Two Articles That Illustrate The Strategic Importance Of Water In Today's World Photo from BBC News

Two Articles That Illustrate The Strategic Importance Of Water In Today's World
Photo from BBC News

As Economy Booms, China Faces Major Water Shortage -- Washington Post

BEIJING -- A decade ago, China's leaders gave the go-ahead to a colossal plan to bring more than 8 trillion gallons of water a year from the rivers of central China to the country's arid north. The project would have erected towering dams, built hundreds of miles of pipelines and tunnels, and created vast reservoirs with a price tag three times that of the giant Three Gorges Dam.

But the plan's biggest section, which was supposed to break ground this year, has run aground after a group of academics and experts voiced alarm about costs, environmental damage and earthquake dangers. Though a rare victory for ordinary citizens, the halting of that part of the project leaves behind water shortages that could cause the entire Chinese economy to founder.

Read more ....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503564.html

Karachi 'Water Mafia' Leaves Pakistanis Parched And Broke -- L.A. Times

Corrupt politicians allow businessmen to siphon off as much as 41% of the city's water supply and turn around and sell it at exorbitant rates to residents, generating an estimated $43 million a year.

Reporting from Karachi, Pakistan
Name a cash cow in this sprawling city of ragged slums and glass-walled office buildings and it's almost certain there's an organized crime syndicate behind it.

The illegal operations, routinely referred to as mafias, are everywhere. There's a land mafia that commandeers prime real estate, a sugar mafia that conspires to control sugar prices, and even a railway mafia that forges train tickets and pilfers locomotive parts.

Read more ....
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-pakistan-water-mafia16-2010mar16,0,3652780.story


We in the West .... in particular in my part of the world (Northeast North America) are blessed with abundant supplies of fresh water. But for many other parts of the world, access to fresh water is the number one concern for many citizens and governments. In China, polluted water was something that I was witnessed to on my first trip there in 1988. In the Indian subcontinent, pollution and a lack of proper sanitation has destroyed many major waterways for fresh water .... and with a drought underway the problem is only getting worse.

Yemen is probably the world's poster child for depleting water supplies, and many countries in the Sub Sahara are now reeling from inadequate fresh water supplies.

This is my prediction .... as these developments and trends continue, conflict and wars over water rights will only escalate into state conflicts and open warfare.