“The world has got a very big water problem,” declared Sir Crispin Tickell, one of the organizers of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. “It will be the progenitor of more wars than oil.”
I don’t want to be called a prophet of doom, but the experts have spoken. Don Hinrichsen, with whom I have co-authored a report an extensive report on the problem for the Woodrow Wilson Institute Center for Scholars, considered water crisis as “one of the most pressing environment and development problems facing humanity.”
“It may very well end up being one of the main issues confronting humanity as we proceed further into the 21st century,” Hinrichsen pointed out bluntly. “We are already robbing Peter to pay Paul, as it were – taking water away from one set of users and give to another set.”
It may unthinkable that our water-rich country – with more than 7,000 islands – is having a problem with water.
“Out of 101 million Filipinos, nine million rely on unimproved, unsafe and unsustainable water sources,” Water.org reported. “Families without a safe water source in or near their home often spend significant time and energy collecting water.”
In my hometown, my sisters have to sleep late or wake up early just to gather a few drops of water from the faucet. Otherwise, we won’t have water throughout the day. During the rainy season, the water may be gushing but the color turns to somewhat muddy.
Water shortage spawns a Jekyll-and-Hyde phenomenon: from life giver, water turns into a pernicious killer. Dr. Klaus Toepfer, during his term as executive director of the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Program, said: “Unlike the energy crisis, the water crisis is life threatening.”
Contaminated water causes 90 percent of cases of diarrhea among children. Acute diarrhea is one of the five leading causes of sickness and death among Filipino children – for every 100,000 live births, 914 die of diarrhea, leading to almost 12,000 infant deaths every year from a preventable and easily curable illness.
Our country is gifted with rich natural resources, including water, which are essential for the country’s economic development and in meeting its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Water resources include inland freshwater (rivers, lakes, and groundwater), and marine (bay, coastal, and oceanic waters).
“Overall, there is sufficient water but not enough in highly populated areas, especially during dry season,” the Water Environment Partnership in Asia (WEPA) observes.
Access to clean and adequate water remains an acute seasonal problem in urban and coastal areas in the country, WEPA says. National Capital Region (Metro Manila), Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, and Central Visayas are the four urban critical regions in terms of water quality and quantity.
Southern Mindanao, or Davao Region, may not be in the list yet but water crisis is now being felt in Davao City, the country’s biggest city in terms of land area. Cities surrounding the Davao Gulf – Tagum, Panabo, Mati, Digos and Island Garden City of Samal – may also face the same problem in the near future if population continues to grow.
Sandra Postel, director of the Massachusetts-based Global Water Policy Project, believes water problems will be right there with climate change as a threat to the human future. More importantly, higher global temperatures will worsen the current water problems.
“Although the two are related, water has no substitutes. We can transition away from coal and oil to solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. But there is no transitioning away from water to something else,” said the head of the group that seeks to save fresh water.
Only 2.5% of the water that covers over 70% of the earth’s surface is considered fresh water. “Water is everywhere,” said the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “In our bodies, in the air we breathe, in the food we eat and in the countryside around us. It’s part of our history and our religions.”
In his book, The Big Thirst, Charles Fishman wrote: “No water is being created or destroyed on Earth.”
In other words, some of the water we are now using was here at the moment of creation. “Scientists estimate that 30 to 50 percent of the water on Earth today originates from ice that constituted part of the dust cloud that eventually coalesced into the sun and its planets,” explained Popular Science.
“Thanks to Earth’s mass, volcanism, and distance from the sun, our climate now has the right temperature and atmospheric pressure for that ancient ice to exist in a state of liquid water,” it added.
Let’s talk about what our elementary teachers told us before. “The water cycle controls the water on the planet through the processes of evaporation and condensation. The amount of water in the water cycle has stayed the same since the time” when God created the heaven and the earth.
“Water is the most precious asset on Earth,” points out Postel. “It is the basis of life.” Next to air, water is the element most necessary for survival. A normal adult is 60% to 70% water. A person can live without food for almost two months, but without water only for a few days.”
“By means of water,” says the Koran, “we give life to everything.” But the life-giving fresh water is soon to vanish. “Water, water everywhere,” wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “but not a drop to drink.”
