Situation worsens in developing countries
No more fresh water than there was 2,000 years ago
Population growth and pollution alarm experts
Global ''Blue Revolution'' to conserve water supplies

WASHINGTON (AROL) -- Supplies of fresh water worldwide, already under strain because of population growth, face further threats from pollution and increased demands, says a new academic study released here. 

''Caught between the growing demand for freshwater supplies on one hand and limited and increasingly polluted water supplies on the other, many countries face difficult choices,'' according to the September edition of Population Reports, published by the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. 

''To avoid crisis, many countries must conserve water, pollute less, manage supply and demand, and slow population growth,' the article states.' 

Situation worsens in developing countries

Developing countries are the birthplace of about 95 percent of the 80 million people added to the world each year and where competition between the industrial, urban, and agricultural uses of water is increasing, the study says. 

''Fresh water is the liquid that lubricates development,'' says Don Hinrichsen, lead author of the report ''Solutions for a Water-Short World'' and a consultant with the United Nations Population Fund. 

''In many developing countries, lack of water could cap future improvements in the quality of life. Populations are growing rapidly in many of these countries, and at the same time per capita use must increase -- to grow enough food, for better personal health and hygiene, and to supply growing cities and industries,'' Hinrichsen says. 

No more fresh water than there was 2,000 years ago

Water experts estimate that there is no more fresh water on earth than there was 2,000 years ago -- when population was three percent of its 
current size. 

Nearly half a billion people around the world in 31 countries -- mostly in the Middle East and Africa -- currently face water shortages, says the report. By 2025, the number will increase fivefold to 2.8 billion people -- 35 percent of the world's projected total population of eight billion people, warns the study. 

In 2025, another 17 countries, including Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Peru, will be pushed onto the list of countries likely to run short of water. And China and Pakistan are also expected to be approaching water stress. 

Beyond the impact of population growth itself, the demand for fresh water has been rising in response to industrial development, increased reliance on irrigated agriculture, massive urbanization, and rising living standards, says the study. In this century, while the world population has tripled, water withdrawals have increased by over six times, the study says. 

Population growth and pollution alarm experts

Since 1940, annual global water use has increased by an average of 2.5 to 3 percent a year compared with annual population growth of 1.5 to 2 percent. In developing countries, water withdrawals have been increasing by four to eight percent a year for the past decade. 

This increased use has alarmed researchers, who also warn that the supply of fresh water available to humanity is shrinking in large 
part because many freshwater resources are increasingly being polluted. 
''In some countries, lakes and rivers have become receptacles for a vile assortment of wastes, including untreated or partially treated municipal sewage, toxic industrial effluents, and harmful chemicals leached into surface and ground waters from agricultural activities,'' says the report. 

All of India's 14 major rivers are badly polluted, for example, and some three-quarters of China's 50,000 kilometers of major rivers are unable to support fish. Agriculture is the biggest polluter -- more than industries and municipalities -- say the Hopkins researchers. 

''In virtually every country where agricultural fertilizers and pesticides are used, they have contaminated groundwater aquifers and surface waters,'' the report says. 

Still, industrial and municipal pollution continue to pose a significant threat, the study says. In developing countries, an average of 90 to 95 percent of all domestic sewage, and 75 percent of all industrial waste, is discharged into surface waters without any treatment. And in Europe and North America, many rivers and lakes are highly contaminated with industrial and agricultural pollutants, say the Johns Hopkins researchers. 

Polluted water, improper waste disposal, and poor water management cause serious diseases including malaria, cholera, typhoid, and schistosomisis. 

Global ''Blue Revolution'' to conserve water supplies

Water and environment experts call for a global ''Blue Revolution'' to conserve and manage freshwater supplies in the face of growing demand and increased pollution, as the ''Green Revolution'' of the 1960s sought to transform agriculture. 

While the study concedes that ''it may be too late for some water-short countries with rapid population growth to avoid a crisis,'' it argues that a ''blue revolution'' is needed to coordinate responses to water scarcity at local, national, and international levels. 

Such management strategies should include wastewater treatment, improving irrigation efficiency, reusing urban wastewater, and conserving industrial water use, it says. ''Locally led initiatives show that water can be used much more efficiently, even in water-short areas, both rural and urban,'' it adds. 

In the Mossi Plateau of Burkina Faso, the country's main agricultural area, for example, a group called the "Six S's" has been encouraging small-scale irrigation systems by teaching village leaders new techniques for saving water and growing crops and helping with financing for water conservation. 

At the national level, especially in water-short regions with dense populations, ''adopting a watershed or river-basin management perspective is a needed alternative to uncoordinated water-management policies by separate jurisdictions,'' says the study. 

The lack of such a national management plan has caused the water in China's Yellow River to dry up before reaching the ocean, the study states. In 1996, when there was enough water, the Chinese government ordered farmers not to use it because a state-run oil field further downstream needed the water to operate. 

The study also stresses the need to develop water management policies at the international level in order to stave off regional conflict over the finite resource. 

Such conflicts over water are brewing and could turn violent as shortages grow. In Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, and South America, some countries are already arguing over access to rivers and inland seas. 

''As the next century dawns, water crises in more and more countries will present obstacles to better living standards and better health and even bring risks of outright conflict over access to scarce freshwater supplies,'' says the study. ''Finding solutions should become a high priority now.''