1 - Water and Human Security

Summary

Before describing community strategies for securing safe water, it is important to appreciate the significance of water security as a global challenge for the twenty-first century. Both US News and World Report and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have focused on water as one of the major environmental concerns of the twenty-first century, while others have compared the future demand for fresh water with the energy crisis in its unequal distribution, inefficient pricing and its ability to drastically affect human societies if left unresolved. Whether the issue is security or equity, the increasing demand and declining supply of fresh water is an important topic of contemporary public debate especially in SEA and other areas of the rapidly urbanizing Global South.

The Dire Statistics

Water is, of course, the primary resource supporting life and is fundamental to human existence regardless of nation, demographics or socio-economic status. Increased access to water has far reaching effects and providing the right quality and quantity of water for food and energy promotes economic growth and stability, poverty reduction and food and energy production. Access to water is crucial to the preservation of our ecosystems on which our lives depend, as well as dependent on these very ecosystems to sustain water (UNESCO, 2006). Yet for something so important, there is relatively little of it on the earth; 99 percent of the world's water is either saltwater or locked up in glaciers in its frozen form (PWC, 2012). And while the remaining 1 percent must serve all our human needs, these same freshwater resources simultaneously maintain our natural ecosystem (PWC, 2013).

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 2.8 billion people already live in water-stressed areas and that this could rise to two-thirds of the world's population by 2025. Global demand for water has increased sixfold in the past century, more than double the rate of global population growth and the World Bank estimates demand may grow more than 50 percent by 2030 (PWC, 2012).

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ 2005 report, Addressing Our Global Water Future: “Widespread over-consumption of freshwater resources is causing a collapse in global freshwater systems that will be a primary driver in future water scarcity.”