FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1999. All Rights Reserved

Books by David Bright Some myths can be found in virtually all cultures. One of these is the belief in a great flood that wiped away humanity and allowed a fresh start. Noah, Gilgamesh... hell, even Kevin Costner in Waterworld, if you must. Yet the funny thing is, if you believe the scientists, there just isn’t – and never has been – enough water (liquid or frozen) to wreak such havoc on the world. Good news for sinners, I guess…. This fact came up during my recent encounter with Marq de Villiers, author of the monumental book simply titled Water. He is a journalist, former editor of Toronto Lifegain. After all, the last thingsand author of some six books based on his voyages around the world over a 30-year period, however, all along his deepest fascination has been with water. Water brings into focus this longtime passion, and is at once both intriguing and horrifying. The problem, de Villiers explains, is that we don’t have enough usable water in the world today. Or rather we do, but we aren’t managing or distributing it effectively. It’s ironic that the "pale blue dot," as Carl Sagan described the Earth as seen from space, has remarkably little water that’s naturally fit for human consumption. Of an estimated 1.4 billion cubic kilometres in all forms, less than 2.5 per cent is fresh water. Of this tiny fraction, only 0.26 per cent (0.007 per cent of the total) is accessible. That’s just 90,000 cubic kilometres. Or, with Waterworld in mind, if all the available drinkable water was spread evenly over the world, it would form a layer less than two metres in depth. Heck, that would hardly drown even Costner. Enough figures. What really interests de Villiers are the intricate mechanisms of the hydrologic cycle – how a finite amount of water ebbs and flows across the Earth – and the emerging field of hydropolitics – the international struggle to gain access to that limited supply. In a nutshell, he explains, the problem is that the amount of water now on Earth is the same as it was in prehistoric times, while the human population continues to grow at an ever faster rate. And humans are "utterly dependent on water for survival." A crisis is imminent, he warns. Where is this crisis likely to occur and when? It’s already here, de Villiers replies. "African nations are in catastrophe right now," he says, as his book makes graphically clear. The Middle East is also likely to face a crisis in the next century. In fact, so bad is the situation that de Villiers echoes the view of a former World Water Commission chairman: "The wars of the 21st century will be fought over water." So perhaps the Waterworld scenario, with its battles over H20, is not so far off the mark after all? De Villiers remains optimistic. "It is a solvable problem," he says, "not through drastic action but by a concatenation of smaller changes." Three possible solutions present themselves to nations in need of extra water: (1) they import it or simply make more, for instance by the desalination of seawater; (2) they reduce demand, either through conservation measures or by attaching a price to water; or (3) they reduce their populations, either by self-regulation or involuntary famine. "Population is the ultimate problem," de Villiers concludes. On the one hand, there are just too many people for the present system of water management/distribution to sustain. On the other hand, it is people – not governments or corporations – who are going to have to lead the charge for change. Unless people start to demand more efficient use of the available water, the looming crisis is probably unavoidable. This is as true in Canada, he argues, blessed with the world’s largest supply of fresh water, as it is in drought-stricken Namibia. So next time you think about turning on that sprinkler, think again. After all, the last thing we need is Kevin Costner telling us, "I told you so."

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