Cities are running out of water, says expert

DEVELOPED CITIES and regions around the world are beginning to run out of water in advance of the effects of climate change, a seminar in Dublin was told yesterday.

The Institute of International and European Affairs was told that increasing drought was no longer “an image associated with third world charity”, but now affected cities and regions such as San Francisco, Mexico, Raleigh North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia among others in North America, as well as Barcelona in Spain, parts of southern Europe, Turkey and Egypt and large parts of Australia.

A second tier of cities – including Dublin – are likely to face severe water demand over the next 20 years, while international bankers had already begun to see a market in “water rights” in relation to ownership of rivers and lakes and access to water in the ground.

Dominic Waughray, a senior director and head of environmental initiatives with the World Economic Forum in Geneva, said that by 2030, some 60 per cent of the world’s population would live in cities with a hugely increased demand for food, industrial development and power generation, all of which require additional water.

Increasing demands for energy and industrial development have already led to near crisis in many cities in the US which have come within 100 days of running dry – and that is in advance of any effects that climate change might bring, he said.

Mr Waughray said 44 per cent of the world’s population, some 2.8 billion people already live in water poverty. Some 1.1 billion people already have no clean supply of daily water and a further 2.6 billion had no toilet. Some 5,000 children a day died because of the absence of clean water – more than HIV/Aids.

He said 70 of the world’s major rivers were close to running dry. These included the Colorado river in the US; the Ganges in India; the Nile in Africa, the Yellow river in China and the Murray-Darling in Australia.

Water shortages lead to an annual loss to global economic growth of about 3.6 per cent. He said the cost of water issues in California was already 2 per cent of state budget and he warned that dealing with global water rights and water shortages may be even more difficult than dealing with carbon emissions.

Already, he said water-related food shortages had led to the “breaking down” of the world’s wheat market in 2008, which in turn had led to some states, particularly in the Persian Gulf, taking long leases on land in other countries, such as the Middle East in which to grow food to feed their own people. By 2030 he said 55 per cent of the world’s population would be dependent on food imports.

This could see new strategic alliances between countries, based on the need for water, which bring about changes in geo-political balances. Global warming would also have a significant impact and Mr Waughray pointed out that retreating Himalayan glaciers provided seven of the world’s greatest rivers with water for more than 2 billion people.

Governments and industry would have to find a water-neutral energy source, alongside the carbon-neutral energy sources they were already looking for, he concluded.