PETER BRABECK-LEMANTHE, the chairman of the largest food company in the world – Nestle – made a puzzling statement at the recent World Economic Forum on East Asia held in Kuala Lumpur. He warned that water shortage is the next global crisis waiting to happen.

His statement reminds us of a man standing in a room, looking out of the window at the pouring rain outside and declaring that it would rain soon.

Lemanthe was obviously referring to the current fuel shortage when he made this pronouncement on the next global crisis.

His view reflects the developed nations’ perception of what a global crisis is and the urgency with which they address the situation.

But how can water shortage be the next global crisis waiting to happen when it is already a full blown catastrophe; a catastrophe that is plaguing more than half the world and posing a severe imminent threat to the rest?

Though fuel shortage is indeed a global crisis, its consequences pales compared to water shortage. Water shortage is reportedly responsible for five million deaths a year worldwide (World Health Organisation).

The hardest hit are the children in poor countries. One child in every five children under five years of age dies every 20 seconds due to lack of clean water. And half of the world’s population is suffering from diseases linked to poor drinking water and lack of proper sanitation.

Lemanthe was off the mark when he said water shortage would be the next global crisis. It is already a global crisis. The problem is that developed nations do not view it as such yet because water shortage has not hit these countries hard enough.

Ironically, Lemanthe also warned at the same forum that the world would run out of potable water before it run out of oil, a pronouncement that lends even more urgency to solving the world water shortage crisis.

While the toll on human life and nature taken by water shortage now is already catastrophic in many parts of the world, the future consequences of this crisis is frightening for the whole world.

It has been predicted that the most likely cause of the next world war, if it happened, will not be oil but water as nations fight over limited water supply especially in regions where several nations share the same waterways.

In the Middle East, the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates are shared by Turkey, where the rivers begin, with Syria and Iraq, the Jordan River is shared by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians on the West Bank while Egypt is almost totally dependent on the Nile whose upper reaches flow through Ethiopia and Sudan.

Any move by any of these countries to divert the waters of these rivers for their own usage would result in conflicts.

Even more disturbing are the ravages on nature caused by water shortage. As more underground water is pumped from aquifers, the soils become too dry or too salty for agriculture causing the acreage of arable land to shrink at an alarming rate.

The competition for water from booming industries especially in India and China is also posing grave threats to food production in these two countries and it had already driven many farmers away from the land.

This is compounded by the heavy pollution of the waterways by factories which rendered waters in some rivers in China unsuitable even for irrigation. If no immediate measures were taken to address water shortage in China, it is predicted its economy would collapse by 2015.

While we can count our blessings for living in a water rich-region, it would be a big mistake if we were to view water shortage as somebody else’s problem and pay no heed to it.

Shortage of water does not mean lack of water. It actually means scarcity of potable water where even countries blessed with ample rainfall could face water shortage if their water sources were not properly managed and protected.

One of the more ironic problems faced by flood hit areas has always been lack of potable water for the victims despite the over abundance of water around them.

It is imperative for us to conserve our water resources to ensure adequate clean water supply for the future or else we risk facing the fate of the old mariner  in Stanley Taylor Coleridge’s poem who was adrift on a raft in the ocean and  lamented, “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!”

3rd Voice is a regular feature initiated by AZAM and Sarawak Development Institute. Feedback can be sent to paulina@azam.org.my