New book: Water for People - Water for Life
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The United Nations World Water Development Report
576 pages, 25 full-colour global maps, 2003, � 49,95
ISBN 92-3-103881-8, UNESCO Publishing/Berghahn Books
UNESCO website:
http://upo.unesco.org/bookdetails.asp?id=4042
To what extent will population growth, rising levels of pollution,
and climate change intensify the water crisis? Exactly how much water
is available per person in countries around the world? How much will
we need for food security in the next fifteen, twenty-five and fifty
years?
The international community has pledged to reduce by half the propor-
tion of people without access to water supply and sanitation by 2015.
What regions are on track? How much will it cost to achieve these
goals? What is the likelihood that countries will go to war over wa-
ter in the near future?
There questions and others are addressed in this Report, which offers
the most comprehensive assessment to date of the state of the world's
freshwater resources, based on the collective inputs of 23 United Na-
tions agencies and convention secretariats. It is part of an on-going
assessment process to measure progress towards achieving sustainable
use of water resources, and to influence better formulation and im-
plementation of water-related policies.
The goal of sustainable development was first set at the Rio Earth
Summit of 1992 and has been restated or expanded in many forums since
then. The UN Millennium Declaration of 2000 transformed general
guidelines into specific targets. The international community pledged
"...to halve by 2015 the proportion of people who are unable to
reach, or to afford, safe drinking water" and "...to stop the unsus-
tainable exploitation of water resources, by developing water manage-
ment strategies at the regional, national and local levels, which
promote both equitable access and adequate supplies." Thus, ten years
after Rio it is time to take stock.
The global overview is complemented by the presentation of seven pi-
lot case studies of river basins representing various social, eco-
nomic and environmental settings: Lake Titicaca (Bolivia, Peru);
Senegal river basin (Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal); Seine Nor-
mandy (France); Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe, (Estonia, Russia); Ruhuna ba-
sins (Sri Lanka); Greater Tokyo (Japan); and Chao Phraya (Thailand);
Please consult the World Water Assessment Program's website at:
http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/ex_summary/
for Executive Summaries of the UN World Water Development Report
online in 7 languages (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, German,
Japanese, and Russian). In addition to these languages, Chinese and
Bahasa-Malay are expected soon.
--
Claudio Schuftan
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn
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