By Carmen Roberts (May 7) The world needs fresh water to support its growing population and maintain economic development, but much of the world, especially the emerging economies, are under sever water stress. Inadequate water supplies may hinder growth as developing nations face growing demand for food and energy.
Water is a resource, and like oil and other important resources – it is not always where it is needed.
Water Wars
Some experts are sounding the alarm, with then Vice President of the World Bank, Dr. Ismail Sergeldin even saying wars will be fought over water.
Renowned economist Abby Joseph Cohen, who is the Senior Investment Strategist for Goldman Sachs, issued a report recently which said water needs are quickly increasing in emerging economies that account for nearly 40 percent of global population and one third of global water demand.
“One of the concerns that we have in some of these developing nations is not just the availability of the water, but the availability of water that is clean enough for human contact,” Cohen said. “In some of the northern provinces in China for example, some scientists estimate that 50 percent of the water cannot be used either for drinking or for farming and a good deal of it is also too dirty to be used for industrial processes. That’s something that should alarm all of us.”
3 Million Die a Year
The World Health Organization says an alarming 780 million people lack access to clean water, and more than 3 million die every year from the shortage. Even in the United States where water is often plentiful, cities have problems.
“We’re lucky here in New York,” said Clark Winter founder of Clark Winter Enterprises, a global investment research and strategy firm.
“In the middle of the 19th century people went and put these great reservoirs and dams 100 miles north,” he said. “We’ve got adequate water thanks to some judgments made long ago. Southern California is the opposite. They have tremendous vulnerability. LA has huge water problems.”
Vital to Energy
There is also a strong link between water and another vital economic necessity – energy. It takes water to generate electricity, to produce oil, and to extract natural gas from shale with the technology known as fracking.
Yet, technology is also solving water problems in some arid climates and creating a global industry worth $300 billion.
“Some nations that have been water constrained, including Israel and Singapore, have developed incredible technologies to deal with their own scarcity,” said Cohen. “For Israel in particular this has become a very important export market.
Nor Any Drop to Drink
A line in the famous poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner says, “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”
The world is not there yet, but experts say without better water management, that may be where much of the world is headed.
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