Caring for Water is an obligation we all have

We take very seriously what is the element of water for us to consume, on this Planet Earth. We can not continue to waste or pollute. The United Nations has warned that as the planet warms and dries out, we could witness conflicts and wars because of this resource. To find ways to combat the problem some 20,000 experts, political activists and more than one hundred countries are gathering in the V World Water Forum held in Istanbul, Turkey. He has written and reminds us: ecojoven.com., That the water flows as a major geopolitical conflict of the century as it is expected that by 2025, demand for this element so necessary for human life will be 56% higher than the supply ... and people with white water could be forced looting. It is estimated that for 6250 million people who have come to be needed and 20% more water. The struggle is between those who believe that water should be considered a commodity or marketable (such as wheat and coffee) and those who state that is a social good about the right to life.

The scope of national sovereignty and the legal tools are also part of this fight. Nora adds us Bär, the UN, the World Bank and other international organizations warn that if consumption continues to grow at current rates, water can become another major source of global crisis. Moreover, according to a report by International Water Institute (SIWI, for its acronym in English), there are already 1.4 billion people in the world living in areas supplied by rivers are drying up. Other one billion lack access to safe water and about 840 million lack sanitation. SIWI estimated that within fifteen years, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions where there will be an absolute shortage of water. FAO studies, meanwhile, show that water consumption has multiplied six times over the last century, double the population increases. Other Center for Research in the Epidemiology of Disasters, Belgium, show that during the period 1996 to 2005 about 80% of all natural disasters were of meteorological or hydrological origin.

And all this without taking into account that a temperature rise of 3 to 4 degrees, as predicted by scientists for the last half century, alter the hydrological cycle and worsen the local effects of floods and droughts.

BBC.mundo.com., Gives us that, many experts believe that access to water is one of the biggest challenges facing the world today. "It's an extremely serious matter," he told the BBC Jon Lane, executive director of the Collaborative Council for Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), a UN agency in charge of bringing water and sanitation to poor communities. In recent years, headlines have focused on climate change, financial crisis, food crisis "and those who work with water, we think that this resource is the basis of all these problems being experienced by the world, particular regard to climate change, "said the expert, one of the conference attendees. The official said the impact that climate change is having on the human being is related to water. The UN figures presented are not encouraging. According to the 1,100 million people worldwide live without clean water. About 70% of water supplies used for irrigation and much of it is lost before it reaches the plant. For 2017, the UN says, about 70% of the global population will have problems accessing freshwater.

And by 2025, approximately 40% of the population live in regions with scarce liquid. According to experts of the World Water Council, organizer of this forum, if they are to continue to generate food in 2050, will have to really change the modes of production. To "build" a hamburger, says the International Water Management Institute, it takes no less than 10,000 liters of water. The United Nations warned that in two decades almost half the world's population will face severe water shortages as a result there will be wars and conflicts. And this may explain why more than 260 river basins worldwide are shared by two or more countries. According to Jon Lane, several countries are already holding talks on how best to share the resources of their shared rivers. "It's a very sensitive issue, but if you look at the historical records we find that water, rather than divide, has closer to neighboring countries or regions that share it. " "The conference is working to find ways that these regions work together to care for their water resources together," says the official. Says Jon Lane, rather than climate change, the main problem today is the enormous number of people who are drawing water.

That is the main challenge to avoid the crisis facing this resource, says the expert. Over 2,200 million people in developing countries, mostly children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of clean water, adequate sanitation and hygiene. Furthermore, nearly half the population of developing countries suffer from diseases caused, directly or indirectly, by consuming contaminated food or water, or disease-causing organisms that develop in the water. With adequate supplies of potable water and adequate sanitation, the incidence of some diseases and death could be reduced up to 75 percent. Most regions, the problem is not lack of fresh drinking water but rather the poor management and distribution of water resources and methods. Most freshwater is used for agriculture, while a substantial amount is lost in the process of irrigation. Most irrigation systems operate inefficiently, so you lose about 60 percent of water withdrawn that evaporates or returns to the bed of rivers or underground aquifers.

Inefficient irrigation methods entails its own risks to health: the flooding of some areas of South Asia is the major determinant of malaria transmission, a situation that is repeated in many other parts of the world.