People’s Daily
August 24, 2006

In 2000, experts predicted that by 2025 one-third of the world’s population would be affected by water scarcity. The latest findings show that that forecast had come true by 2005.

“We must grow more crop per drop, more meat and milk per drop and more fish per drop.” This is the message sent out by scientists who just released key results from a landmark assessment of 50 years of water management practices at the ongoing 2006 World Water Week in Stockholm from August 20-26. Frank Rijsberman, Director General of the International Water Management Institute spoke at the plenary session of the water week that in 2000 predictions forecast that one third of the world population would be affected by water scarcity by 2025. But their latest findings show that in 2005, more than a third of the world population was already affected by water scarcity. Rijsberman explained that the results show that a quarter of the world’s population live in river basins where water is physically scarce–water is over-used and people are affected by environmental consequences from falling groundwater levels to dying rivers that no longer reach the sea. Another one billion people live in river basins where water is economically scarce but the infrastructure is lacking to make this water available to people.

However, the results of 700 scientists and practitioners years of research found that it is not accurate to say there is scarcity of water in the world. “There is enough water to go around, but there must be a great change in the 50 years water management practices.” David Molden who led the Comprehensive Assessment says, “To feed the growing population and reduce malnourishment, the world has three choices: expand irrigation by diverting more water to agriculture and building more dams at a major cost to the environment; expand the area under rain-fed agriculture at the expenses of natural areas through massive deforestation and other habitat destruction or do more with the water we already use.”

Traditional agricultural practice will use more water than the world can supply and that will cause further scarcity which will lead more loss of lives and properties. Modlen said the water scarcity is not because there is not enough water to go around, but because of choices people make. “It is possible to reduce water scarcity, feed people and address poverty, but the key trade-off is with the environment. People and governments will face tough decisions on how to allocate and manage water.” Rijsberman gave a good example in Africa’s savannahs, or grass land areas which have most of the world’s poorest people who typically rely on rain-fed agriculture, but people there managed to make productive systems. And three Brazilian scientists actually studied the method and use them in Latin America. Their practices won prize from the World Food Program.

The Assessment also identifies numerous bright spots–innovative approaches that hold potential for the future. These include very low cost technologies that facilitate access to and use of water by the rural poor. For example in southwestern China where farmers raise fish in the rice field and so on. The assessment recommends a radical new agenda for agricultural water management- one that prioritizes obtaining the maximum social, environmental and economic value out of every drop of water-be it from a river basin or a rainstorm-against the backdrop of a globalized world. The scientists argue that growing more food, fish and fodder for animals with less water and getting more value for each drop of water are the only ways to both reduce poverty and stop damage to the environment. The Stockholm Prize Winner professor Asit k. Biswas from Mexico also echoes such an finding by saying that scientific inventions in biotechnology such as draught resistant rice is a good example of producing more food with less water.