Rich countries, poor water
The most recent global analysis of human access to the fresh water that underpins all societies shows a steadily worsening situation. According to the 2006 UN World Water Development Report, 1.1 billion people around the world lack access to improved water supplies and 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation and "in many parts of the world, available water quantity is decreasing and quality is worsening". Most of these people live in the world's poorest countries, but as this report shows, there are major and mounting challenges on water facing the wealthier nations as well. The report is aptly titled "Water - A shared responsibility", a reflection of a rapidly growing realisation that the availability of adequate water is among the most basic and most urgent of the common issues faced by rich and poor nations alike.
Excluding the water of the seas and the icecaps, an astoundingly small proportion of the water essential to all terrestrial life is actually available. Per person, that small proportion of useable freshwater is also set to decrease as a consequence of population growth, climate change and substantial water supply losses through the contamination of water sources. This ethnocentric view is the cause of increasing alarm that sometimes neglects the fact that water is being lost to all life. Indeed, there is growing awareness that the last half century of human interventions with water flows have significantly altered global hydrology. Just as with the excess production of greenhouse gases, this may have consequences that are themselves threatening the conditions for life.
Terms such as "world water crisis" are not new, but they are overwhelmingly applied to the unmet water needs and the looming water catastrophes of the developing world. This survey finds that the world's wealthier nations also face a water crisis, as the profligate water use and abuse of the past and new requirements for "environmental water" confront and in some cases outrun available supplies.
