(1) In many of the countries struggling to find enough water for their populations, it is the government that is to blame, not geography according to a report out this week.
(2) Several recent UN studies show that lack of water is holding back food production and economic development in more and more regions around the world. According to the UN Environment Program, a third of the planet will face water shortages by 2025.
But Caroline Sullivan, head of water policy and management at Britain’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) in Wallingford, Oxford shire, says these problems are often of a country’s own making. (3) “It is easy for governments to blame geography when the problem is usually their own failings.” She says. Unless they realize this, they will have no chance of achieving the goal agreed at this year’s World Summit of halving the number of people without access to clean drinking water by 2015, she adds.
Sullivan is the chief author of the Water Poverty Index, published this week by the CEH The index, which was put together with Sullivan’s colleagues at the water policy think tank the World Water Council, ranks countries by how efficiently they conserve, use and deliver water to those who need it.
(4) It reveals a sharp contrast between countries that manage their water well and those that don’t. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same Caribbean island, and have similar populations and access to similar amounts of Water. Yet while the Dominican Republic appears in the top half of the index, Haiti suffers last out of the 147 countries assessed.
One reason is poverty, but Haiti has also chopped down its forest, causing 20% much soil erosion that rainfall runs into the sea in flash floods rather than soaking into the soil and supplementing aquifers (地下蓄水层).
Not all rich nations fare well in the index. (5) The U.S. and Japan come 32nd and 36th respectively, largely because the way they collect and use water is wasteful and damages the environment. Australia ranked 44th, while Britain is in 11th place. “The real crisis is not the amount of water. It’s the way we use it.” says Sullivan.
