NOT ENOUGH WATER TO GO ROUND

Fresh water is an irreplaceable, vital resource, but, owing to populat ion pressure, its per capita availability is in constant decline. Thir ty or so countries are already experiencing severe shortages, and anot her thirty are set to join them in the next fifty years. The countries concerned are among the world's poorest, where overpopulation, underd evelopment and aridity form an implacable alliance. The progress achie ved in drinking water supplies in the course of the last three develop ment decades is being jeopardized by the over-exploitation and polluti on of aquifers and rivers and also by large-scale urbanization and the overcrowding that goes with it. The increasing scarcity of water in c ertain critical regions of the world is likely to bring out into the o pen conflicts which are at present latent. If a doomsday scenario is t o be avoided, the local, regional and global management of water resou rces will need to be reoriented towards preservation of these long-ter m assets. What is required is a twofold strategy, combining an adjustm ent of birth rates with the development of new sources of water for th e needs of agriculture, industry and domestic consumption. This blue ' revolution' will necessarily imply the desalination of seawater on a l arger scale.