfy a thirsty world, another threat looms on the horizon: global warming.

Yahoo!