Key Issues at WSSD: Food and Water

Essential Human Needs, Elusive Global Resources

Part two in a series of background resources for journalists. Click here for more information

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Latest Media Coverage on Environment Contact an Expert: Patrick Burns, National Audubon Society Karin Krchnak, National Wildlife Federation Adlai Amor, World Resources Institute Mary Caron, Worldwatch Institute

WATER FOR LIFE

August 15, 2002 - Water, perhaps the most precious natural resource on Earth, is central to any discussion of sustainable development. Water on Earth is finite – cycled constantly through complex processes of evaporation, transpiration and precipitation. While, two-thirds of the earth’s surface is water, only 2.5% is freshwater, suitable for the needs of all the world’s plants, animals and non-oceanic habitat. Further, the majority of the Earth’s freshwater resources are largely inaccessible – tied up in glaciers and deep, underground aquifers.

PATTERNS OF WORLDWIDE WATER CONSUMPTION

As world population grows and the consumption of water per capita increases, human use taxes precious water resources. For example:

• 54% of available freshwater resources are now harnessed for human use worldwide.
• In the last 70 years, water use has increased six-fold, while the global population has tripled.
• About 70 per cent of annual freshwater is used for agriculture. Yet irrigation is a highly inefficient use, with 60 percent of water used lost to evaporation.

Available freshwater supplies are unevenly distributed among people, nations and regions of the world. Four billion people, or two-thirds of the world’s population, inhabit areas that receive but 25 per cent of the annual worldwide rainfall. Not surprisingly, then, many of these areas face severe water constraints and/or shortages. At present, more than 2 billion people live in 31 countries characterized as “water stressed” (less than 1700 cubic meters of water per person annually) or water scarce (less than 1000 cubic meters of per person annually).

Water “haves” and water “have-nots” characterize the world. Two billion people receive less than the necessary 50 liters of water each day that are required for basic needs associated with drinking, sanitation and cooking. According to an important new report from the National Wildlife Federation, in Africa, water withdrawals for household use average 47 liters per person per day, while in Asia the average is closer to 95 liters per person per day. In stark contrast comparable water use in the United Kingdom is estimated at 334 liters per person per day. The United States leads the world at approximately 578 liters per person per day – 12 times that of an average person living in Africa.

For more information about global water supplies, click here.

Access to water does not ensure its quality. Hundreds of millions of the world’s people do not have access to water that is clean and safe, and thus are exposed to a variety of health concerns – from heavy metals to water-borne diseases. The health burden of unclean water and inadequate sanitation is high:

• 1.1 billion people consume water that is not clean and more than twice that number do not have access to basic sanitation.
• As many as 12 million people die each year from unclean water and/or unsanitary conditions.
• Many of water-borne diseases (e.g. malaria and diarrhea) could be easily prevented with clean water and basic sanitation.

For additional background on global water quality, disease and related issues, click here. For information about world sanitation challenges, click here.

WATER AND WOMEN

In many cultures, women bear primary responsibility for providing and managing water for household use. As such, women are inordinately affected by water resource issues. In developing countries, it is usually women who haul water from available sources, spending as much as five times as much time on this task as men do. The work is time-consuming and difficult. According to experts, women walk an average of almost 4 miles per day to collect water, which can weigh more than 40 pounds.

When water supplies become scare or are contaminated, women are impacted most significantly. An estimated 30% of women in Egypt walk over an hour a day to meet water needs; in other parts of Africa, women and children may spend up to eight hours a day collecting water. Of the up to 12 million people who die each year from water-related causes, the majority are women and children. Women are also most often responsible for the care of others who fall ill from dirty water diseases, and often must take on additional labor and responsibilities for those for whom they are caring.

For more information about women and water, click here

WATER AND THE FUTURE

In the next 50 years, the global population will grow to at least 9 billion, and water resources will be stretched even further. Experts estimate that 70% of the annual supply will be used in 2025 to meet the needs of 8 billion people at present per capita rates of consumption. However, if consumption were to increase to the level of more developed nations, 90% of the annual available supply would be required. It is predicted that two-thirds of the world’s population will experience moderate-to-high water stress (less than 50 litres of water per person, per day) in 2025.

As the National Wildlife Federation points out, growing appropriation of freshwater resources for human use reduces the amount of resource available for riverine, lake and wetland ecosystems, which are critical to animals and support other natural services important to humans.

To meet the environmental and human needs in the future, aggressive efforts will need to be undertaken to improve the efficiency of water use and tap additional supplies. And to achieve sustainable development for all the world’s people, universal access to clean water and adequate sanitation will be required, at substantial cost and through public and private investment. Especially important will be efforts to improve the efficiency of irrigation, for example through use of low-cost drip irrigation, which could double the efficiency of water use in agriculture.

Whatever happens, there is growing concern around the world, including at intelligence agencies like the CIA, that competition for increasingly scarce water resources will be a flashpoint for conflict in the future. More than 200 river systems cross national boundaries. And water scarcity and competition is acute in some of the world’s most volatile regions, such as the Middle East.

WATER AND THE WSSD

Delegates participating in the WSSD recognize the centrality of the issue of water, and the draft Plan of Implementation is expected to contain strong language to help promote development of clean water resources around the world. Specifically, it is expected that the final document will endorse a goal of halving, by the year 2015.

Vigorous debate is expected on a corollary goal to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access to improved sanitation. The United States and others are expected to object to this provision.

FOOD SECURITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

The dependence of agriculture irrigation links freshwater with food security, and therefore with human nutrition and well-being. Ensuring that current and future generations are adequately fed will be another major issue confronted by delegates in Johannesburg.

At present, enough food is produced to feed everyone on earth, but it is unequally distributed and the world’s poorest do not have access to adequate food supplies:

• 825 million people worldwide are chronically malnourished.
• Two billion people – a third of the earth’s population – lack food security, defined as sufficient safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.
• Nearly two thirds of the world’s population live in nations which cannot maintain self-sufficient food production and cannot afford to import the food necessary to support their inhabitants. These “low-income food-deficit countries” comprise most of the developing world, including virtually all of sub-Saharan Africa.

To find out more about global food supply, click here.

FOOD SECURITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Producing sufficient food for a world of 6.2 billion people comes at significant environmental costs. As soils are overworked, wind and water erode them more quickly. Improper irrigation techniques and the use of agricultural chemicals can also poison soil and render then unusable. In many regions, soil degradation and erosion have already resulted in sharp declines in agricultural productivity. Moreover, to increase yields and combat pests, vast quantities of harmful chemicals are employed in agriculture, often with significant – and some unknown – environmental and human health effects.

• Almost 5 billion acres of crop and grazing land are suffering from moderate to severe soil degradation – an area roughly equivalent to the North American continent.
• Land degradation claims 12-17 million acres of farmland each year.
• In Africa, crop yields could drop by half if soil degradation continues at the present rate.
• Almost 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are overfished, depleted or threatened.
• During the past 100 years, humans have introduced more than 100,000 previously unknown chemicals, like DDT, into the environment, many of them for agricultural uses.

To learn more about food and the environment, click here.

FOOD SECURITY AND THE FUTURE

Just as it will be more difficult to ensure sufficient water for all, population growth and changing consumption patterns will strain the prospects of global food security in the future. In recent years, food production has not kept up with the rate of population growth in 64 of 105 developing countries. Globally, the annual grain harvest increased by one percent annually between 1990 and 1997, while the global population increased by about 1.5% per year.

In order to ensure food security for the 8 billion expected on Earth in 2025, food production will have to double in the next two decades. Farmers will have to produce 40 percent more grain by 2020 to keep pace with rising demand. In short, another “green revolution” will be required – but widespread concern is now being expressed about bioengineering and genetically modified organizations, which potentially could help increase crop yields and the overall status of food security. In addition, high-yield crop varieties may help to achieve this end, but many of these require specialized fertilizers and pesticides that may disturb further the ecological balance and create new disease and pest problems.

FOOD AND THE WSSD

Balancing supply and demand, the search for food security with environmental health and related issues will frame the debate on agriculture and food at the WSSD. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the economic benefits of reducing the number of those suffering from hunger, thereby enabling them to be more productive, would be on the order of $120 billion per year worldwide.

Issues related to food are woven throughout the WSSD Draft Plan of Implementation. Key provisions include calls for the safe management of chemicals, with major debate expected on the so-called “precautionary principle,” which holds that lack of absolute scientific proof not be used as an obstacle to prudent actions to protect human health and the environment. The document will include a variety provisions to help restore the health of fisheries and depleted fish stocks. In addition, the WSSD implementation plan will reaffirm the goal agreed at the UN Millennium Summit to halve by 2015 the proportion of people suffering from hunger.

The most contentious debates on agriculture (or any other issue) at WSSD will revolve around issues related to trade, including sensitive issues related to subsidies, lack of market access and protectionist measures, which work to the disadvantage of developing nations.

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