Water crisis to be biggest world risk
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Last Updated: 1:28pm BST 05/06/2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/06/05/ccwater105.xml
A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless
exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs "Top Five Risks" conference. Nicholas
(Lord) Stern, author of the Government's Stern Review on the economics of climate change, warned that underground aquifers could run
dry at the same time as melting glaciers play havoc with fresh supplies of usable water.
The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We're facing
the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it, A few hundred
square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia - the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze - where
3bn people live. That's almost half the world's population.
Fresh rainfall is not enough to refill the underground water tables. Water is not a renewable resource. People have been mining it
without restraint because it has not been priced properly. Farming makes up 70pc of global water demand. Fresh water for irrigation
is never returned to underground basins. Most is lost through leaks and evaporation.
Water is the "petroleum for the next century", offering huge rewards for investors who know how to play the infrastructure boom. The
US alone needs up to $1,000bn (£500bn) in new piping and waste water plants by 2020. Demand for water continues to escalate at
unsustainable rates. At the risk of being alarmist, we see parallels with Malthusian economics. Globally, water consumption is
doubling every 20 years. By 2025, it is estimated that about one third of the global population will not have access to adequate
drinking water.
