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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Reservoirs for the future
By Mohamed Kassas *
We desperately need an international facility for research and technological development if we are to increase our share of water. Shortages of fresh water are a truly global problem, felt today in arid regions and tomorrow worldwide. By 2025, most of the Earth's population will have access to a low or catastrophically low water supply.
A new appraisal (UNESCO, 1998) shows that of the total (1,386 million cubic kilometres) water supplies (Earth's hydrosphere), 97.5 per cent is salt water, and only 2.5 per cent fresh water. The greatest portion of the latter (68.7 per cent) is in the form of permanent ice; 29.9 per cent is ground water, most of it deep below the surface of the earth. Only 0.26 per cent of total fresh water reserves are available for human consumption.
National and international institutions are capable of designing and implementing schemes that aim at increasing our very limited share of fresh water. Potential reserves amount to nearly 0.1 per cent of global fresh water.
We need to extend the scope of our ambition. Three areas of technological advancement need to be addressed with a view to make the tapping of additional portions of water economically acceptable: desalination technologies, including non-conventional sources of energy, that would make desalinated water available for agriculture and industry; pumping technologies for extracting ground water; means of towing ice to territories suffering from a water deficit.
The international community must recognise water shortages as a global issue. If additional fresh water resources were available today, we would be able to expand agricultural land and thus ensure food security for some two billion people, besides delaying the threat of global warming.
*This week's Soapbox speaker is professor emeritus of science at Cairo University.
