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[2010-03-16] "Water, just ordinary water is the introduction to a Swedish children song written by Lennart Hellsing and Lillebror Söderlundh and..."
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Water, just ordinary water is the introduction to a Swedish children song written by Lennart Hellsing and Lillebror Söderlundh and for those of us who live in areas with almost unlimited amounts of surface as well as ground water we hardly ever reflect on the resource as such. But in many other parts of the world the opposite is true, some thought provoking numbers;
• Only one percent of the World’s total water amount is available for human use alll though 70% of the Earth’s surface I covered by water. 97,5 % I salt water and of the remaining 2,5 % more than 2/3 is in the form of ice.
• More than 1 000 0000 000 people do not have access to clean drinking water
• Diseases carried by water kills one child every eight second
• The ground water reservoirs in parts of US, China and India are consumed faster than they are filled up
• A child that is born in an industrialized country consumes between 30 and 50 times as much water than a child in a developing country
• Only 10 % of World’s water consumption is used by households, 20 & in the Industry and as much as 70% for irrigation/farming
• The UN anticipates that approximately 2/3 of the World´s population will live in areas with moderate to serious lack of water by year 2025
Global lack of water can cause new conflicts and create millions of “water refugees" in the developing countries. There are even experts who claim that the root of future wars will not be fights over oil but over water. It is understandable that with such scenarios something needs to be done and a lot of activities are taking place. As an example UN has an action program , Water for life 2005-2015, where a number of targets are set and followed up on a regular basis. Since year 2000 EU has a frame directive for water that commits all member states to work with issues concerning water in a coordinated manner. The goal is that by 2015 all European water shall have good status. The frame directive was implemented in Swedish national legislation 2004. Five water authorities, www.wattenmyndigheterna.se, have been created to coordinate Swedish water administration and in December last year environmental quality standards, programs of measures and river basin management plans were adopted. In parallel with these political activities there are also other initiatives such as models for calculating water footprints to mark products with regard to water use/water consumption.
Interesting enough I just heard on the radio that there is a current dispute between land owners and national interests regarding drinking water supplied via a tunnel from a lake in the Swedish province of Småland to the more densely populated province of Skåne. This might implicate that the water issue is becoming hotter even in this part of the world.
When it comes to use economical instruments to reach environmental goals I strongly believe that it is important to avoid sub optimization. Systems should be implemented that allocate economic resource where they make the best effect. If one compares water use with emissions of carbon dioxide, where global trading can be a cost effective way to reduce environmental impact, water is very much a local issue and it is contra productive to use identical measures globally. There is a difference between borrowing surface water and releasing it back to the same source (with mostly limited effects) and for example more or less permanently removing ground water. I’m however certain that the debate has barely started. – Johanna Svanberg |
