What is the issue?
Globally, understanding of the required response to the world’s water crisis is improving, and the private sector has its role to play. Locally, while concerns about water are not new, water scarcity is increasingly visible and realistic measures are required to maintain levels of water availability in the developed as well as the developing world.
Water stress
Precipitation, the basic source of fresh water, is a renewable resource. Increasing demand, however, is stretching that resource beyond its limits, resulting in significant aquifer depletion.
During the twentieth century the world’s population tripled. At the same time, use of renewable water resources increased six-fold. As demand grows, the effects of pollution from industry, agriculture and urban waste further reduce the amount of fresh water available. If current trends continue, by 2025 over 3 billion people will live in areas of water stress, from the south west of the United States of America to northern China.
As important as it is to provide the world’s human population with an adequate water supply of an appropriate quality, there exists too a requirement to provide for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, which often provide essential resources for human life, from maintaining local-scale subsistence to mitigating large-scale drought and flooding.
Excessive water usage
Vast differences exist in the amount of fresh water available in different parts of the world and at different times. In areas of abundant supply, there is often little or no incentive to restrict water usage. Arid and semi-arid regions, covering roughly 40 per cent of the terrestrial area of the globe, receive two per cent of the world’s runoff. In these areas, disproportionate and wasteful water use must be avoided, and resources shared fairly between industry, agriculture, domestic needs and ecosystems.
Deteriorating water quality
Deteriorating water quality reduces water availability still further. Pollution from industrial, agricultural and municipal waste, as well as creeping salinisation – the build-up of salt in soil – contribute to deteriorating water quality. The production of waste is an inherent part of human activity and socio-economic development, but it is the poorest populations of the world that suffer most from polluted water sources. Furthermore, both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems suffer greatly from the deterioration of water quality and the changes in land-use associated with human activity. This deterioration of ecosystems, in turn, harms the livelihoods and subsistence of many people.
Need for housing/sanitation/hygiene
While over a billion people lack access to safe drinking water, more than two billion lack access to basic sanitation. Adequate sanitation that prevents contaminants from reaching drinking water is a vital element in protecting human health and the environment. According to the World Water Development Report (2003), access to safe drinking water, coupled with safe hygiene practices, are key tools in battling gastro-intestinal illnesses. The biggest gains are to be made in the transition from no water supply and sanitation to basic services, and then when services are extended to individual households.
International targets
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted at the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in September 2000, call for a dramatic reduction in poverty and marked improvements in the health of the poor. The fundamental role of water in achieving the Goals was underlined at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesberg, which established targets relating specifically to water:
- Reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015
- Halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015
- Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
- Develop integrated water resources management and water efficiency plans by 2005 with support to developing countries
In March 2003, the International Year of Freshwater, the Third World Water Forum met in Kyoto to discuss how to achieve internationally agreed targets and goals relating to water. Good governance, capacity building and financing were seen as key to successful water management.
Globally, understanding of the required response to the world’s water crisis is improving, and the private sector has its role to play. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) advocates changing the way business does business. Locally, while concerns about water are not new, water scarcity is increasingly visible and realistic measures are required to maintain levels of water availability in the developed as well as the developing world.
