U.S. Water News Online
WASHINGTON -- More than a billion people still lack access to clean drinking water. Thousands die every day from water-related diseases. Without a new approach to solving this crisis, the death toll could reach as high as 107 million people by 2020, says a new book by the Pacific Institute.
The "soft path" for water can save lives and money while protecting the environment by pushing water managers to rethink what we use water for and how we use it. This new approach can also help defuse water-related conflicts and reduce the risk that global warming will play havoc with the world's supply of fresh water.
"Without a change in the way we manage water, up to 107 million people will die from water-related diseases over the next twenty years," emphasized Peter H. Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute, in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "After decades of work towards reducing the toll from water-related diseases, there are still far too many people dying from a lack of clean water."
According to "The World's Water: 2002-2003", a new book by Dr. Gleick and the Pacific Institute, as many as 5 million people die every year from preventable, water-related diseases. And certain threats are growing: The number of cases of dengue fever -- a mosquito-borne disease -- doubled in Latin America between 1997 and 1999, and millions in Bangladesh and India drink water contaminated with arsenic. Industrialized nations, including the United States, also face serious threats to their water supplies from climate change, growing populations, and over-use.
"More than 20 percent of all freshwater fish species are now threatened or endangered because dams and water withdrawals have destroyed free-flowing rivers," the book says. "The Colorado River, diverted in more than 80 places, rarely reaches the sea and many species that live in the river's delta are threatened with extinction."
"But there is a path that can provide reliable, safe water to the developing world while helping nations with sophisticated water systems meet the challenge of global warming: that path is the "soft path" for water, according to Gleick. "The soft path strives to improve the overall productivity of water rather than seek endless sources of new supply. By using cost-effective technology we can reduce wasteful use, better match water supply to demand, and eliminate the need for expensive and environmentally damaging new dams and reservoirs."
The "soft path" for water provides for the needs of people and the natural world by asking policy makers to rethink how, and what, we use water for. Should water-hungry crops be grown in arid regions? Can recycled water be used to irrigate landscaping? Can new supply be created through conservation and efficiency?
The central insight of the soft path is that people don't so much want to "use" water as to accomplish certain tasks -- they want to drink and bathe, produce goods and services, grow food and otherwise meet human needs.
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