Editor's blog: Water woes

Yet Sanaa, which has grown from a sleepy town of some 50,000 people in the last 50 years, is one of the world�s fastest growing cities. It adds 8 per cent to its population every year - of which 5 per cent are driven there as migrants from the parched countryside.

World Bank expert Abu Hatim dismisses the government�s strategy to improve the country�s water resources (backed by aid donors), as a palliative measure that will buy time but not solve the problem. �The catastrophe is coming but we don�t know when,� he says. (See: Water crisis threatens Yemen's swelling population.)

Egyptian farmers have lived off the land of the Nile Delta for generations. But the overpopulated region faces rising sea levels and one of the most severe threats of flooding and famine in the world. Photograph � Jason Larkin

Of course, the Nile delta is not alone, as a climate, water and population hotspot. The drought in East Africa is affecting not only the Maasai pastoralists of Kenya and Ethiopia, but those living in the Tana Delta wetlands of Kenya. In West Africa the Niger Delta, with a quarter of Nigeria�s rapidly growing population, is struggling with the twin problems of sea encroachment and failing rainfall. (See: Drought threatens future of Kenya's Maasai people, Water shortage threatens two million in southern Iraq, African deltas suffer early impact of climate change.)

Asia, in turn, faces an unprecedented food crisis unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in better irrigation systems, says a joint report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the International Water Management Institute. With very little land left for cultivation, water supplies stretched to the limit and a population that will double Asia�s demand for food by 2050, a new generation of irrigation is urgently needed. But with water tables dropping catastrophically in many parts of India and China and the uncertain impact of melting Himalayan glaciers, the challenge is huge. (See: Water crisis threatens famine in Asia, says UN.)

Hand-washing prevents sickness: schoolchildren in Vietnam. Photo � UNICEF/HQ99-0812/Lemoyne

Faced with this challenge the experts meeting in Stockholm last month concluded unanimously that water must be included in the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December. Integrating land, water and forest management was the key to successful climate change adaptation, they said. It�s a tall order for negotiators whose minds are already turning to a Plan B, if greenhouse gas reduction targets cannot be agreed between developed and developing governments. What about bringing population back into the picture too, and really getting down to work?

John Rowley

PS: Planet 21 supports Franny Armstrong�s 10/10 campaign, which aims to get the UK public and the UK government to reduce the country�s greenhouse gas emissions by 10 per cent in 2010. To explain the campaign Franny has made a video for The Guardian, which we are happy to link to here with acknowledgements and thanks to that newspaper.

Please see also our write up of a new tve film on the much neglected Congo conflict, which is impacting so tragically on the women of this benighted land, and the accompanying video.

And do please see WWF's important report on the impact of climate change in the Arctic - warming twice as fast as elsewhere in the world with potentially catastrophic consequences. To watch a question and answer video with climate expert Dr Martin Sommerkorn, click here. (QuickTime required).

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