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Page added on March 21, 2015

Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now

The world could suffer a 40 per cent shortfall in water in just 15 years unless countries dramatically change their use of the resource, a UN report warned Friday.

Many underground water reserves are already running low, while rainfall patterns are predicted to become more erratic with climate change. As the world’s population grows to an expected nine billion by 2050, more groundwater will be needed for farming, industry and personal consumption.

The report predicts global water demand will increase 55 per cent by 2050, while reserves dwindle. If current usage trends don’t change, the world will have only 60 per cent of the water it needs in 2030, it said.

Having less available water risks catastrophe on many fronts: crops could fail, ecosystems could break down, industries could collapse, disease and poverty could worsen, and violent conflicts over access to water could become more frequent.

“Unless the balance between demand and finite supplies is restored, the world will face an increasingly severe global water deficit,” the annual World Water Development Report said, noting that more efficient use could guarantee enough supply in the future.

The report, released in New Delhi two days before World Water Day, calls on policy makers and communities to rethink water policies, urging more conservation as well as recycling of wastewater as is done in Singapore. Countries may also want to consider raising prices for water, as well as searching for ways to make water-intensive sectors more efficient and less polluting, it said.

In many countries, including India, water use is largely unregulated and often wasteful. Pollution of water is often ignored and unpunished. At least 80 per cent of India’s population relies on groundwater for drinking to avoid bacteria-infested surface waters.

In agriculture-intense India, where studies show some aquifers are being depleted at the world’s fastest rates, the shortfall has been forecast at 50 per cent or even higher. Climate change is expected to make the situation worse, as higher temperatures and more erratic weather patterns could disrupt rainfall.

Currently, about 748 million people worldwide have poor access to clean drinking water, the report said, cautioning that economic growth alone is not the solution – and could make the situation worse unless reforms ensure more efficiency and less pollution.

“Unsustainable development pathways and governance failures have affected the quality and availability of water resources, compromising their capacity to generate social and economic benefits,” it said. “Economic growth itself is not a guarantee for wider social progress.”

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23 Comments on "Water crisis coming in 15 years unless the world acts now"

Apneaman on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 4:00 pm

15 years? How about right fucking now depending on where you live? The 20 million in Sao Paulo, Brazil would agree with me. Tempers are already flaring up, down in Brazil. Dry season is about to start, so give it a couple of months and I bet we will see a “crisis” AKA our future.

Plantagenet on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 4:10 pm

Don’t forget the water crisis coming in California. Some reservoirs will run out this summer—more will go dry in coming years as global warming intensifies.

J-Gav on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 4:13 pm

Exactly Apnea, “depending on where you live.” More and more people are likely to be flooded out or droughted out and some might well get alternating tastes of both.

GregT on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 4:31 pm

Al Bartlett’s “Great Challenge”:

“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”

And still the eCONomists continue to chant the ‘economic growth’ mantra. We either end growth, or growth will end us.

Go Speed Racer on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 4:35 pm

Everybody act now. No more drinking the water.

Dredd on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 5:02 pm

There is a bigger water crisis than that coming.

Brought to you by Oil-Qaeda’s World Civilization (What Do You Mean – World Civilization? – 2).

Davy on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 5:08 pm

Amen Greg, there are no solutions to any problems and few adaptations and mitigation of predicaments with 7Bil & growing population. I care not your color whether greenie, brownie, AltE’er, AGW’er, or BAUtopian we are all screwed together. If we leave denial as a group and face that harsh reality there are painful options but they are options. To avoid the population issue we will submit to nature’s will within 10years more likely within 5 years. That will be ugly beyond anyone’s expectations.

Rodster on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 5:11 pm

Water crisis in China, California, Nevada, Brazil. The trend is that it’s spreading. We waste so much water it’s sinful trying to convert desert cities into tropical wastelands, fracking requires 2-8 million gallons per well, maybe more. Water probably in the next 30-40 years will become more valuable than gold.

The US could have invested in desalinization plants but have dragged their feet.

Rodster on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 5:14 pm

“And still the eCONomists continue to chant the ‘economic growth’ mantra. We either end growth, or growth will end us.”

Won’t happen Greg. Fractional reserve banking has given us the ponzi scheme that will drive man off this planet. This banking system requires that everything grows exponentially to pay off future debt.

Apneaman on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 7:07 pm

What happens to the integrated global economy if a major country like Brazil (7th) falls into chaos? Given their government and elites track record what are the chances that they will handle the pressure like adults? I suspect if they fall they may set the other dominoes tumbling. It does not even have to be a country with as big an economy to set things off.

Domino Chain Reaction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JCm5FY-dEY

Makati1 on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 7:21 pm

Apneaman, even little Greece could be the first domino to go and take the rest down with it. Sooner or later it is going to happen. The world will not end, but much of human civilization will change drastically.

I see Imports/exports stopping. Cash flows between countries stopping. standards of living declining fast to 3rd world levels for everyone, even the 1%. Maybe especially the 1% as those pitchforks and guns will come out when reality sinks in.

“Winter Sets Global Heat Record Despite US East’s Big Chill”
“California Is Turning Back Into A Desert And There Are No Contingency Plans”
“Amazon rainforest soaking up less carbon as trees die young: study”
“Hotter, harder times forecast for the farm as climate changes food production”
“The Failure of Modern Industrial Agriculture”
“Lester Brown on Peak Water”
“Global dependence on food imports leaves countries vulnerable”
http://ricefarmer.blogspot.fr/

Buckle up!

Apneaman on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 7:31 pm

Mak

On the bright-side, I’ll be back to my old fighting weight of 200lbs in a few short months 😉

Makati1 on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 7:35 pm

BTW: The only way we will evade a third world war is if the world economy collapses first and prevents the possibility because of problems in each country that requires the individual government’s attention. But, it could just as well trigger a nuclear exchange as a last gasp effort at control. I hope not. We shall see.

Rodster on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 8:28 pm

‘Nature’s revenge’: Dead Sea surrounded by 3,000+ sinkholes growing at alarming rate from water mismanagement.

http://rt.com/news/242929-dead-sea-sinkholes-israel/

Makati1 on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 8:42 pm

FYI: “The truth is that California’s Central Valley, which is where the vast majority of the state’s farming businesses are located, is a desert. That desert is irrigated with enough precious water to artificially sustain the growing of one-third of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, a $40 billion industry.

Think about it. A third of all produce in the United States is grown in a desert in a state that has almost no water left. That produce is trucked from the West Coast all over the country in fossil-fuel-consuming vehicles, thereby contributing to the very mechanism of climate change that is likely to be driving California’s historic drought.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/headline_to_solve_californias_water_crisis_we_must_transform_20150319

Got a garden?

Good for you Apneaman. ^_^

Perk Earl on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 9:06 pm

“But, it could just as well trigger a nuclear exchange as a last gasp effort at control.”

That’s what I wonder about too, Mak. Even if the writing is on the wall regarding declining net energy causing economic contraction worldwide as the culprit, people/govt’s will feel a loss of control, lay blame some other govt. then lash out. It’s the lash out part that could manifest in the form of a mushroom cloud, because the option of conventional warfare will be off the table (due to a lack of sufficient energy). The attitude could be, “Well, if we can’t have our cake and eat it too, we sure as heck aren’t going to let them! Besides it’s all over now anyway. Might as well use these things (nukes) while we still can.”

GregT on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 11:14 pm

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Albert Einstein

dubya on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 11:26 pm

“Can you think of any(thing)…advanced by further increases in population”

Why, of course, more people will produce more geniuses who will produce more solutions. Human ingenuity is infinite, we can do anything we can visualize.

Right now I’m visualizing jumping over the moon. Here we go…

Apneaman on Sat, 21st Mar 2015 11:59 pm

California first to feel hydro-power crunch of drought
Snowpack at 12 percent of average

http://www.kcra.com/news/local-news/news-sierra/california-first-to-feel-hydropower-crunch-of-drought/31941640

Go Speed Racer. on Sun, 22nd Mar 2015 2:11 am

Hello Sleep Apnea Man, I like your domino video. Cool link. I go buy a shovel to dig my bomb shelter, incase our country tips over.

American Idiot on Sun, 22nd Mar 2015 8:25 am