“Unless their links with water are addressed and water crises around the world resolved, these other crises may intensify and local water crises may worsen, converging into a global water crisis and leading to political insecurity and conflict at various levels,” the report cautions,

There is more bad news. The total usable freshwater supply for ecosystems and humans is less than 1 per cent of all freshwater resources. U.N.-Water, a wing of the U.N., says water use has been growing at twice the rate of population increase in the last century. It predicts that by 2025, 180 crore people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world's population could be under stress conditions.

Report

The Global Environment Outlook 4, the latest report of the United Nations Environment Programme, has found that the per capita availability of freshwater is declining, in part because of excessive withdrawals of surface and groundwater. It has concluded that water withdrawals are predicted to increase by 50 per cent by 2025 in developing countries.

On the other hand, the Water World Assessment Programme of the U.N. says half of the world's wetlands have been lost since 1900. Land conversion, it points out, eliminates key components of the aquatic environment, leads to loss of habitat and biodiversity, alters run-off patterns, inhibits natural recharge and fills water bodies with silt. Thereby, we are losing natural flood control, habitats for fisheries and waterfowl, recreation, water supply, water quantity and quality.

Evidence of this can be seen as one enters Mangalore from B.C. Road. Loads of mud and debris have been dumped on the banks of the Netravati abutting the national highway.

Global water crisis likely