Berlin: A recent alarming report underscores the urgent need for humanity to act with greater boldness and urgency. The increasingly out-of-balance water cycle, if left unchecked, will wreak havoc on economies and humanity worldwide. This is not a distant threat, but a wake-up call for nations to act now.
According to the report ‘The Economics of Water: Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Good’, Xinhua news agency reported that the water crisis will threaten more than half of the world’s food production by 2050.
The crisis also poses a significant economic threat, with an 8 percent loss of GDP in countries around the world on average by 2050. Lower-income countries could face as much as a 15 percent loss, with even larger economic consequences beyond, as per the report by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.
The report highlights that weak economics, destructive land use, and the persistent mismanagement of water resources have combined with the worsening climate crisis to put the global water cycle under unprecedented stress.
Nearly 3 billion people and over half of the world’s food production are in areas experiencing drying or unstable trends in total water availability. Further, it said several cities are sinking due to the loss of water below the ground.
“Today, half of the world’s population faces water scarcity. As this vital resource becomes increasingly scarce, food security and human development are at risk—and we are allowing this to happen,” said Johan Rockstroem, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the Commission’s four co-chairs.
“For the first time in human history, we are pushing the global water cycle out of balance. Precipitation, the source of all freshwater, can no longer be relied upon due to human-caused climate and land use change, undermining the basis for human wellbeing and the global economy,” he said.
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–IANS
(File photo: Xinhua)
