Today, the 22nd March 2009  is the 16th annual United Nations-sponsored water awareness day. This year's theme "Sharing Waters Sharing Opportunities" aims to up knowledge about all of the bodies of fresh water  that cross – or create – international borders. These can include the usual suspects, such as rivers and lakes, as well as subterranean aquifers that so many rely on for drinking water. Although water covers more than 70 percent of the planet's surface, only about 0.3 percent of surface water is in rivers and lakes, and underground aquifers hold about only another 1.6 percent of the earth's water.    More than half of the world's population lives in river basins shared with other countries, according to the U.N., yet only 16 countries have signed the group's Convention on Non- navigational Uses of International Watercourses .

Happy world water Day 2009

The United Nations forecasts that by 2030, nearly half of the world's population will be living in areas of "high water stress". Climate change will cause droughts in some areas, and floods in others, scientists say. In Africa alone, between 75 million and 250 million people may experience increased water stress due to climate change by 2020, according to a UN report out last week. Areas of very dry land have more than doubled since the 1970s, and more intense droughts have been seen over the last 10 years.   Water scarcity will see as many as 700 million people displaced, the report warns. Rising demand for energy and meat will also exacerbate water shortages - it takes four times more water to produce a kilo of beef than a kilo of wheat. advertisement  The UN figures indicates that, with a billion plus people worldwide living in areas where water is in short supply and more than a third of the global population lacking sanitation facilities. The rate is which global water consumption is rising - more than twice as fast as the rate of population growth. Diminishing water supplies are clearly due to the contamination of water ways and underground water by untreated sewage and waste water discharge by enterprises and urban drainage system. At this rate, the World Bank estimates that three billion people will not get any safe drinking water by 2035.     It is still not too late to switch alternative technology like low-flush toilets or improved pit  latrines, recycling of water, waste water treatment etc.  Water conservation must also be practiced more efficiently in the fields, using drip irrigation to ensure all the water gets to the crops. Even sewage water could be treated with soda to recycle it and irrigate crops like cotton while water from domestic uses could irrigate vegetable beds. The planner should also consider using technology to exploit the country's long coastline so that saline water could be made portable.   WATER WARS    In the future it will be water wars as the scarcity of water has inflamed existing conflicts. Nearly four billion people live in countries where there is serious political tension over lakes and rivers that cross international borders. Current hotspots include India and Bangladesh; the Middle East; and China and its neighbours. According to Fred Pearce, author of the book When The Rivers Run Dry, water is one of the defining crises of the 21st century. "As more and more countries run short of water, the threat of wars over water will grow," he warns.. Recently an award-winning new film, Blue Gold: World Water Wars, gets its Scottish premiere at Strathclyde University. Its publicity material asks: "Past civilisations have collapsed from poor water management. Can the human race survive?"

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