Wills Point, USA – Growing scarcity of the planet’s most “precious” resource could lead to “dire consequences” worldwide — including the Western U.S. — as hot, arid regions get thirstier, a troubling new report for World Water Day on March 22 reveals.
Surging global population, urban development and rising temperatures could leave billions worldwide struggling to find enough water to drink within the next two decades, according to the report Water: An Increasingly Scarce Resource That Is Precious As Gold [http://www.gfa.org/press/WaterCrisis].
“The consequences are dire,” says the report by global humanitarian agency GFA World (www.gfa.org). “Areas could become uninhabitable; tensions over how to share and manage water resources like rivers and lakes could worsen; more political violence could erupt.”
Water shortages contributed to both the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria and the civil war in Syria, the report says, noting: “Water scarcity is the ‘invisible’ hand behind many humanitarian crises.”
Citing a New York Times article, the report says 40 million people living in 7 states in the Western U.S. who rely on water from the Colorado River could face severe shortages in coming years.
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SOURCE: Assist News Service | Hospel For Asia
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