The International Institute for water in Stockholm held a meeting for experts and officials from one hundred countries to discuss the necessary measures to ensure the best water resources in the world. They engaged participants on the issue of support received by farmers, which is one of the reasons contributing to the impoverishment of developing countries, The theme of "virtual water" used in food production, is aiming to reduce the number of persons deprived of water. There is much movement in the field to be reported still.
In addition, The United Nations reported that one billion people in the world are currently deprived of drinking water. The United Nations has issued a report late last year which said that half of Earth's population will suffer water shortages within the next thirty years if the matter is not rectified. According to the United Nations Development Board 1.1 billion people worldwide do not have access to drinking water and 2.4 billion lack access to adequate health equipment, and 2.2 million people will die. In addition, the USA took the initiative to provide similar projects such as one provided by the Hilton to provide drinking water in rural communities. These initiatives were received as, the most successful aspects of the summit, but did not compensate for the lack of political action.
The summit suggested the United States should establish a goal of reducing the number of persons deprived of clean water by 2015 to half of the present figure, but this proposal did not meet them approval of the delegates, as the Danish presidency announced to the European Union on Wednesday. For its part, the World Bank announced that the water should be a catalyst for cooperation among States, and called for countries to agree on how to take advantage of the shared water resources.
“water has become a highly precious resource. There are some places where a barrel of water costs more than a barrel of oil”.
Said Lloyd Axworthy, Foreign Minister of Canada (1999 - News Conference)
For years now, Green Prophet has been reporting on the growing water shortage situation in Africa and the Middle East and its economic and geopolitical implications. However, the scale of the problem and the need for urgent international coordination to secure this basic commodity is becoming more urgent today as stories and pictures from Yemen warn of an inevitable social collapse in the middle of political uncertainty.
According to a recent report from Maple croft, the Gulf nations are among the countries with the least available water per capita. The water stress index identifies areas of water stress by calculating the ratio of domestic, industrial and agricultural water consumption, against renewable supplies of water from precipitation, rivers and groundwater.
But of all counties in the region, the one coming closest to running dry is Yemen. As reported by Green Prophet recently, the food situation has been exacerbated by months of fighting to overthrow the current president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Directly linked with the food insecurity is the water shortage as agriculture is the primary use of water. Past predictions that Yemen may be the first country to run out of water are no longer implausible. According to a report drawn up by the Washington Centre for Strategic and International Studies, within six years the city of Sana’a will have run out of water completely.
The problems created by the shortage of food and water in Yemen are exacerbated by the population’s dependence on qat, an extremely profitable crop which requires extensive irrigation and is so widespread that it takes up some 40 % of the country’s water resources.
They need help to find solutions to this horrible situation. The water crisis in Yemen has led to a disaster which is not good for a country and for the people who live there. There are a lot of solutions to help them to reduce this disaster. First of all, they can use rain water as one of the water sources and save it from going underground or evaporating. Also they can use water tanks to save this water and to prevent it from loss and build dams to not let water go far away. Also they can use develop ways of irrigation to decrease the amount of water lossed because some pipes maybe broken. Moreover, they need to study groundwater levels. Finally, they need also to know how they can change the sea salt water into drinkable water by desalination but this may be hard because it’s expensive which maybe not affordable.
Water is one of the most vital commodities that human need to live and without it there will be no human life or plants on the earth. Because water is important people should protect it from loss. There are lots of countries which have less amounts of water than they need such as Yemen and South Africa. These countries have less water because they have problems of how they can save water and are dry countries. Also other countries can help them to find solutions for these problems. Most of countries use water in correct ways but they need to do better. Also nowadays most countries have water pollution because the use of factories has increased. So we should protect water from loss and we shouldn’t waste water.
