Water Planet: the Culture, Politics, Economics, and Sustainability of Water on Earth by Gaskin-Reyes Camille;

Author:Gaskin-Reyes, Camille;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4697814
Publisher: ABC-CLIO, LLC

Poor Water Management

Another element of the looming crisis is poor management of water resources. The problem was dramatized in July 2009 when inhabitants in five villages in Nigeria’s Kano state organized a protest, saying they had waited 15 years for the state government to provide wells. The villagers must carry water containers many miles and often take water from contaminated ponds, which led to six deaths from cholera in one month alone. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with 170 million people, is one of four West African nations in which fewer than half of the residents have access to safe drinking water, according to the United Nations (UN).

Corrupt and inefficient national and local governments and a lack of resources and technological expertise have hampered efforts in such places as rural Nigeria. The UN, World Bank, EU, and other international agencies have put forth models for alleviating such obstacles, including a concept called Integrated Water Resources Management, which involves coordinating different uses of water (agriculture, industry, home use, the environment) as well as all the different entities involved in construction, development, and delivery of any services that involve water. With better management, available resources can be used more efficiently and safely.

However, management issues are very difficult to solve, and it is even harder to fruitfully address the problems posed by population growth and climate change. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that a multinational public opinion poll conducted in August 2009 by an organization called Circle of Blue, which surveyed 1,000 people each in 15 countries, identified freshwater availability as the world’s top environmental concern.

Dennis Moran and Mark Troy Burnett

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