The world is on the verge of an imminent crisis, as humanity will face a shortage of fresh water in the next ten years. Researchers from several London universities stated this.
The Looming Crisis
Two researchers from University College London and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Research prepared the report. In the material, they stated specific steps that the world must take to avoid the outbreak of a global crisis.
States must begin to treat water as a common good, since most of them depend on their neighbors for water supplies. Meanwhile, the climate crisis and overuse and pollution threaten water supplies around the world.
Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Research and lead author of the report, told the British publication The Guardian that neglecting water resources is leading to disaster. He notes: “We are misusing water, polluting it and changing the entire global hydrological cycle, while simultaneously contributing to global warming. This is a triple crisis.”
The importance of cooperation between countries
The report’s authors hope to highlight the crisis in a way that politicians and economists will recognize. According to Rockström, governments still do not understand how interdependent countries are when it comes to water resources.
Most nations on Earth rely on the evaporation of water from neighboring countries. It is called “green” because it is contained in the soil and enters as a result of transpiration (movement through the plant and evaporation from leaves, stems and flowers) into forests and other ecosystems, after which clouds carry it to the territory of another state.
Inefficiency in waste recycling
Numerous water uses are inefficient and should be modified. Rockström specifically brings up the developed world’s sewer networks. “It is amazing that we use clean, fresh water to transport and release waste, feces, nitrogen, and phosphorus, all of which wind up in inefficient treatment facilities,” he says. They damage and create dead zones in aquatic habitats downstream by removing 30 percent of all nutrients. Massive innovation is needed for prevention.
Seven measures to prevent a water crisis
In the report, the researchers outlined seven steps that governments and companies need to take to stop the growing freshwater crisis.
- Manage the global water cycle as a common good that must be protected collectively and in our common interests.
- Provide water for all populations and work to increase investment in water resources.
- Stop underpricing water so corporations can waste it unwisely.
- Reduce more than $700 billion in annual agricultural and water subsidies that often contribute to overconsumption and reduce leaks in water supplies.
- Create “fair water partnerships” that can help finance low- and middle-income countries.
- Take urgent action on issues such as restoration of wetlands and depleted groundwater
- resources, reuse of water in industry, transition to precision agriculture, which uses water more efficiently; force companies to report their water usage.
Reform water management internationally and include it in trade agreements.
