A BLUE REVOLUTION

It may already be too late for some water-short countries with rapid population growth to avoid a crisis. Many other countries can avoid the coming crisis if appropriate policies and strategies are formulated and acted on soon. Whether water is used for agriculture, industry, or municipalities, there is much room for conservation and better management. Effective strategies must consider not only managing the water supply better but also managing demand better.

To avoid catastrophe over the long term, it also is important to act now to slow the growth in demand for freshwater by slowing population growth. Currently, in many developing countries millions of people want to plan their families and to use contraception. Family planning programs have played an important role in assuring individual reproductive health and in reducing national fertility levels. Continuing and expanding these programs also can help assure that population growth eventually slows to sustainable levels in relation to the supply of freshwater.

 Toward a Blue Revolution 

The world needs a Blue Revolution to conserve and manage freshwater supplies in the face of growing demand from population growth, irrigated agriculture, industries, and cities—just as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture in the 1960s. A Blue Revolution will require coordinated responses to problems at local, national, and international levels.

Locally led initiatives show that water can be used much more efficiently. When communities manage freshwater resources efficiently, they also manage other natural resources better, improve sanitation, and reduce disease. At the national level, especially in water-short regions with dense populations, adopting a watershed or river-basin management perspective is a needed alternative to uncoordinated water-management policies by separate jurisdictions. At the international level countries that share river basins can fashion workable policies to manage water resources more equitably. Development agencies need to focus more on assuring the supply and management of freshwater resources and on providing sanitation as part of development and public health programs.

A water-short world is an inherently unstable world. As the next century dawns, water crises in more and more countries will present obstacles to better living standards and better health and even bring risks of outright conflict over access to scarce freshwater supplies. Finding solutions should become a high priority now.

It's not too late for us to be aware of water crisis, we don't have to wait till earth gets dry, WE CAN STILL SAVE OUR BLUE PLANET ¡¡¡

 

WATER, LET'S NOT TAKE IT FOR GRANTED