Water Resources Mangement

Today we got to know a general insight of the future challenges and possible global changes associated with water. Water, being "blood of the planet" as described by Marko, is expected to be the focus of development discourse in the coming centuries. We also polled on the Ismail Serageldin's expression;

"If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the coming century will be fought on water..."

- whether we agree or disagree with [ polling resulted 13 agree & 6 disagree]

The world population is increasing tremendously, yet the alternative uses of water are also increasing - apart from the basic needs. I was caught, specially, by the fact that most of the usable water in the world is consumed by agriculture specially irrigation projects. Before this lecture, I haven't considered seriously the critical value of water for development, except its importance for home use.

From the ideas forwarded from the audience, the critical regions in terms of water scarcity by 2020 are:

- densely populated areas in North East Africa, Middle East and South East Asian countries

- countries dependent on rivers feed by mountain top ice, likely to melt off by global temperature increase in the coming decade.

- less developed areas, where there is no proper water management

- regions with 'improper' water cycle ...etc.

The impact of water on issues related to global development, demographics, weather changes, and energy is enormous - as I depicted it right after the lecture. I guess that Water may be a theme of future global agendas just like Climate change.

Best said at last was a nice water management policy considers at least environmental, social and economical rationale.