The world faces serious water shortages, yet the crisis is often overlooked because it seems so mundane. It is an urgent problem that must be tackled just as aggressively as other grave crises that threaten the future of humanity. The World Water Forum, which will meet in Japan for eight days from today, has its work cut out.
The "water crisis" stems from the fact that much of Earth is covered with seawater, with the absolute amount of fresh water available to humans limited. Moreover, the shortages are grossly uneven, with some regions frequently hit by droughts and others by floods. Contributing to this is global warming, which is attributed to massive greenhouse-gas emissions from the industrial world.
The rapid growth of the world's population makes it critically important to secure adequate water supplies. Even now, chronic shortages of drinking water plague more than a billion people in developing countries. Yet the crisis has received less attention than other basic environmental problems, such as air and water pollution and soil erosion.