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| Water shortages for one in four children in areas of extreme water shortage by 2040 |
• According to the WRI, more than two billion people live in countries experiencing "high" water stress.
• Conserving forests, wetlands and watersheds, including those around cities, can help absorb rainfall, helping stem crop losses from flooding and drought.
From Yemen to India, and parts of Central America to the African Sahel, about a quarter of the world's people face extreme water shortages that are fueling conflict, social unrest and migration, water experts said on Wednesday.
With the world's population rising and climate change bringing
more erratic rainfall, including severe droughts, competition for
scarcer water is growing, they said, with serious consequences.
"If there is no water, people will start to move. If there is no
water, politicians are going to try and get their hands on it and they
might start to fight over it," warned Kitty van der Heijden, head of
international cooperation at the Netherlands' foreign ministry.
One in four children worldwide will be living in areas of extremely high water stress by 2040, researchers estimated.
According to the WRI, 17 countries face "extremely high" levels
of water stress, while more than two billion people live in countries
experiencing "high" water stress.
But as water scarcity grows, water systems are also increasingly
becoming targets in other types of conflicts, said Gleick, whose
institute has compiled a chronology of water conflicts that dates back 5,000 years.
Recurring droughts in parts of Central America and the African
Sahel in recent years have triggered migration as subsistence farmers,
whose harvests have been decimated by low rainfall, seek refuge and jobs
in other countries.
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| Map of baseline water stress for countries |
One in four children worldwide will be living in areas of extremely high water stress by 2040, researchers estimated.
"It's threats like these that keep me up at night," the diplomat
told a webinar hosted by the World Resources Institute (WRI), a
U.S.-based research group.
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| African boy gathering muddy water |
In terms of water availability, "at some point we are going to
hit the wall, and that wall might be different in different places",
Heijden said.
Climate change is compounding the challenge, she said, with cities such as India's Chennai and South Africa's Cape Town battling severe water shortages in recent years related in part to erratic rainfall.
Climate change is compounding the challenge, she said, with cities such as India's Chennai and South Africa's Cape Town battling severe water shortages in recent years related in part to erratic rainfall.
Disputes over water have for millenia served as a flashpoint,
driving political instability and conflict, the water experts said.
And "the risks of water-related disputes are growing .. in part
because of growing scarcity over water", said Peter Gleick, co-founder
of the California-based Pacific Institute, which jointly published the
report with WRI and The Water, Peace and Security Partnership.
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| Drought affecting Central American farming |
In Yemen, years of fighting has destroyed water infrastructure,
leaving millions without safe water to drink or grow crops. Wells and
other water facilities also have been targets in Somalia, Iraq, Syria
and other countries, he said.
Smarter irrigation
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| India is already hot |
One key to tackling water scarcity is boosting investment in more
sparing use of water in agriculture, an industry that absorbs more than
two-thirds of the water used by people each year, the experts said.
