Ways To Reverse The Severe Water Crisis

We should shift from a ‘supply-more water’ mindset, to improving efficiency of use (and reuse) and restoring water bodies

- A Narayanamoorthy/P Alli

The message is loud and clear from different reports that the world is in a water crisis and climate change is making it worse, compounding the scarcity challenge. Much of the impact of climate change is being felt through changing patterns of water availability, with shrinking rivers and changing patterns of precipitation increasing the likelihood of drought and flood. Drawing the world's attention to this key global issue, the focus of World Water Day 2020 is on Water and Climate Change.

The world's major fresh water supplies located in Antarctica, Arctic and mountainous regions are shrinking at a faster pace. Inland glaciers and many large lakes are also receding almost everywhere around the world. According to the ‘Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment Report: 2019’, the Himalayas could lose at least two-thirds of its glaciers by 2100 affecting the livelihood of about 250 million people who live in the Hindu-Kush-Himalaya region.

The World Resources Institute estimates that a quarter of the world's population live in countries facing extremely high water stress. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a joint monitoring report, 'Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Special Focus on Inequalities' (2019), observes that about two billion people around the world do not have access to safely managed drinking water services to drink.

According to a latest report by Water Aid (2019), despite the worsening water crisis, globally we use six times as much water today as we did 100 years ago and this figure is growing by about one per cent every year.