FAMILY PLANNING & WATER SECURITY ARE LINKED
By Marilyn Hempel
Population growth alone may lead to humans using 70 percent of available freshwater resources by 2025, but if current increases in rates of use continue, we will be using more than 90 percent!
Population growth is a significant driving force in the world's growing water crisis. If current trends continue, two thirds of the world's people may face water shortages by 2025. Investments in reproductive health, including family planning, can help slow population growth and reduce water insecurity, according to Global Population and Water a report by the United Nations Population Fund.
Access to fresh water should be recognized as a basic human right, yet one sixth of the world's people live without reliable water sources. Exposure to contaminated water is linked to pregnancy failures as well as infant illnesses and deaths, according to the report. Lack of access to safe water and sanitation, especially in rural areas and poor communities, obliges women to spend hours every day collecting water from communal taps or directly from streams and rivers. This exposes them and their children to malaria and to other water-related diseases, and causes millions of preventable deaths each year, the majority of which occur among children under the age of five.
Presently, world population grows by about 77 million people each year, with the bulk in developing countries. By 2025, the report states, 5 billion of the world's 7.9 billion people will be living in areas where it will be difficult-sometimes even impossible-to meet basic water needs for drinking, cooking and sanitation if present water consumption rates are maintained. Between now and 2025, total water use is projected to increase by 40 percent. When basic water needs are not met, people migrate, often causing further stresses on communities, human, plant and animal.
Current population growth and water use trends do not bode well for future generations, complicating the already great economic, social, and environmental costs of competing water needs. Population growth alone will lead to humans using 70% of available freshwater resources by 2025, but if current increases in rates of use continue, we will be using more than 90%.
Increased access to education and health care, including family planning services, will improve lives and expand opportunities for women in regions with water shortages. Much needed-and wanted-family planning will slow population growth and thus reduce pressure on water supplies.
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