The Worldwide Water Shortage

Financial Times has an excellent article concerning water shortages around the world.

Fascinating points include:

Egypt already imports half its food because of water scarcity (imagine if one of the Nile dams goes, what would happen to fields. This is a scary possibility in the age of terrorism).

870 gallons of water are used each day in Italy to produce each person’s food each day!!!

Agriculture uses 70 times more water than domestic use. The American Middle West faces a major problem with the slow but steady declining Ogallala Aquifer.

Man does not have a good track record with water management. The Salton Sea was once the Salton Sink. There was also once a thing called the Aral Sea until the Soviets diverted water for cotton fields in the desert. Now there is this.

Category: Physical Geography