If you read my last post, you know I worry about the permafrost melting. That said, one of the issues that will hit us head on in the next 10 years is water scarcity. This is a global problem most acute in the lower latitudes (Middle East, Africa, India, Southwest US, Central America, parts of China). In most cases, this is really a population and water management issue that is now being made worse by climate change. As you may recall, Cape Town, South Africa, almost ran completely out of water 2 yrs ago. India is now close to running out of water in 25 cities, impacting 6-800 million people, many of whom can only get water from trucks that come once a week.
Up to 2 billion people are at risk and you have to ask, what happens when they no longer have enough water? Well, for one, lots of them will start migrating (or attempt to) to places where there is more water. In many ways, drought is what created the Syrian civil war and caused millions to try to move to Europe. Similarly, many people in Africa are attempting migrate to Europe as a result of water related land failures. Hungary shut down its borders and Brexit in some ways is a response to unchecked migration fears. In the US, we all know about problems at our southern border that are in large part an issue with crop failures in Central America.
It is going to get worse. Add to this severe storms whose run off causes flooding but does not necessarily recharge aquifers, sea level rise that pushes salt water into aquifers and general over pumping, it is not a cheery picture. Even though 85% of water is generally used for agriculture, we may not immediately die of thirst, but food shortages then become a problem.
One of the key pre-requisites for CASA is to think about water availability in our client strategic plan generation as we figure out how to deal with this looming problem. SZ