Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity,

4. Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it. Laudato si, 30.

5. Water: the new gold

6. Access to safe, drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights.’ Laudato si, 30. Unusual in being italicised. Pope Francis also alerts us to the danger of multinational business taking control of water.

7. Laudato si, Chapter 1 (II), 27-31

8. Water is the new gold: Global consumption is doubling every 25 years

10. Everyyear 80 million extra people need water – as supply shrinks • By 2050: • – India will have 563 million more people • – China will have 187 million more people • – Pakistan will have 200 million more people (one of the world’s most arid countries, with 141 million today) • – Egypt, Iran, Mexico: 50% population increase in each

11. A water-challenged world • 400 of China’s 600 cities are in severe drought. • The same is true of 22 countries in Africa. • In Mexico City and Arizona there is no water left. • If things go on as they are, by 2025 two-thirds of the world will have little water.

12. Four themes … • 1. Melting glaciers • 2. Rivers running dry • 3. Falling water tables • 4. Facing up to water scarcity

14. All the region’s major rivers originate in the Himalayas • Indus • Ganges • Mekong • Yangtze • Yellow river

15. Melting in this area will alter the hydrology of several Asian countries • Pakistan • India • China • Bangladesh • Thailand • Viet Nam • Nepal • Less snow melt during the summer dry season to feed rivers could worsen the hydrological poverty already affecting so many in the region

16. This links water to climate change: and emphasises the urgency of cutting carbon emissions

17. 2. Rivers running dry

18. 30 million people • Colorado • Utah • Wyoming • New Mexico • Arizona • Nevada • California

19. The Aral Sea

20. Coastal towns are now as much as 50km inland

21. A thriving fishery has been destroyed

23. China’s Yellow River

25. One example among many: the Yellow River • The Yellow River ran dry for the first time ever in 1972. WHY? • Climate change in part … • … but largely because of upstream diversions for industry, cities and irrigation • … e.g. Hohhot, Lower Mongolia’s capital; and Taiyuan, the capital of Shanzi province, which has 4 million people and where water is rationed …

26. Shandong produces one-fifth of China’s corn … and one-seventh of its wheat It is more important to China than Iowa and Kansas together are to the US

27. Half of Shandong’s irrigation water comes from the Yellow River … • … the other half from an aquifer that is shrinking by 1.5m a year. • One day the Yellow River may never reach Shandong. • NO WONDER THERE ARE SLEEPLESS NIGHTS IN THE CORRIDORS OF CHINESE POWER …

28. The Nile whose water must be shared not just between provinces, but countries

29. It hardly ever rains in Egypt: nearly all its water comes from the Nile

30. The Nile • Egypt has to import 40% of its grain today • Tomorrow? • Its population will double from 68 to 114 million by 2050

31. Sudan • Sudan’s water needs will also double to 64 million by 2050. • At present Ethiopia only uses a tiny fraction of the Nile’s water. This will change. • All three countries need to stabilise their populations or they will be trapped in hydrological poverty.

32. The River Ganges

33. If India were to use all the water it wanted, the river might not even reach Bangladesh during its dry season There is, fortunately, a treaty governing flow

34. 3. Falling water tables • The 3 billion people to be added to world population by 2050 will be born in countries already facing water scarcity. • 40% of world food supply comes from irrigated land (diesel and electric pumps). • Water scarcity in the future will mean food scarcity.

35. Depleted aquifers • Overpumping takes water faster from the aquifer than it can be replaced by precipitation. • Overpumping is now widespread, especially in China, India and the United States. • These three countries account for nearly half the world’s grain harvest.

36. Bottled water • In 2002 world sales of bottled water totalled $35 billion … • … and only one in ten of these plastic bottles gets recycled.

37. Closer to home … • The water in half of all Group Schemes is contaminated. • Water Framework Directive: • good water status to be returned to all surface waters and groundwaters by 2015.

38. Irrigation stanchions watering asparagus in an arid climate

41. The Southern Great Plains The Ogallala Aquifer Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas

42. … A fossil aquifer with little recharge The irrigated area shrinks as the Ogallala is depleted Overall grain production is expected To drop by 17%

43. 4. Facing up to water scarcity • Worldwide the annual overpumping of aquifers uses up 160 billion m3 of water: • … the equivalent of 160 million tons of grain • = half the entire U.S. grain harvest

44. This would feed 480 million people (average world grain consumption is just over 300 kg per person per year) • In other words: 480 million of the world’s 6.7 billion people are being fed with grain produced with the unsustainable use of water • … with water that belongs to our children

45. The economics of water: rising affluence generates additional demand for water. Why? • Because a diet rich in livestock products requires four times as much grain per person as a rice-based diet in a country like India. • This means four times as much water is needed.

46. The world’s fastest-growing grain import market • North Africa and the Middle East • including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and countries eastward through Iran.

47. Virtually all these countries are simultaneously experiencing water shortage and rapid population growth

48. A downward spiral … • Ever-growing demand for water for expanding cities and growing industry satisfied by diverting water from irrigation. • The loss in food production capacity is then offset by importing grain from abroad (because every ton of grain imported is = 1,000 tons of water saved).

49. The water needed to produce the grain and other foodstuffs imported into North Africa and the Middle East in 2000 was roughly equal to the annual flow of the River Nile …

50. i.e. another Nile flowing into the region in the form of imported grain