Around the world, fresh water is not only running low – we are depleting it.
Conventional wisdom has long held that freshwater availability – that which is stored in our soils, aquifers, lakes, rivers, snow, and glaciers, and on which we depend – is fixed. Withdrawals from these reserves are eventually replenished through the hydrological cycle. New evidence has revealed that this is not the case.
We are losing fresh water faster than it is being replaced. Some of that loss is the result of changes in the climate. But some of it is due to how we farm, how fast cities are growing, and how much water we pump from the ground to quench our growing thirst.
A new World Bank report, Continental Drying: A Threat to Our Common Future, highlights how quickly the world’s reserves of fresh water are declining and how human activity is driving the depletion. For the first time, a global, satellite-backed picture of terrestrial water storage decline makes visible when, where, and how fresh water is being lost and what this implies for economic futures.
An abandoned house in Al-Bouzayad village, Diwaniya province, Iraq. All photos: AFP
The provinces of Dhi Qar, Maysan and Diwaniya are among the worst affected by the drought, according to the International Organisation for Migration, which estimates 76 per cent of displaced people relocate to cities
Haydar Mohamed once grew wheat and barley, but drought has forced him off the land and into the city where he now earns $15 a day in construction, supplementing this by driving a taxi
'The transition is difficult,' said Mohamed, 42, who abandoned village life several years ago for a shantytown in the city of Karbala, 'but if you don't work you don't eat'
Until 2017, Mohamed farmed in the remote village of Al-Khenejar in Diwaniya province where, in a good year, they would harvest 40 or 50 tonnes of grain
The United Nations ranks Iraq as one of the world's five countries most affected by climate change
The UN says nearly one in five people live in an area hit by water shortages, while state authorities have limited areas designated for cultivation
In Diwaniya province, 120 villages rely on water deliveries, u
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