The Anatomy of A Silent Crisis The Anatomy of A Silent Crisis

42 Forum 2009: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis
security because it limits the water available for farming which can cause crops to wilt and therefore
increased vulnerability of poor rural farmers. About 70 percent of the world’s runoff water withdrawals
are used to irrigate farmlands — this total rises to almost 95 percent in developing countries. 122 While
the daily drinking-water requirement per person is 2-4 litres, about 2,000 — 5,000 litres are needed
to produce a person’s food each day. 122 This means that meeting the Millennium Development Goal
target of halving hunger would require the equivalent of the world’s current water use in irrigation
unless current water practices are improved. 123 This suggests that securing adequate water supply is
a critical factor in stabilizing food security which is at high risk due to climate change.
Less than one fifth of water is used by industry, though this value rises in developed nations
signifying its importance particularly in sectors like energy that employ power plants or oil refineries. 122
This leaves about 10 percent of water for domestic or municipal purposes like sanitation. 118 Access
to safe drinking water and securing adequate amounts of water for hygiene are crucial to meet basic
health needs. Poor people in rural and urban areas often have extremely limited access to safe water
for household uses. For example, an average slum dweller may only have access to about 5-10
litres daily, while a middle- or high-income individual living in the same city may use about 50-150
litres per day. 124 An estimated 2.3 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases because of
inadequate water and sanitation. 21,125 International agencies and national policy-makers have been
successful in reducing diarrhoeal deaths through efforts to improve safe water supply and health
care access, but these gains may be thwarted if water scarcity increases due to climate change. At
the same time increased variability and excessive water brings floods that destroy crops, overwhelm
existing levees and displace millions of people every year. Climate change causes more violent
swings between floods and droughts, which are hard for people to cope with absent improved
storage capacity like more cisterns along with levees and dams to protect people. 118 Increased
water scarcity is a principal route through which climate — change stresses will manifest themselves
by impacting the availability of safe drinking water, irrigation and urban water supply — all critical
components of development and poverty reduction. Thus, taking account of the changes that
climate change may have on global and regional water supply is particularly pressing.
Climate change exacerbates water quality and availability in regions that are already struggling
hardest with water scarcity: Africa, South West Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. 126
In other regions, such as South Asia, climate change increases the variability of water supply, leading
to floods during some parts of the year and droughts in others. 16,127 These problems add to the
vulnerability of populations in these regions whose existence is already precarious. 127,128 The map
below illustrates areas that are currently impacted by water problems today due to a combination of
climatic and social factors 129 which reflect global change. 128,130