Will the world run out of water?

19:25 | 16/ 03/ 2009

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) – The
Fifth World Water Forum opened in Istanbul on March 16 and will last
until March 22.

The event, like other water forums organized by the Marseilles-based
World Water Council (WWC), an international consultative UN agency,
will always continue to produce a lot of useful statistics.

WWC estimates show that more than 600 million people live in
water-stressed or water-deprived countries. The UN predicts that by
2025 this number may increase to 3.2 billion.

It is very expensive to transport water over large distances. Building
water channels costs much more than building oil and gas pipelines.
What’s more, oil and gas may be replaced with hydrogen, bio fuel, coal
or nuclear energy, whereas water has no alternative. It is essential
for any industrial or agricultural production.

Regional water stress can be a basis for international disputes, which
sometimes can be quite serious. The Greater Anatolia Project (GAP), an
initiative on building a series of electric power stations and dams on
the Euphrates, will give Turkey four times more electric energy than
the United States once received from the Hoover Dam, and allow it to
irrigate 1.5 million hectares of land. However, these dams will reduce
the amount of water in the Euphrates’ Syrian part by 40% and in the
Iraqi part by 80%; Iraq may altogether lose 20% of its irrigated lands.
The same holds true for cross-border rivers in Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan – Tajikistan has the upper reaches of rivers, and Uzbekistan
the lower ones.

Africa has the largest number of cross-border rivers, lakes, and even
underground water reservoirs. The Nile crosses 10 countries, the Congo
nine, Niger 11, Zambezi eight, Volta six, and Chad five. Most countries
located in their basins are water-stressed and hence fraught with
conflicts.

Russia is not the world’s leader in water resources. It is second to
Brazil in the renewable fresh water resources, and is followed by
Canada.

Some 70% of the world’s surface is covered by water but out of 1.4
billion square km of it – 97.5% is salt water and only 2.5% is fresh.
If we could squeeze all the world’s water into a five-liter canister,
fresh water would not fill in even a teaspoon.

Out of 35 million square km of fresh water, the largest part – 24.4
million square km – is locked in glaciers, ice and permafrost, while
10.7 million square km is located underground. The world’s rivers
account for 0.002 million square km of fresh water or 0.01% of its
reserves in all forms.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.