Water - Another Global Crisis?

Each human needs about 20 liters of water a day for the basics - washing, cooking and drinking. But
there are many places around the world, where people get five liters of water and less to live on. The
situation is worst in Africa, especially some communities of Eastern Africa.

Why do some places have so little water and how will the availability of water change in the future?
Across the world 1.6 b more people have access to clean drinking water than twenty years ago. But
population growth and climate change could alter this picture. In some regions water is becoming very
scarce, especially in places where consumption is already very high.

There are several rivers, for example, that dont even reach the sea any more. The Yellow River in China
and the Murray-Darling in Australia are two examples. Mud and sand have to be removed from the
bottom of the rivers so that they dont dry up. The Aral Sea in Central Asia and Lake Chad in Africa have
shrunk in size because the rivers that flow into them have dried up. In Tanzania, streams are drying up
because people are taking out more and more water to irrigate crops.

According to an international committee on climate change the warmer it gets the more rainfall we are
going to have, simply because warmer air can hold more moisture. But the weather patterns are
probably going to shift, meaning more water in regions that dont have that much rainfall today.

Southern Europe and Northern Africa, as well as parts of Australia and South America will experience
less rainfall, whereas more rain may fall in India, Bangladesh and Burma. Monsoons in these areas may
become heavier, meaning that the water may run off and cannot be used.

With about 2.5 billion people more on our earth by the year 2050 we will need more drinking water as
well. Those people will need more food. Because farming uses up about 70% of all the water supplies,
water for cooking, washing and drinking will diminish

Industrialized nations will be able to cope with the problem in a better way because they have the
money to do so. Western Australia and some Middle Eastern countries are building desalination plants,
expensive ways of getting clean water from the ocean.

Governments and societies will have to decide much more carefully what to do with water. Even in the
Amazon rainforest, where water should be plentiful a combination of human settlement, deforestation
and the drying of some streams have brought about a decline in the water supply.