Solving Asia's Water Crisis

Governments in Asia haven't quite started on addressing the complex water issues in their countries. Indeed, the Asian Development Bank says that the issue is actually one of poor governance

Water security is one of Asia's most pressing challengesmainly due to two reasons:agriculture and rapid urbanisation. Home to 60 per cent of the world's population, the region needs to supply clean water not only to the rural areas - where most of the region's people still live off the land - but also to fast-growing cities where rapidurbanisation is exerting strains on the preciousresource.

The United Nations estimates that between 2010 and 2025, 700 million people will be added to the growing numbers in Asian cities requiring municipal waterservices.

This means that Asia Pacific needs at least US$59 billion in investments for water supply and $71 billion for improved sanitation to meet these basic needs, according to the Asian Water Development Outlook 2013 report published by the Asian Development Bank(ADB).

These investments are needed to fund water infrastructure development and increase the capacity and efficiency levels of water utilities, so that demand for water can be met.

Until that is achieved, much of the region's governments will be hard-pressed to meet thepopulation's basic need forwater, expertssay.

"The water issues that Asia faces can be summarised this way: too much, too little and too dirty," Vijay Padmanabhan, technical advisor on urban and water, ADB, tells Eco-Business in a recentinterview.

"Some parts of Asia suffer from severe flooding which have gotten worse in recent times due to climate change. Secondly,climate change also poses the threat of water stress or severe drought to other parts of Asia. Lastly,in large parts of the region, the volume of untreated wastewater that leaches into accessible fresh or coastal waters is over 80 per cent," hesays.

Addressing these issues istherefore critical, saysProf Ong Choon Nam, director of National University of Singapore Environmental Research Institute(NERI).

"The degradation of water quality not only poses supply problems, it has a huge and inevitable impact on marine life, polluting food supply and threatening security and economic development at large," headds.

NERI coordinates all environmental research done by different departments and schools withinthe university.

In fact, much of the negative impact of water shortageis already evident across the region. Recent serious droughts in Thailand and the Malaysian state of Johor, and water rationing by Kuala Lumpur and Taipei are reminders that water is not something Asians can take for granted, Prof Ong says.

Source: Eco-Business

Read More Related Content On This Topic - Click Here

Media

Taxonomy

• Scarcity
• Environment
• Drought
• Water Risk