Death of the world’s rivers

The world’s great rivers are drying up at an alarming rate, with devastating consequences for humanity, animals and the future of the planet.

The Independent on Sunday can today reveal that more than half the world’s 500 mightiest rivers have been seriously depleted. Some have been reduced to a trickle in what the United Nations will this week warn is a “disaster in the making”.

..Adding to the disaster, all of the 20 longer rivers are being disrupted by big dams. One-fifth of all freshwater fish species either face extinction or are already extinct.

The UN’s triennial World Water Development Report, compiled for an international conference in Mexico City which opens on Thursday, warns that “we have hugely changed the natural order of rivers worldwide”, mainly through giant dams and global warming. Some 45,000 big dams now block the world’s rivers, trapping 15 per cent of all the water that used to flow from the land to the sea. Reservoirs now cover almost 1 per cent of land surface.

The UN report says that demand for them “will continue to increase”, but recommends that they should be barred from the world’s remaining, undammed “free-flowing” rivers.

The Independent