Page 16 - report_A Matter of Survival

CHAPTER 1

The Drama of Water

Water is life. It is a fundamental condition of human survival and coupled with dramatically growing demands, are therefore likely
dignity, and is the basis for the resilience of societies and of the to exacerbate security problems related to future water use.
natural environment. Unlike other natural resources, water has
no substitute: the only substitute for water is water. These alarming global realities can only be fully understood in
light of the limited quantity of water, the finite nature of water
Scarcity resources and the expected imbalances between different
regions of the world, as well as the rapidly sinking water tables
Water is scarce: about two billion people still lack access to in many of the world’s aquifers.
safe drinking water. Most of them live in fragile, often violent
regions of the world where water is a matter of life and death. Freshwater represents only 2.53 percent of the total water of
The growing imbalance in global water supply and demand the world. Over two-thirds of this water (68.7 percent) is frozen
leads to tensions and conflicts, and could potentially evolve into in polar caps, continental ice sheets, permafrost and mountain
a widespread threat to international peace and security. Water glaciers. Liquid freshwater is primarily found underground
deprivation is increasingly seen as a fundamentally political and (more than 90 percent). Surface water in rivers and lakes (0.26
security problem, and no longer simply as a problem of human percent) and atmospheric water (0.04 percent) represent only a
development and environmental sustainability. small volume of total freshwater.

Water and water scarcity are becoming serious security threats to These figures need to be compared with the basic trends in
a world with a growing population, facing human-induced climate water consumption. The global availability of freshwater is
change. By mid-century, close to four billion people – about 40 approximately 5500 cubic meters per person per year. This
percent of the world’s population – will live in water-stressed represents a decrease of 37 percent since 1970 and the number
basins. This number will probably grow when the projected is shrinking further. While the size of the world’s population
effects of climate change lead to diminished crop yields, while has tripled in the past century, water withdrawal has increased
triggering droughts, floods and other weather extremes. At the by a factor of six. Attempts to increase availability of water
same time, 40 percent of the world’s population lives in shared resources through reconstitution processes, such as recharging
river basins and aquifers that are areas of potential conflict. groundwater storages, have not kept pace with the rate of
discharge and exploitation.
Water plays a key role in the climate systems. An overwhelming
proportion of the physical impact of climate change is Freshwater is also unevenly distributed around the world. Nine
transmitted through water. In other words, water is the primary countries – Brazil, Russia, the United States, Canada, China,
medium through which climate change influences the Earth’s Indonesia, India, Colombia and Peru – share 60 percent of the
ecosystems and biological processes, and thus the livelihood world’s water reserves. This is only one aspect of the uneven
and well-being of societies. Higher temperatures and extreme distribution of water. Asia accounts for 61 percent of the world’s
weather conditions affect the temporal and spatial patterns of population, but has only 36 percent of available water resources,
rainfall, snowmelt, river flows and groundwater, and further while Latin America, with 6 percent of the world population,
deteriorate water quality. While the effects of climate change has 26 percent. The Middle East and North Africa are the most
are felt all over the world, their greatest impact is on the food exposed to the dangers resulting from the scarcity of water and
security and displacement of vulnerable groups in developing severe water shortages. An additional problem arises when
countries. The resulting rise in migration and uncontrolled water resources are unevenly distributed within countries.
urbanization will further increase pressure on already limited
water resources. It is widely accepted that water crises may be among the most
dangerous developments in the future. In 2015, the World
Yet in the face of all these problems, humankind has to find ways Economic Forum (WEF) concluded that global water crises
to produce 50 percent more food in the next 25 years, as well would be the biggest threat facing the planet in the next decade.
as to double energy production. These activities require massive In the WEF’s subsequent global risk reports, water crises have
water resources – both in order to meet the needs of the growing consistently figured among the highest risks for the coming
population and to maintain environmental conditions critical for fifteen years.
the functioning of life support systems.

Water scarcity adds enormous pressure to the existing
competition among the uses of water, including human
consumption, food production and irrigation, mining and
manufacturing, energy production, and environmental services.
This inevitably leads to tensions. These competing needs,

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