NEW DELHI – As the world moves on to other matters following World Water Day, the World Water Forum, and Cape Town’s postponement of ‘Day Zero’ until 2019, a global water crisis continues, nonetheless.
The smaller the locale, the easier it is to address the problem.
South Asia is one of those large-scale areas where people live on or beyond the brink of a growing water crisis.
Apart from in Bhutan and Nepal, South Asia’s per capita water availability is already below the world average.
Nearly 163 million people among India’s population of 1.3 billion — or more than one in 10 — lack access to clean water close to their home, according to a 2018 WaterAid report.
In some cases, particularly across national borders, upstream water control efforts adversely affect people living downstream.
The Diplomat reports that in Bangladesh, like many other countries, “the water supply in major cities is the responsibility of city authorities, but in rural areas that authority is missing.” Demand for water in the capital Dhaka is 2.2 billion liters a day, while production is 1.9 billion liters a day.
Chittagong, the second largest city, supplies 210 million liters each day against demand for 500 million liters.
Simply put, the [population of South Asia] is [growing] so fast that the natural resources of their lands are unable to sustain such rapidly growing populations.
Sources: For more details on water problems around globe globe, visit Gospel for Asia’s Special Report on the Global Clean Water Crisis.