Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity,
but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what
is happening to the world into our own personal suffering
and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.
Laudato si, 30.
Water: the
new gold
Access to safe, drinkable water is a basic and universal human
right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a
condition for the exercise of other human rights.’
Laudato si, 30.
Unusual in being italicised. Pope Francis also alerts us to the
danger of multinational business taking control of water.
Laudato si, Chapter
1 (II), 27-31
Water is the new gold:
Global consumption is doubling every 25 years
Every year 80 million extra people
need water – as supply shrinks
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By 2050:
– India will have 563 million more people
– China will have 187 million more people
– Pakistan will have 200 million more people
(one of the world’s most arid countries, with 141
million today)
– Egypt, Iran, Mexico: 50% population increase
in each
A water-challenged world
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400 of China’s 600 cities are in
severe drought.
The same is true of 22
countries in Africa.
In Mexico City and Arizona
there is no water left.
If things go on as they are, by
2025 two-thirds of the world
will have little water.
Four themes …
 1.
Melting glaciers
 2. Rivers running dry
 3. Falling water tables
 4. Facing up to water scarcity
The melting of glaciers has implications not
just for tourism. It means the loss of
"reservoirs in the sky" for summer irrigation,
used since the beginnings of irrigation, and for
supply of drinking water to cities.
All the region’s major rivers
originate in the Himalayas
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Indus
Ganges
Mekong
Yangtze
Yellow river
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Melting in this area will alter
the hydrology of several
Asian countries
Pakistan
India
China
Bangladesh
Thailand
Viet Nam
Nepal
Less snow melt during the summer dry season to feed rivers could
worsen the hydrological poverty already affecting so many in the
region
This links water to climate change:
and emphasises the urgency of cutting
carbon emissions
2. Rivers running dry
30 million
people
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Colorado
Utah
Wyoming
New
Mexico
Arizona
Nevada
California
The Aral Sea
Coastal towns are now as much as 50km inland
A thriving fishery has been destroyed
China’s Yellow River
One example among many: the
Yellow River
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The Yellow River ran dry for the first time ever in
1972. WHY?
Climate change in part …
… but largely because of upstream diversions for
industry, cities and irrigation
… e.g. Hohhot, Lower Mongolia’s capital; and
Taiyuan, the capital of Shanzi province, which has
4 million people and where water is rationed …
Shandong produces
one-fifth
of China’s
corn …
and one-seventh
of its wheat
It is more important to China than Iowa and Kansas
together are to the US
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Half of Shandong’s irrigation water
comes from the Yellow River …
… the other half from an aquifer that is
shrinking by 1.5m a year.
One day the Yellow River may never
reach Shandong.
NO WONDER THERE ARE SLEEPLESS
NIGHTS IN THE CORRIDORS OF
CHINESE POWER …
The Nile
whose water
must be
shared not just
between
provinces, but
countries
It hardly ever rains in Egypt: nearly all its
water comes from the Nile
The Nile
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Egypt has to import 40% of its grain today
Tomorrow?
Its population will double from 68 to 114
million by 2050
Sudan
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Sudan’s water needs will also double to 64
million by 2050.
At present Ethiopia only uses a tiny
fraction of the Nile’s water. This will
change.
All three countries need to stabilise
their populations or they will be
trapped in hydrological poverty.
The River Ganges
If India were to use
all the water it
wanted, the river
might not even
reach Bangladesh
during its dry
season
There is, fortunately, a treaty governing flow
3. Falling water tables
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The 3 billion people to be added to world
population by 2050 will be born in
countries already facing water scarcity.
40% of world food supply comes from
irrigated land (diesel and electric pumps).
Water scarcity in the future will mean food
scarcity.
Depleted aquifers
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Overpumping takes water faster from the
aquifer than it can be replaced by
precipitation.
Overpumping is now widespread,
especially in China, India and the United
States.
These three countries account for nearly
half the world’s grain harvest.
Bottled water

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In 2002 world sales
of bottled water
totalled $35 billion
…
… and only one in
ten of these plastic
bottles gets
recycled.
Closer to home …
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The water in half of all Group Schemes is
contaminated.
Water Framework Directive:
good water status to be returned to all
surface waters and groundwaters by 2015.
Irrigation stanchions
watering asparagus
in an arid climate
The Southern Great Plains
The Ogallala Aquifer
Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas
… A fossil aquifer with little recharge
The irrigated area shrinks as the
Ogallala is depleted
Overall grain production is expected
To drop by 17%
4. Facing up to water
scarcity
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Worldwide the annual overpumping
of aquifers uses up 160 billion m3 of
water:
… the equivalent of 160 million tons
of grain
= half the entire U.S. grain harvest
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This would feed 480 million people
(average world grain consumption is just
over 300 kg per person per year)
In other words: 480 million of the world’s
6.7 billion people are being fed with grain
produced with the unsustainable use of
water
… with water that belongs to our children
The economics of water: rising affluence generates additional
demand for water. Why?

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Because a diet rich in livestock products requires four
times as much grain per person as a rice-based diet
in a country like India.
This means four times as much water is needed.
The world’s fastest-growing grain
import market
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North Africa and the
Middle East
including Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, Libya,
Egypt and countries
eastward through Iran.
Virtually all these countries are
simultaneously experiencing
water shortage and rapid
population growth
A downward spiral …
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Ever-growing demand for water for
expanding cities and growing industry
satisfied by diverting water from irrigation.
The loss in food production capacity is
then offset by importing grain from abroad
(because every ton of grain imported is =
1,000 tons of water saved).
The water needed to produce the grain and
other foodstuffs imported into North
Africa and the Middle East in 2000 was
roughly equal to the annual flow of the River
Nile …
i.e. another Nile flowing
into the region in the form
of imported grain
South-east Australia 2008: after 6 years of drought, sheep
wander the plains looking for something to eat …
What must be done

Halt overpumping and stabilise water tables

It cannot be done all at once, in one step

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… because the world grain harvest would fall by 160 million
tons (8%) and grain prices would go through the roof
BUT THE LONGER COUNTRIES DELAY IN FACING THE
ISSUE, THE WIDER THE WATER DEFICIT BECOMES AND
THE GREATER THE EVENTUAL ADJUSTMENT WILL BE.
Governments in water-short
countries must act to
stabilise population and raise
water productivity or their
water shortages will soon
become food shortages

There is the frightening possibility that the
rising grain import needs of water-short
countries will overwhelm the export capacity
of grain-surplus countries.

This would destabilise world grain markets.

Falling water tables in China could soon
mean rising food prices for the entire world.
When the rivers run dry.
What happens when our
water runs out
by Fred Pearce
Eden Project Books, 2006
Buy this book.
Read it.
Open your eyes.
Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity,
but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what
is happening to the world into our own personal suffering
and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.
Laudato si, 30