Is Water the next Oil ?

water the next strategic commodity



Water scarcity involves water stress, water deficits, water shortage and water crisis. The concept of water stress is relatively new. Water stress is the difficulty of obtaining sources of fresh water for use, because of depleting resources. A water crisis is a situation where the available potable, unpolluted water within a region is less than that region's demand U.N. chief warns of growing water scarcity U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that by 2030, nearly half the world's population could be facing a scarcity of water, with demand outstripping supply by 40%. One in three people already live in a country with moderate to high water stress, Ban told a U.N. event marking the opening of the International Year of Water Cooperation 2013. It also marked the 20th anniversary of the proclamation of World Water Day. "Competition is growing among farmers and herders; industry and agriculture; town and country; upstream and downstream; and across borders," the secretary-general said. Ban said international cooperation is essential "to protect and manage this fragile, finite resource," especially as the world population grows and the climate changes. And with more people moving to urban areas, water use is projected to increase by 50% by 2025, said Ambassador Thomas Mayr-Harting, head of the European Union delegation to the United Nations. By that time, he said, roughly 5.5 billion people - two-thirds of the projected global population - "will live in areas facing moderate to severe water stress." Mayr-Harting said the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of cutting in half the proportion of people without access to clean water by 2015 is likely to be surpassed. But he said "over 780 million people today do not have access to improved sources of drinking water, especially in Africa, and major inequities remain." Davos 2013: water scarcity is 'second most important world risk' UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon tells Davos that we must appreciate water more as World Economic Forum recognises the scale of the problem -- but what is being done? We tend to look after only what we value. Perhaps that is the reason why we have literally been pouring the world's fresh water down the drain. Yesterday, Ban Ki-moon, secretary general at the United Nations, reminded presidents, business leaders and NGOs at a meeting in Davos that "most of us do not appreciate water. We just take it for granted. Someone with a lavish life, we say he is spending money like water." The secretary general likes to practice what he preaches; he keeps only a small jug of water in his office and exhorts his staff not to waste the precious resource. He wants the world to do the same. He is by no means alone. Christopher Chiza, Tanzania's minister of agriculture, said it was a crying shame that 80% of the water used for irrigation in his country goes to waste. But times are changing and the World Economic Forum (WEF) has recognised water scarcity as the second most important risk facing the world in the years ahead. The problem with finding solutions is that many developing countries have little idea of how to address the problem, and are not able to measure rainfall patterns or water usage. To complicate matters, answers do not lie in the hands of any one group in society and the debate is highly political.