The world is facing an unprecedented water crisis.
Researchers have found that 80% of the world's population, amounting to 3.4 billion, lives in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure. The researchers warn that the problem is going to get worse with climate change and population growth.
According to Environmental Research Web, the big driver of the shortages is population. The researchers there say it has been four times more significant than climate change. They found that in 1900, only 2% of the world's population had water shortages but by 2005, this had escalated to 35%.
As populations develop economically, their per capita consumption of meat, dairy, sugar and oils rises and these foodstuffs require more water to produce than vegetables and grains. This will have an impact on global security. Scarcity of water is likely to result in more wars. The conflict in Darfur is a taste of things to come.
We are going to need some radical solutions. First, we should change the way we think about water, from being a "free" good to a scarce resource that we have to pay for. Water markets will need to be established.
Globally, we need to address the problems of countries facing water crises. For this purpose, we need to establish some sort of food trade between water-rich and water-poor countries and we need to promote global "water alliances".
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