Freshwater will run out unless…- UN

[PeoplesDaily]

By Edwin Nwachukwu

The UN says unless greater efforts are made to reverse current trends, the world will run out of freshwater.

The world body stated this on Wednesday while marking the International Day for Biological Diversity.

This year's theme for the Day is "Water and Bio-diversity'', which coincides with the UN Designation of 2013 as International Year of Water Cooperation. The Year is being coordinated by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water.

It also called for stronger scientific alliances to understand and protect natural resources.

"We live in an increasingly water insecure world where demand often outstrips supply and where water quality often fails to meet minimum standards.

"Under current trends, future demands for water will not be met. Although seemingly abundant, only a tiny amount of the water on our planet is easily available as freshwater.

"Bio-diversity and the ecosystem services they provide are central to achieving the vision of a water secure world,'' the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the Day.

He said that the mutually supporting roles of forests, wetlands and soil bio-diversity.

"Integrating nature-based solutions into urban planning can also help us build better water futures for cities where water may be acute given the rapid pace of urbanisation,'' he added.

According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) of the total volume of water on Earth, freshwater makes up around 35 million km3, or about 2.5 per cent of the total volume.

"Water scarcity affects almost every continent and more than 40 per cent of the people on our planet.

"With current trends, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity by 2025, and two-thirds of the world's population could be living under water stressed conditions,'' the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said.

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[Folami David]

Freshwater is very important when it comes to the welfare of citizens in every state in this country. I hope our leaders are seeing to it.