BERLIN, OCT 17 – If humans do not act more boldly and urgently, an increasingly imbalanced water cycle will wreak havoc on economies and people around the world, according to a report released yesterday.
According to the report titled, The Economics of Water: Valuing the Hydrological Cycle as a Global Common Goodthe water crisis threatens more than half of the world’s food production by 2050, reports Xinhua.
The crisis also threatens to cost countries around the world an average of 8 percent of GDP by 2050, with losses of 15 percent in low-income countries and greater economic impacts thereafter, according to a report by the Global Commission on the Water Economy.
The report emphasizes that economic weakness, destructive land use and the ongoing and inefficient mismanagement of water resources have combined with a worsening climate crisis, putting the global water cycle under unprecedented pressure.
Nearly 3 billion people and more than half of the world’s food production are in areas experiencing drying, or unstable trends in total water availability. Further, several cities are sinking due to loss of underground water, according to the report.
“Today, half of the world’s population faces water shortages. As these important resources become increasingly scarce, food security and human development are at risk and we allow 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 have thrown the global water cycle out of balance. Precipitation, the main source of all fresh water, can no longer be relied upon due to climate change and human-caused land use, affecting the foundations of human well-being as well as the global economy,” he said. – Named
