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Water crisis silently looming
There was less ado in the celebrations of World Water Day here in Sri Lanka. It can be so because there are no immediate plans to liberalize water resources under the current regime, at least for the moment. However, we seemed forgetting several crucial issues related to the water crisis being built up globally. World Water Day is not only to protest but also to raise awareness of the need to protect and improve access to clean water supplies. Mere 2.5% of the water resources available in the world is drinkable
Children worldwide miss 443 million days of school each year because of water-related illnesses. The UN also estimates that half of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases. Millions of 'women' spend many valuable man hours per day to fetch water from far away sources for family needs.
The UN reported in the same week the World Water Day fell that the world's glaciers are melting at "an alarming rate." Like reservoirs, glaciers store water and then release it at predictable rates, around which humans have formed communities and built economies.
Global warming is raising ocean levels, meaning seawater will encroach on wetlands, rivers, and streams, according to recent reports by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Research Council (NRC).
Climate change that causes more and more unpredictable droughts and floods is another major effect of global warming.
After all, the most serious concern is that the water crisis means a crisis in food security as well. A Reuters story reports:
"The thing to keep in mind is that it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce one ton of grain.... Seventy percent of all the water we use in the world – that we pump from underground or divert from rivers – is used in irrigation. Not everyone has connected the dots to see that a future of water shortages will be a future of food shortages."
