The uneven distribution of water is complicated by a second problem: As populations grow, so does the demand for water. Rainfall worldwide remains roughly constant, but populations soar. Water consumption has doubled at least twice this century, and some estimate it could double again within the next 20 years.
Of couse, growing numbers of people require not just more drinking water but also more food. Food production, in turn, requires ever greater amounts of water. Agriculture, however, must compete with the water demands of industry and individuals. As cities and industrial areas expand, agriculture often loses out. "Where's the food going to come from?" asks one researcher. "How can we possibly meet the needs of 10 billion people when we can barely meet the needs of 5 billion and are actually taking water away from agriculture?"
Most of the population increase occurs in developing countries, where water is often already scarce. Sadly, those countries are least able, both financially and technically, to deal with water problems.
Add to the problems of water shortages and the demands of growing population a third related problem: pollution. The Bible speaks of "a river of water of life," but many rivers today are rivers of death. (Revelation 22:1) According to one estimate, the amount of wastewater - domestic and industrial - that pours into the world's rivers every year amounts to 110 cubic miles. Many rivers and streams are polluted from their beginning to their end.
In the world's developing nations, raw sewage pollutes nearly every major river. A survey of 200 major Russian rivers showed that 8 in 10 had dangerously high levels of bacterial and viral agens. The rivers and water tables of highly developed countries, while not flooded with sewage, are often poisoned by toxic chemicals, including those that come from agricultural fertilizers. In just about all parts of the world, seaside countries pump raw sewage into shallow waters off their coasts, seriously contaminating beaches.
Thus, water pollution is a global problem. Summarizing the situation, the Audubon Society booklet Water: The Essential Resource states: "One-third of humanity labors in a perpetual state of illness or debility as a result of impure water; another third in threatened by the release into water of chemial substances whose long-term effects are unknown."
When Dede, mentioned earlier, said that "water hunger is killing us," she was speaking figuratively. Yet, the lack of clean, fresh water does kill, quite literally. For her and millions like her, there is little choice but to use water from streams and rivers, which are often little more than open sewers. Small wonder that, according to WHO, a child dies of a water-related disease every eight seconds!
In the developing world, according to World Watch magazine, 80 percent of all disease is spread by the consumption of unsafe water. Waterborne pathogens and pollution kill 25 million people every year!
The water-related killer diseases - including diarrheic disease, cholera, and typhoid - claim most of their victims in the Tropics. Yet, waterborne diseases are not limited to the developing world. During 1993, in the United States, 400,000 people fell ill in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after drinking tap water containing a microbe that was resistant to chlorine. In the same year, dangerous microbes found their way into the water systems of other cities in the United States - Washington D.C.; New York City; and Cabool, Missouri - forcing residents to boil the water that came from their faucets.
The interrelated problems of water shortages, the demands of growing populations, and pollution leading to ill health are all factors that can lead to tension and conflict. Water, after all, is hardly a luxury. Said a politician in Spain who was grappling with a water crisis: "It's no longer an economic struggle, but a fight for survival."
A major area of tension is the sharing of water from rivers. According to Peter Gleick, a researcher in the United States, 40 percent of the world's population lives in the 250 river basins whose water is competed for by more than one nation. The Brahmaputra, Indus, Mekong, Niger, Nile, and Tigris rivers each flow through many countries - countries that want to extract from those rivers as much water as possible. Already, there have been disputes.
As the demand for water spirals, such tensions will increase. The World Bank's vice president for Environmentally Sustainable Development predicts: "Many of the wars in this century were about oil, but wars of the next century will be over water."
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