With the flooding in the Midwest and corn and oil prices soaring to record levels, it would be easy to overlook the issue of water shortages. Easy, perhaps, but short-sighted.  Of all the population-related challenges that policymakers face in the 21st Century, water is perhaps the greatest.

Warning of a global water crisis, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the chairman of Nestle SA, the world largest food country, told the World Economic Forum on East Asia on Monday that, “We will run out of water before we run out of oil.” He noted that, “three parts of the world no longer send water into the sea.”  Yesterday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report on climate change that there is growing scientific evidence suggesting that droughts and excessive heat in the U.S. and the world "are likely to become more commonplace as humans continue to increase the atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases."

Seven hundred million people today live in countries experiencing water stress or scarcity.  By 2035, the World Bank projects that 3 billion people, more than one third of the world’s population, will be affected by severe water stress.  With many countries sharing water supplies, experts warn that disputes over water in the Middle East and elsewhere could lead to international conflict. 

The FAO reports that most countries in the Near East and North Africa suffer from acute water scarcity.  So do countries like China, India, Mexico, Pakistan, and South Africa. Population growth, urbanization, and climate change pose an enormous challenge to these areas and other. According to the FAO, one in five people in the developing world presently lacks access to the daily twenty litres of water deemed necessary for human survival. 

Water is particularly is particularly critical to food production (and production of biofuels).  Global population is expected to reach 8.1 billion by 2030. If the farmers of the world needs to produce 50% more food by 2030 as the U.N. Secretary General recently indicated, the FAO indicates that 14 percent more freshwater will need to be withdrawn for agricultural purposes in the next 30 years.

But under a “business as usual” scenario the International Food Policy Research Institute projects, by 2025, that: 

• Water scarcity will cause annual global losses of 350 million metric tons of food production-slightly more than the entire current U.S. grain crop.
• Consumption of water for all nonirrigation uses will rise dramatically, by 62 percent.
• Household water use will increase by 71 percent, of which more than 90 percent will be in developing countries, but many households will remain unconnected to piped water.
• Industrial water demand will increase significantly in developing countries and, by 2025, a major shift will occur: industrial water demand in the developing world will exceed the demand in developed countries.
• Water scarcity will cause substantial shifts in where the world's food is grown. Developing countries will dramatically increase their reliance on food imports. In sub-Saharan Africa, grain imports will more than triple. Poor countries, unable to finance imports, will experience increased hunger and malnutrition.

The U.S. is also impacted by water shortages.  Indeed, the fastest growing regions of the United States (the West, the Southwest, and the Southeast) are all struggling with water problems. 

Earlier this month, Gov. Schwarzenegger declared an official statewide drought, the first such declaration since 1991.  A recent New York Times story (“Water-Starved California Slows”) reports that building projects in California are being curtailed for the first time because developers are unable, as required by state law, to secure a 20-year water supply as a condition of building. The article reports that:

An eight-year drought in the Colorado River basin has greatly impinged on water supply to Southern California. Of the roughly 1.25 million acre-feet of water that the region normally imports from that river toward the 4.5 million acre-feet it uses each year, 500,000 has been lost to drought, said Jeff Kightlinger, the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

California’s population, currently 37 million, is projected to grow to 45 million by 2020 and to 60 million by 2050, but water restrictions could make that more difficult.  It could also make it more challenging for farmers. California’s breadbasket, the Central Valley, is also the fastest growing part of the state.  Concerns are mounting that farmers in the Central Valley will have to curtail irrigation (and production) due to the drought and increased demands of residential water users.

Food and fuel prices may grab all the headlines, but policymakers—here and abroad—should not take their eyes off the water problem.  Next month, the Population Resource Center will be hosting a policy roundtable on Capitol Hill looking at how projected population growth rates in the West and the Southwest are posing a growing challenge to water resource managers in the region.