Water problems in many parts of the world are chronic and without a
crackdown on waste will worsen as demand for food rises and climate
change intensifies, the UN warned on Sunday.
Issued on the eve of a six-day gathering on world water issues, the
United Nations, in a massive report, said many daunting challenges lie
ahead.
They include providing clean water and sanitation to the poor, feeding a
world population set to rise from seven billion to nine billion by 2050
and coping with the impact of global warming.
"Pressures on freshwater are rising, from the expanding needs of
agriculture, food production and energy consumption to pollution and the
weaknesses of water management," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said
in the report.
"Climate change is a real and growing threat. Without good planning and
adaptation, hundreds of millions of people are at risk of hunger,
disease, energy shortages and poverty."
... Emerging as a worrying phenomenon is the acquisition of farmland in
Africa by western economies, Middle Eastern states and the emerging
giants China and India to provide food or biofuels.
The risk is of simply transferring a wasteful water "footprint"
elsewhere, possibly at the expense of a local ecosystem.
"The amount of water required for biofuel plantation could be
particularly devastating to regions such as West Africa, where water is
already scarce," says the report."
http://news.yahoo.com/water-crunch-looms-without-action-waste-un-report-230623647.html
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