Water crisis: Myth or reality

Asit K. Biswas and Cecilia Tortajada | Global-is-Asian, 2009, Issue 4, pages 1-3

Water is an important cross-cutting issue to assure food, energy, and environmental security. And yet, it is probably the most neglected or ignored resource issue of the world. The World Health Organization estimates that 6 percent of global diseases are related to water, and about 3.4 million people die each year because of water-related diseases. With such high sustained human costs over the years, one would logically expect that water issues receive, at the very least, a similar level of interest as other popular issues such as climate change. However, water is not receiving even 5 percent of the global interest given to climate change at present. Therein lies a global conundrum, especially as world water problems are now solvable. Unlike climate change, we have the knowledge, technology and know-how to solve the world’s water problems. We now need determined global interest and appropriate policies and governance practices to solve them.

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