The countries hardest hit will be the poor agrarian states that use a large percentage for growing food instead of drinking. The don't have large fossil fuel supplies to construct desalinization plants or sophistication for filtration or water reclaimation technologies. Their geography might make them vulnerable to drought seasons or polluted river water that comes from their people or another state's. And they might not have the capacity or knowledge to replace their groundwater tables. Population growth and poverty also makes it more likely that the remaining supplies are contaminated. It's a vicious cycle that'll lead to border disputes and war.
....which calls for global assistance. seriously, we CAN solve this problem. it seems there are lots we can't solve. but we CAN solve this one.
The planet is 70% covered in water and we can't find an efficient way to desalinize? I'm with MadMax here... I just can not believe that we can't do it. We better get on it now. We don't HAVE to wait for people to start dying of thirst to put it on the agenda.
Global assistance is happening and ongoing. One of the Millennium Development Goals is the halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to clean water and sanitation by 2015. Last year's Human Development report says it needs 10 billion a year to meet its goal, and it wants to raise aid from 3.4 billion to 4 billion a year. The problem is solvable, yet for it to succeed, it'll need the constant involvement of rich states rather than a patchwork of temporary aid. My concerns are that while the water goal is very ambitious, the other half, who currently doesn't receive clean water, won't have access to clean water and sanitation. During that period (next 20 years?), those conditions are a breeding ground for instability in the event of water supply disruptions or general political upheaval. Complicating matters are fierce political debates (concerning global assistance, for example) from rising developing nations who consume water at high growth rates versus the Western nations who already consume a large percentage of the world's total clean water supply. With Global Warming p disrupting climate patterns, water supply disruptions are almost guaranteed regionally, and the areas of concern are the regions heavily dependant on cash crops. There is optimism on the technological side. The inventor of Segway wants to make a cheap water purifier and also an electric generator that could go hand in hand. Technology will definitely make reaching the water goal easier, but it can't solve the human issues that created the problem. Articles commenting on the 2006 Human Development report: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/10/opinion/edwatkins.php http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7bc210d6-7060-11db-9da6-0000779e2340.html http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1962786.ece http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L08923976&WTmodLoc=IntNewsHome_C4_Crises-2
