Water is a life-giving substance, without which the existence of all living things would be impossible. It’s amazing how such a seemingly simple combination of hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atom penetrated into all the cracks of the globe. Both the human body and the surface of the earth consist of 70% water. What happens if it is removed?
It is difficult to imagine what opportunities would open up for people if water bodies were drained. People could raise sunken ships, find the Loch Ness monster, find out how deep life can exist.
Water covers the ground with a thin layer, it can be compared to the peel of an orange. Therefore, if you remove all the water, the difference between the highest mountain and the deepest depression will be less than 20 km.
Without seas and oceans, even without the smallest rivers, the blue planet faces a dark and dry future. And examples of such a fate literally hang over our heads: Venus and Mars. The first planet is a real hell. It is the hottest planet in the solar system, shrouded in thick clouds that rain down sulfuric acid.
In its composition and physical characteristics it is very similar to Earth. Once upon a time, there could have been water and even life on the surface of Venus. But it’s hard to believe, looking at her condition now. What happened?
Venus is closer to the Sun than Earth and receives 2 times more solar radiation. Over the course of billions of years, the sun slowly warmed up this planet, ultraviolet light broke water into hydrogen and oxygen, after which the hydrogen flew into space, and the oxygen combined with carbon and accumulated in the form of a dense atmosphere. These clouds warmed the planet, making the situation even worse.
As sad as it may be, the Earth will repeat the fate of Venus in the future. In billions of years, temperatures will become unbearable and the oceans will evaporate. People can speed up this process if they emit more and more harmful substances into the atmosphere.
On Mars, the exact opposite happened. It has been proven that there used to be giant oceans on the surface of the planet, now covered entirely with iron oxide. Today their remains can be identified by pebbles, clay and paths that only water could have left.
According to scientists, the last rivers dried up only 200 thousand years ago. As the pressure on the surface decreased, the water escaped into space along with the heat. All the water either froze in the soil, like permafrost, or its molecules broke down into hydrogen and oxygen.
Without water, our planet would be completely different. No people, no trips around the world, no plants or dinosaurs, no life. After all, water is life.
Firstly, it is necessary to determine the area where such a shortage occurs - in Africa it has arisen for a long time, in the Middle East the situation is on the brink, and in Canada or, for example, Finland, such problems are not expected.
It is also necessary to separate the causes of water shortage. Globally, there are two of them - the lack of natural sources of fresh water (lakes, rivers) and/or pollution or destruction of existing ones.
In the absence of natural resources, as, for example, in Israel or Singapore, the issue can be solved by installing desalination stations. Indeed, the cost of such water is relatively high, which forces consumers to optimize consumption. In this case, the replenishment of water resources is practically unlimited.
The situation is much more complicated in the case of contamination or destruction of drinking water sources. What do the Aral Sea and the Dead Sea have in common? Both are in poor condition due to overuse of water from the rivers that flow into them. Restoration in this case comes down to the need to take water away from farmers, which is fraught with consequences for the political leadership.
If we are talking about the fact that due to global climate change (it should be noted that this is not a 100% proven fact) fresh water supplies in the form of glaciers are decreasing, there is no need to worry. Apart from rising sea levels, we do not drink water from glaciers. Glaciers on the tops of mountains that feed rivers and lakes are important, but again in very specific areas of the globe.
As for water in major cities of Russia, such as St. Petersburg or Moscow, there is no reason to worry in the next 50 years. There will be water, the question is its quality. But that's another question.
There is still a shortage of fresh water, for example in African countries.
According to the UN, 1.2 billion people experience a constant shortage of fresh water, and 2 billion suffer from it regularly.
At the moment, there are several ways to process salt water into fresh water: desalination in special plants, condensation of vapors in the atmosphere. But after these procedures, water becomes very expensive. But! About 90% of all fresh water is contained in ice, so if a shortage does occur on a global scale, it will begin to be extracted from glaciers.
Is it true. Although water is a renewable natural resource, fresh water, as we know, is used by humanity for most needs. The fact that most of the fresh water is stored in glaciers, and what is now happening to these same glaciers, clearly shows the development of the plot in the coming decades.
If we ignore human needs for basic thirst satisfaction, we can look at a number of areas where fresh water is used. The main consumer is agriculture, in particular livestock farming. The situation is also worsened by various chemical and waste emissions, uneven distribution of water among people’s habitats, etc. More than 70-80 countries suffer from water stress. In developed countries, where there is no shortage, there is active pollution of used water. There are ways to eliminate the shortage of fresh water, and these certainly include saving existing reserves. While they are still available to humanity.
Fresh water is a renewable natural resource that exists thanks to the water cycle in nature, known to everyone since school. It cannot dry out as long as there are seas and oceans from the surface of which evaporation occurs. Therefore, it is not its share in the share of total water resources that is important, but the intensity of its consumption by humanity. So far, this consumption is many thousand times less than the total amount of precipitation, otherwise the river flow would no longer reach the seas and oceans.
Another thing is that fresh water exists in three forms: water of surface rivers and lakes, underground water moving to the same rivers and seas through the pores of rocks, and glaciers and polar ice. At the same time, water resources are distributed unevenly across regions, depending on climatic and geological conditions, and are also unevenly consumed by humanity (mainly in regions of urban and industrial agglomerations).
It should be noted that, where possible, underground water is predominantly used for drinking water supply, since it does not freeze in winter in northern latitudes, and does not dry out in summer in southern latitudes, like rivers. In addition, they are cleaner than surface ones, since they are protected by the cleaning ability of soils and rocks, that is, they do not require expensive cleaning measures.
Where the intensity of consumption exceeds the rate of water entry into rocks, groundwater is depleted and does not have time to renew itself. If water withdrawals are stopped or reduced, this groundwater will be replenished again by sediment seeping underground, but depending on the geological conditions and the intensity of the remaining groundwater withdrawals, this can take anywhere from several months to decades. So the complete disappearance of fresh water does not threaten humanity.
Another thing that is much worse is the pollution of the surface of the earth and watercourses due to the discharge of industrial wastewater. With intense pollution, the soil layer cannot cope with their purification; contaminated wastewater flows underground into groundwater and moves through the rocks along with them. Water becomes unfit for drinking or requires expensive treatment to remove harmful industrial impurities. At the same time, water can remain this way for tens and hundreds of years, since the contaminated soils and rocks themselves become a secondary source of pollution. In some cases, pollution can change natural conditions irrevocably by “triggering” the mechanism of changing the natural hydrogeochemical situation. A catastrophic shortage of fresh water can also be imagined in the case of global pollution of the Earth's atmosphere with toxic and radioactive substances. But in this case, most likely, people simply will not be able to breathe safely. In arid desert areas, where precipitation is almost immediately lost to evaporation, humanity has the technology to desalinate seawater (as is done in a number of United Arab Emirates), but this makes it very expensive and requires very large energy resources. So this is water only for the rich.
Thinking about the end of the world, from a scientific point of view, is quite fun. Activating all the nuclear weapons in the world would lead to a deadly result for humanity, but if you really want to see the apocalypse, then you have to wait for all the volcanoes in the world to erupt.
The fact is that there are many more ways to bring the planet to ruin than people are able to realize. Many of these variants have emerged as a result of global warming. And one of these scenarios is the disappearance of water.
As you might expect, without water people will die very quickly, but what will happen to our planet? Will only dusty deserts remain here, or will life, as they say, find a way out? Let's try to imagine this. 
Strange scenario
So, imagine that in this year, 2017, somewhere between the Earth and the Moon, a giant fleet of alien explorers appeared. Their inhabitants have been very foolish in recent years by burning too many carbon-based fossil fuels, causing more greenhouse gases. This caused a warming climate on their planet, where the temperature rose so quickly that all the water on it evaporated. However, the inhabitants of this other planet did not give up and developed a complex mechanism that allows them to steal water from another celestial body. For example, from ours. For the sake of simplicity, let's imagine that they can take water from everything except living things. Since world leaders will not be able to do anything about it, we will hopelessly lose to this extraterrestrial aggressor in the fight for our main resource. 
Pale Brown Planet
The first thing we notice is the disappearance of all rivers, lakes, ponds, puddles and oceans. All life inside them would die within a few hours, and the continents we live on would suddenly rise above these newly created basins, most of which would be 3.8 kilometers deep.
The Arctic will essentially cease to exist, and the hidden terrain underneath will resemble jagged cracks. Antarctica, freed from its blanket of ice, would be a rocky, barren land full of mountains and unfathomably large canyons. 
The clouds on our planet will also disappear, as will the rain and snow, hurricanes and thunderstorms will evaporate into oblivion, and our pale blue Earth will turn into a brown-green planet (although it will not remain green for long). Winds will dominate the atmosphere, and sandy deserts will spread across the planet.
Eventually the vegetation will disappear. Animal life, including us, will soon follow suit and turn to dust.
However, all these changes are obvious. But you probably guessed that there is more to the fate of the world than fragile Homo sapiens. 
Warming
Oceans are the world's largest carbon sink. Forget about the atmosphere. Most of the thermal energy captured in the planet's atmosphere by greenhouse gases is stored in the World Ocean. Over the past century alone, these giant bodies of water have prevented the Earth from warming to a staggering 36°C, rather than the 1°C it actually did.
Planets with too much carbon dioxide and methane and not enough water are likely to experience global warming effects. 
What happened on Venus
Let's take Venus for example. Geologically, it is very similar to our world, and was once probably covered with water. However, this water was clearly not enough to cope with all the carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, most of which probably appeared as a result of ancient and powerful volcanic eruptions.
Some of the carbon dioxide was absorbed by the water, but eventually the planet became too hot and the water evaporated into space. This left Venus without a significant carbon sink other than its atmosphere, so our neighbor continued to warm until it reached its current surface temperature (about 462°C). Without water to cover the Earth, our planet would suffer the same fate. 
Don't forget that the vegetation will die out too. Without plants, which convert carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis, the world will warm even faster.
What Lies Beneath the Surface
Don't forget that most of the earth's water is not just on the surface.
It is also hidden underground, within the crust of tectonic plates that are constantly drifting, coming together and colliding with each other. A lot of this water is hidden in the mantle, since it makes up 84 percent of its volume. Remove this water and the Earth will become completely unrecognizable. 
When a dense plate collides with a less dense one, the latter sinks underneath it. As the mantle heats it, it dehydrates, meaning the water evaporates and rises up into the mantle wedge between the two plates.
Through a series of volcanic flexures, this creates a magmatic conduit system in the earth's crust that produces explosive volcanoes, such as the cascades along the western United States or Mount Fuji. Without water, this process cannot continue, and there will be many fewer volcanoes left on the planet. 
Plate tectonics
So, we already know that one tectonic plate “submits” to another because it is denser, but what happens when two plates that are made of the same material collide?
We can see this in India and Eurasia. These two equally dense continental plates crash into each other, causing their edges to rise and form the Himalayas.
It is believed that even when two tectonic plates have approximately the same density, only one effectively sinks beneath the other due to the weight of the sediment-filled ocean above it. 
Without an ocean, neither plate would be weighed down by any accumulated sediment. Therefore, the two plates will continue to collide with each other.
So, if hypothetical aliens were to take over all the oceans on the planet today, any two oceanic plates or two continental plates would end up crashing into each other, forming a huge series of mountain ranges.
Essentially, if Earth were to lose all non-biological water, it would quickly become a superheated desert world with continent-sized chasms and ridiculously high mountains. 
Hi baby
Life, however, could find a way out. Microscopic life to be precise, that is, life that does not rely on water to survive.
It is likely that life originally needed water to arise, and almost all forms of life today would not be able to exist without it. But through evolution, microbes known as extremophiles emerged. Incredibly hot, acidic environments and a lack of sunlight or water seem to suit some of these completely insignificant life forms.
Some of them exist within the Earth's crust and thrive by using carbon monoxide for nutrients. A NASA team recently discovered that extremophiles also hide in giant crystals and exist in a state of suspended animation. 
To be continued?
So, if all the water on Earth suddenly disappeared, humanity would be doomed and the planet would turn into a giant desert with insane topography. However, life will not disappear, and extremophiles will take our place. Whether they will ever be able to evolve into intelligent beings is anyone's guess.
Water is the source of life on Earth. But most often the question arises about the purity of water and its shortage. In the territories of many countries there is a catastrophic shortage of water; some peoples generally use poor-quality water, which entails the development of many diseases leading to death.
It is difficult to say whether today there are countries and territories where the water is not polluted and does not contain harmful impurities. We constantly hear that there is practically no clean water left on Earth, and if there are such places, then people do not live there.
This is due to the fact that water sources are polluted by people themselves, as industrial, agricultural, and municipal enterprises discharge waste from their activities into water bodies. In addition to the fact that these wastewater pollutes the water with various harmful substances, from which oil, phenol, detergent active substances, pesticides and other complex chemical compounds are released, carriers of dangerous infectious diseases also enter the water, and this can lead to disastrous consequences.
Many years ago, the governments of many countries faced the question of protecting water from pollution, because if nothing is done soon, there will be no drinking water left at all, and people will die. For this purpose, environmental requirements for production began to be developed aimed at protecting water resources from pollution. But the fact remains: many, in pursuit of material gain, are unable and unwilling to understand that without clean drinking water they and the planet Earth itself have no future. And what’s even worse, there are areas where there is no clean water at all, people have nothing to drink, water is either brought there, or they have to use high technologies to purify it, which requires large material costs, which many simply cannot afford. The question arises: why pollute water and create a lot of problems for yourself, if it is easier to protect your life and the life of your descendants by introducing new environmentally friendly technologies into production, albeit expensive at the moment, but they are equivalent to a healthy life not only for today's people, but also for future ones generations.
The problem of clean water is also associated with the constantly increasing volumes of its consumption, as the number of inhabitants of the planet and the volume of human economic activity are growing. The main suppliers of water are rivers and lakes, and their water supply can decrease as a result of deforestation, plowing of meadows, and drainage of floodplain swamps. All this leads to a decrease in the level of groundwater, which is the main source of nutrition for rivers and lakes.
The lack of clean fresh water is a problem that worries a third of the inhabitants of the entire planet, since basically the reserves of such water are located where people do not live. It seems as if nature protects the water, hiding it from people who do not protect it. This is true: after all, in everyday life, many people, when opening a tap, can pour out as much water as they want, without even thinking that other inhabitants of the planet do not have enough of it. Others do not close the taps properly, from where such precious water also flows out aimlessly. If everyone thought about how many liters of fresh water are wasted thoughtlessly, it would be possible to save it and solve many complex problems.
Modern inhabitants of the planet should think about purifying fresh water, about developing ways to protect fresh water from pollution by waste from any type of production and life activity. If this is not done, the question will arise about the future fate of our planet, because, as you know, life and health depend on what kind of water to drink. The main thing is that tap water, which also cannot be called high-quality, even when passing it through a filter, cannot be completely purified, for example, from heavy metal impurities, because this requires more stringent measures than a regular household filter.
Oil production has no less impact on fresh water pollution, especially if any accidents occur that cause irreparable damage to water resources and the environment in general. But it is also dangerous that other harmful substances and compounds can be dissolved in oil, which then end up in the waters of the World Ocean, and therefore in the water that people use.
Today, only a small number of organizations are engaged in solving the problems of preserving and increasing clean water supplies on a global scale. But they consider one of the main tasks to be the fight to reduce harmful runoff into rivers and lakes, as well as work aimed at developing systems for desalination of salt water in the seas and oceans, which would solve this main problem of providing the world's population with clean water. Although for now, desalination of salt water is a very complex process both in terms of material costs and energy, and few people can afford such an expensive pleasure.
But there remains hope that people all over the Earth will begin to think about preserving clean water supplies.
And now we want to remind you that the easiest way to get tasty and clean water at home is by using
Fresh water makes up no more than 2.5-3% of the Earth's total water supply. Its bulk is frozen in glaciers and snow cover in Antarctica and Greenland. Another part is numerous fresh water bodies: rivers and lakes. A third of fresh water reserves are concentrated in underground reservoirs, deep and closer to the surface.
At the beginning of the new millennium, scientists began to seriously talk about the shortage of drinking water in many countries of the world. Every inhabitant of the Earth should spend from 20 to 50 liters of water per day on food and personal hygiene. However, there are countries where there is not enough drinking water to even sustain life. Residents of Africa are experiencing severe water shortages.
Reason one: increase in the Earth's population and development of new territories
According to the UN, in 2011 the world's population grew to 7 billion people. The number of people will reach 9.6 billion by 2050. Population growth is accompanied by the development of industry and agriculture.
Enterprises use fresh water for all production needs, while returning water that is often no longer suitable for drinking to nature. It ends up in rivers and lakes. The level of their pollution has recently become critical for the ecology of the planet.
Agricultural development in Asia, India and China has depleted the largest rivers in these regions. The development of new lands leads to shallowing of water bodies and forces people to develop underground wells and deep-sea horizons.
Reason two: irrational use of fresh water sources
Most natural fresh water sources are replenished naturally. Moisture enters rivers and lakes with precipitation, some of which goes into underground reservoirs. Deep-sea horizons are classified as irreplaceable reserves.
The barbaric use of clean fresh water by humans is depriving rivers and lakes of their future. Rains do not have time to fill shallow reservoirs, and water is often wasted.
Some of the water used goes underground through leaks in city water supply networks. When turning on the tap in the kitchen or shower, people rarely think about how much water is wasted. The habit of saving resources has not yet become relevant for the majority of the Earth's inhabitants.
Extracting water from deep wells can also be a big mistake, depriving future generations of the main reserves of fresh natural water, and irreparably disrupting the ecology of the planet.
Modern scientists see a way out in saving water resources, tightening control over waste processing and desalinating sea salt water. If humanity thinks about it now and takes action in time, our planet will forever remain an excellent source of moisture for all species of life existing on it.
Water on Earth
It is well known that not a single living organism on our planet can live without water. In one of its physical states, water is present in almost every corner of the Earth. She also had a huge impact on the history of the planet - only thanks to her did the Earth take on its current appearance with oceans, plants, and living beings.
The total water reserve on the planet today is about 1.4 billion m³. Each person thus accounts for about 200 million m³. At first glance, this is a huge number. However, one must take into account the fact that 96.5% of the reserves are salty waters of the World Ocean, which are unsuitable for consumption, and another 1% are groundwater. Thus, fresh water reserves are only 2.5% of the total amount of water on Earth. Moreover, almost all the water that humanity consumes today is taken from lakes, rivers and underground sources, while the main reserves are in glaciers and deep aquifers.
Catastrophic statistics
The UN publishes a report every three years that provides the most accurate description of the current state of the world's freshwater resources. The last study was published in 2012 - and its results are disappointing.
On March 12 in Marseille, United Nations experts announced that the planet is now on the verge of a water disaster. Every 10th person on Earth experiences an acute shortage of drinking water, which is about 780 million people. Of these, 40% are residents of Africa: countries located south of the Sahara. And, according to forecasts, this figure will only get worse every year.
Even more depressing data is provided by the French charitable society Solidarites International: currently, out of 7 billion people on Earth, more than 1.9 billion people need access to clean water.
It is also necessary to take into account the fact that as the world's population grows, not only the need for drinking water will increase, but also for food products, the production of which is impossible without fresh water. According to the UN forecast, by 2050 humanity will need 70% more water and 20% more food.
A huge burden will fall on groundwater: according to experts, within 50 years the flow will increase 3 times. UN scientists predict that by 2050 the world's population will reach 9 billion people. Today, each person drinks from 2 to 4 liters of water per day, but the bulk of the supply is spent on food production. For example, to get 1 kg of beef or 1 kg of wheat, you need 15 thousand liters.
According to representatives of the organization, the problem of lack of water resources has become so urgent today that it requires an immediate rethinking of approaches to solving it. Water is essential for preserving the natural environment and reducing poverty and hunger. Without it, it will be impossible to talk about the health and well-being of the world's population.
Main risks
The problem of fresh water shortage is significantly complicated by such factors as the high rate of increase in the human population, climate change, including global warming, and pollution of water resources.
Many states today are at the limit of water resource use. Depletion and deterioration of water quality are caused by rapid population growth and irrational use of resources. In many countries, there is serious social tension caused by the lack of water resources between peasants, city dwellers and industry. This forces UN experts to talk about the transition of the problem from the environmental to the political sphere.
In developing countries, unequal access to services that require water use is still common. States are not provided with clean water for food consumption and production. If nothing is done, then by 2030 almost 5 billion people, i.e. 67% of humanity will not be provided with clean water. According to the report, if in 2000 the water deficit was estimated at 230 billion m³ per year, then by 2025 it will increase to 2 trillion m³ per year.
By 2030, 47% of the world's population will live under the threat of water scarcity. In Africa, by 2020, due to climate change, up to 250 million people will find themselves in a similar situation. Water shortages are expected to cause intense migration, affecting up to 700 million people living in desert and semi-desert regions.
According to the United Nations, almost 80% of diseases common in developing countries, which kill 3 million people every year, are caused by poor water quality. Every day, 5 thousand children die from diarrhea. By improving water supply and water treatment methods, 10% of all diseases in the world can be avoided.
According to information from the World Resources Institute, the most disadvantaged countries in the world in terms of water supply are 13 states, of which 4 were part of the USSR - Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova.
According to UN experts, by 2025, Russia, the Scandinavian countries, South America and Canada will be the regions that are best provided with fresh water - more than 20 m³ per year per inhabitant. In terms of volume of fresh water, Russia occupies a leading position in Europe.
New leverage for Russia
Water may soon become a strategic resource. Scientists are seriously talking about the possibility of water wars and armed conflicts. In total, there are about 215 large rivers and more than 300 groundwater basins on Earth, which are controlled by several countries.
Over the past year, over 20 million people have been forced to leave their homes due to water shortages. Russia's southern neighbors are experiencing an acute shortage. If measures are not taken, in half a century humanity will be faced with a difficult choice: what is more important - food or water. The only consolation is the fact that the main reserves of fresh water on Earth are located in Russia and Brazil.
According to Russian experts, our country has a good chance of gaining a new sphere of influence. Just think: at current water prices, the economic potential of the country's hydro resources is estimated at more than $800 billion a year.
“In the post-oil period, it is water-intensive technologies that can become the basis of the Russian economy. The country's hydro resources exceed 97 thousand m³ - which in monetary terms is $800 billion per year, says V. Danilov-Danilyan, director of the Institute of Water Problems. “Russia has an excellent chance to jump from the “oil” period to the “water” period, significantly strengthening its economic position,” the expert notes.
Scientists' reports say that in the near future, it will not be water itself that will be of particular value on the world market, but water-intensive products. “Increasing prices of water-intensive commodities are inevitable as water scarcity increases. It is very difficult to win a war for water - therefore, it is very likely that competition will move to the field of grain production,” says R. Perelet, academician of the Russian Ecological Academy and leading researcher at the Institute of System Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He also notes that the countries that win this competition will be strong financially rather than militarily.
The annual volume of “virtual” water - i.e. that invested in goods is about 1.6 thousand m³. About 80% of this volume comes from agricultural products, the remaining 20% from industrial products.
“Agriculture remains the largest consumer of water in the world. About 70% of all water from and groundwater is spent on irrigation of agricultural lands. Another 20% goes to the needs of industry and only 10% is spent on household purposes,” notes the founder of the Ecocluster association A. Konovalov. In his opinion, if Russia rationally develops organic agriculture, which will not pollute the soil and groundwater with chemicals, and also introduces environmental technologies, then the country could soon become the largest exporter of water-intensive products.
Rinat Perelet also says that today trade in aquiferous agricultural lands has begun to develop at a rapid pace. The expert points out that they buy not so much land for food needs, but the associated water. Since 2006, more than 15 million hectares of agricultural land in developing countries have been on the radar of foreign investors. The transaction amounts are astronomical - we are talking about $30 billion.
Although Russia is definitely one of the leaders in water resources, the country has many problems related to water supply. One of the difficulties is the fact that resources are distributed unevenly across the country. Most of the population and industrial enterprises are located in the European part of Russia, while the rivers are mainly located in Siberia. As a result, only 3 thousand out of 3 million rivers are actively used. This creates a huge burden on rivers located in the European part of the country.
In the next 10 years, Russia will bypass the water crises that UN experts promise to the world community. However, this should not be a cause for celebration. It is necessary to immediately take measures to universally introduce technologies that prevent the pollution of water resources and make it possible to renew them.
The Middle East was on fire.
And what happens when there is no water... Conflicts have engulfed the entire region. Social and economic problems brought people to the streets. An article in the British newspaper The Observer by the famous columnist J. Vidal was devoted to this important topic. This is the main point of the article. Among the reasons that led to the aggravation of the situation in North Africa and the Middle East, there is undoubtedly one very serious one - the shortage of water resources. At the moment, it seems to have faded into the background, but it is still impossible to dismiss it, because it is connected with the food problem.
Rising food prices in the Arab world are a good reminder that without solving the water problem, it will be difficult to count on an increase in agricultural production. Arab countries are located in a very dry area of the world. There are few rivers here, and water needs are growing as the population grows. Moreover, water resources are being depleted. As a result, virtually all Arab countries depend on imported food, the prices of which have now reached record levels. What could this mean for a region where the population will double within 40 years and could reach 600 million people, especially in the context of climate change and the presence of fundamental problems, say various studies, including UN studies, the publication notes. Demonstrations and uprisings that occurred three times in five years after significant increases in food prices may provide a glimpse of what could happen unless efforts are made to distribute natural resources more equitably and policies on water and oil use do not change.
In this regard, the appearance of the report “The Blue Peace report” prepared for the EU countries is noted, the presentation of which took place in Switzerland. The report was written by the so-called Strategic Foresight Group. At the presentation, Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey noted that in the future the main geopolitical resource of the Middle East will be water rather than oil.
Unless there is a major technological breakthrough or some miraculous discovery, the entire Middle East will face severe water shortages. The authoritarian rulers of oil-rich countries have kept their people in check all these years through control of natural resources and virtually prevented unrest through huge subsidies of “virtual” water in the form of staple food imports. But this state of affairs may collapse as food prices rise to record levels and the need for water and energy increases. So far, the issue of water itself has had relatively little influence on the current unrest. But when subsidies were removed, there was often a period of instability. This has already happened. Water shortages will be worse in the future, so what leaders do now may not be enough. Arabs depend on imported food. Therefore, floods in Australia or frosts in Canada have the same meaning for them as a harvest in, say, Egypt or Algeria. The value of Arab food imports in 2008/2009 amounted to $30 billion. Rising prices have aggravated the situation of millions of unemployed and poor people. The paradox of the Arab economy is that it depends on oil prices, and oil prices drive up food prices.
One of the poorest Arab countries, Yemen is the most vulnerable in terms of water and food availability. There, there is less than 200 m3 of water per person per year. Meanwhile, the international level of “water poverty” is 1 thousand m3 per person. Yemen is forced to import 80 - 90% of its food. The government is even considering moving the capital from Sanaa, with a population of 2 million, because there will be no water left in the city within six years. 19 out of 21 underground water reservoirs are no longer replenished. The country is torn apart by two internal conflicts. Lack of water is one of the aggravating factors.
The situation is no better in other Arab countries. In Jordan, water demand is expected to double within 20 years. There are already shortages due to population growth and a water dispute with Israel. The World Bank estimates that within 30 years, water availability per person in this country will fall from the current 200 m3 to 91 m3. Algeria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Iraq and Iran are experiencing water shortages. Only Turkey has a surplus, but it doesn’t want to share it with anyone. Abu Dhabi will pump out its underground relict water reserves within 40 years. Libya has spent $20 billion drilling wells in the desert to tap deep, prehistoric aquifers. But no one knows how long that water will last. In Saudi Arabia, water demand will increase by 500% in 25 years, and then double within 20 years. The fact is that the need for energy is growing by 10% per year. At the same time, water levels in the region as a whole are falling. Since the 1960s in the Dead Sea - about 30 meters. Marshes in Iraq have shrunk by 90%, and the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) may become salty. Due to intensive irrigation, agricultural lands become unsuitable because water stagnates and salinization occurs. Oil-rich countries are trying to do something. Since they had already drained underground sources of fresh water, they began to build seawater desalination plants en masse. There are already 1.5 thousand of them. These enterprises carry out 2/3 of seawater desalination in the world. It turned out, however, that this was not an easy decision. The water is either evaporated and passed through a separator or passed through filters. All this is very costly in terms of energy consumption. True, in some places the energy of the sun is used for this, but most importantly, the extracted salt is dumped back into the sea. That's the problem. Only now are they beginning to understand the downside of the desalination process. The salinity of the seas is increasing and this is killing marine life. In the 70–80s. almost 20% of Saudi Arabia's financial resources were spent on creating wheat fields, parks, lawns, and golf courses. And how much energy and water have to be spent on cooling buildings in the Persian Gulf countries! People are starting to think about this, and they are starting to create fewer lawns. Instead, the areas around the buildings are filled with concrete. They are starting to save water everywhere, even in mosques. For this purpose, special equipment is installed that saves water. Saudi Arabia is reducing wheat production at home and is beginning to acquire land abroad. An underground storage facility for desalinated water is being built in the UAE. Once complete there will be a supply there for three months. The shortage of water is recognized by everyone in the Arab world, and this provides an opportunity, which is why the best way to avoid conflicts is to negotiate. This sounds encouraging, the publication concludes, but the winds of change in the region suggest that anything is possible there.
According to the United Nations, increased consumption of freshwater, driven by population growth and migration, as well as the effects of climate change, is leading to growing water scarcity.
Every three years, the UN World Water Assessment Program (WWAP) publishes the UN World Report, the most comprehensive assessment of the state of the world's freshwater resources.
The latest report was released at the Fifth World Water Forum, held in Istanbul in 2009. This is the result of the joint work of 26 different UN entities united within the framework of the UN Decade “Water for Life” (2005 – 2015).
The report highlights that many countries have already reached their water use limits, with freshwater consumption tripling over the past half century. Large areas of the developing world continue to experience unequal access to safe drinking water, food water treatment, and wastewater treatment. If nothing is done, then by 2030 almost five billion people, about 67% of the planet's population, will be left without clean water.
In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 340 million people lack access to safe drinking water. There are no proper sewage treatment facilities in the settlements where half a billion Africans live. Almost 80% of diseases in developing countries are caused by drinking poor quality water. They claim the lives of three million people a year. Every day, five thousand children die from “diseases of unwashed hands”—one child every 17 seconds! 10% of the world's diseases can be avoided through improved water supply, water treatment, hygiene and effective water management.
Now the world's population is 6.6 billion people, the annual increase is 80 million. Every year we need 64 million cubic meters more water. By 2050, almost ten billion people will live on Earth, with population growth occurring mainly in developing countries where water is already scarce.
In 2030, half of the world's population will live under the threat of water scarcity. In Africa alone, by 2020, due to climate change, between 75 and 250 million people will be in this situation. Water shortages in desert and semi-desert regions will cause intense population migration. According to experts, from 24 to 700 million people will be forced to change their place of residence. In 2000, the world's water shortage was estimated at 230 billion cubic meters per year. And by 2025, we will lack water ten times more: up to two trillion cubic meters per year.
According to the UN, by 2025, Russia, together with Scandinavia, South America and Canada, will remain the regions most supplied with fresh water. In these countries, each person accounts for more than 20 thousand cubic meters per year. In terms of water resources, Latin America is the most abundant region, accounting for a third of the world's runoff, followed by Asia with a quarter of the world's runoff. Next come developed European countries (20%), sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Union, each accounting for 10%. The most limited water resources are in the countries of the Middle East and North America (1% each).
And according to the World Resources Institute, 13 states have the least amount of water per capita, including 4 republics of the former USSR:
Egypt – 30 cubic meters per year per person
Israel – 150 cubic meters per year per person
Turkmenistan – 206 cubic meters per year per person
Moldova – 236 cubic meters per year per person
Pakistan – 350 cubic meters per year per person
Algeria – 440 cubic meters per year per person
Hungary – 594 cubic meters per year per person
Uzbekistan – 625 cubic meters per year per person
Netherlands – 676 cubic meters per year per person
Bangladesh – 761 cubic meters per year per person
Morocco – 963 cubic meters per year per person
Azerbaijan – 972 cubic meters per year per person
South Africa – 982 cubic meters per year per person
The total volume of water on Earth is approximately one and a half billion cubic kilometers, of which only 2.5% is fresh water. Most of its reserves are concentrated in the multi-year ice of Antarctica and Greenland, as well as deep underground.
Almost all the water we drink comes from lakes, rivers and shallow underground springs. Only about 200 thousand cubic kilometers of these reserves can be used - less than a percent of all fresh water reserves or 0.01% of all water on Earth. A significant proportion of them are located far from densely populated regions.
Renewal of fresh water depends on evaporation from the surface of the oceans. Every year, the oceans evaporate about half a million cubic kilometers of water. This is a layer one and a half meters thick. Another 72 thousand cubic kilometers of water evaporates from the land surface. 79% of precipitation falls over seas and oceans, another 2% over lakes, and only 19% of rain falls on land. A little more than two thousand cubic kilometers of water penetrate into underground springs per year. About two-thirds of all precipitation returns to the atmosphere.
Aerospace Agency scientists analyzed satellite data and assessed climate change in individual regions. Futurologists do not rule out that in the near future there will be wars over water.
Drought in the USA. Photo: EPA/TASS
Over the next hundred years, the United States will suffer more than Russia from climate change. Many cities and even entire states will be left without water due to global warming. These are new data from the American aerospace agency NASA.
NASA specialists are processing satellite data, trying to assess future climate changes in certain regions of the planet and even in specific cities. According to forecasts, by the end of the century, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could almost double its current level, and then, according to NASA, the average daily temperature in cities such as Jerusalem, New York, Los Angeles and Mumbai will rise to + 45°C.
Last year, American scientists warned President Obama that climate change would turn into a full-scale disaster for the United States.
How serious is this threat? Alexey Kokorin, head of the Climate and Energy program at the Wildlife Fund, answers.
Alexey Kokorin Head of the Climate and Energy Program at the Wildlife Foundation“Large areas of the United States will indeed suffer from fresh water shortages. How severe the deficit will be across much of the US, including the East Coast and the mid- and part of the West Coast, will depend heavily on how global greenhouse gas emissions go. Of course, the United States needs to be very careful about its future water supply. They are now very actively putting pressure on other countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, primarily on China. To a lesser extent on India, and they themselves are making a lot of efforts.”
California, for example, is already facing this problem. In March it was reported that there was only a year's worth of water left in storage facilities. And in May, the governor of the Sunshine State, Jerry Brown, called for an urgent reduction in water consumption by at least 25%. The water has not yet been turned off, but the restrictions are already noticeable, California resident Andrei Bulgak told Business FM.
Andrey Bulgak California resident“They persistently tell everyone not to waste water just like that. I haven’t seen any official information, maybe they don’t want to scare, but apparently information is leaking out, and they say that if the next winter, that is, the rainy season, is again without rain, then the changes will become irreversible. In some places, it will already begin to turn into a desert, and the climate will no longer be able to recover.”
Fun fact: A mobile app is growing in popularity in California, allowing users to send photos of water wasters to authorities. At the same time, the inhabitants of luxurious Beverly Hills mansions attract special attention from Californians.
Is Russia facing a fresh water shortage? Hydrologist Mikhail Bolgov answers.
Mikhail Bolgov hydrologist “There is quite a lot of water; we are in second place in terms of reserves after Brazil. But against this background, we have problems with water resources in some regions. This is mainly the South, the Caucasian slope, where the population is large, agricultural consumption is high, and local water resources are not always sufficient. We, of course, have problems with changes in water resources; warming will not escape Russia either. There are global forecasts that say that the temperature on Earth as a whole will increase, but no one knows what will happen to water resources. This is a more complex task than simply predicting the change in temperature on the planet.”
According to the UN, today over a billion people already live in conditions of constant water shortages, and approximately half a billion more are in areas where this problem may appear in the near future. The world will have to face a serious shortage of this resource as early as 2030. And futurologists have repeatedly stated that in the near future water will become the number one commodity on the planet, and wars will be fought not for oil, but for fresh water.