Friday, March 29, 2024

Coping With Water Scarcity Requires Holistic Approaches

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By Olcay Unver and Eduardo Mansur | FAO

Feeding the world while sustaining our natural resources base will require much more coordination

Coping with water scarcity is one of the fundamental global challenges we face in achieving sustainable development. This is not just a physical problem, it is also caused by institutional, economic, and infrastructure-related constraints and is linked to pressures that emanate from population growth and mobility, socio-economic development, dietary changes, and climate change.

Since 2012, the World Economic Forum has put water security at the top of the agenda as one of the top five greatest risks facing the world. By 2050, if we continue to use water in the way we are doing, global demand could exceed supply by over 40%, which would put at risk 45% of global GDP, 52% of the world’s population, and 40% of grain production. But this is not just some future problem. Farmers are already abstracting one third of all freshwater withdrawals for irrigation from groundwater, and most major aquifers are being pumped beyond the threshold of physical sustainability.

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