WIKIMEDIA, SAPERAUDWater security is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century, touching nearly every country on every continent. A 2009 study of water and food issues in Asia by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) found that without dramatic improvements in irrigation, many high-population Asian nations will lack one-quarter of the grain they need to feed their people by 2050. Drought remains the number-one threat to food supply in developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, and has caused more deaths than any other natural disaster in the last century. To draw attention to this crucial issue, the United Nations has declared 2013 to be the International Year of Water Cooperation, and earlier this year Reed Elsevier (Elsevier’s parent company) announced that, for the third year in a row, it would be awarding $75,000 for projects that will provide sustainable access to clean water in the developing world.
Water scarcity is both a natural and human-made phenomenon. There is enough freshwater on the planet to ensure access to clean water for everyone, but it is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted, or unsustainably managed. Since the flow of water respects no boundaries, related problems are often international in scope, but solutions tend to be implemented on a local level with limited coordination between the various stakeholders to optimize effectiveness.
The criticality of water and food research is undeniable; at stake is the ability of nations to feed themselves. The FAO estimates that by 2050, the world must grow enough food to support an additional 2.7 billion people—and it must do so with less water.
While the daily drinking water ...
