Water -- the forgotten crisis

Science Daily: This year, the world and, in particular, developing countries and the poor have been hit by both food and energy crises. ….However, few commentators specifically mention the declining availability of water that is needed to grow irrigated and rainfed crops. According to some, the often mooted solution to the food crisis lies in plant breeding that produces the ultimate high yielding, low water- consuming crops. While this solution is important, it will fail unless attention is paid to where the water for all food, fibre and energy crops is going to come from.

A few years ago, IWMI (the International Water Management Institute) demonstrated that many countries are facing severe water scarcity, either as a result of a lack of available fresh water, or due to a lack of investment in water infrastructure such as dams and reservoirs. What makes matters worse is that this scarcity predominantly affects developing countries where the majority of the world's under-nourished people-- approximately 840 million -- live.

….According to the recent report "Water for Food, Water for Life" of the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, which drew on the work of 700 scientists, unless we change the way we use water and increase "water productivity" (i.e. more crop per drop) we will not have enough water to feed the world's growing population (This population is estimated to increase from 6 billion now to about 8.5 billion in 25 years.) Compared with the lengthy agenda to combat climate change, this is a very short time indeed and yet the impacts of water scarcity will be profound. However, very little is being done about it in most countries.

....Current estimates indicate that we will not have enough water to feed ourselves in 25 years time, by when the current food crisis may turn into a perpetual crisis. Just as in other areas of agricultural research and development, investment in the provision and better management of water resources has declined steadily since the green revolution. I and my water science colleagues are raising a warning flag that significant investment in both R&D and water infrastructure development are needed, if dire consequences are to be avoided.