Thirsty? Grab a glass and fill it with water from the tap in the kitchen. Or, you might want to draw it from your refrigerator door along with some ice, crushed or cubed. Or, you might reach inside the fridge and grab a bottle of purified water you purchased at the grocery store. Then sit back, relax, and read this article while you enjoy your water.Isn’t life grand?Not for 748 million people around the world who have no access to clean water. And, despite the growing volume of lofty rhetoric about how the United Nations and the world are addressing the global water crisis, the world is in a precarious situation. Exacerbating the matter, the prospects for the future are bleak.

Sea metrics describes the current situation as “nearly impossible to imagine for people who have only to turn a knob to receive a flood of cool, crisp, and clean water.” They add that

“The world is hurtling toward a future with dwindling water resources, and the news is all gloom and doom. The number of lives threatened is staggering and the available solutions limited.”

The Water Crisis Now

1. 748 million is a lot of people – about one out of every 10. In perspective, 748 million is more than twice the population of the United States.
2. More people die from using unclean water (perhaps their only source) than from all other forms of violence and war combined.
3. Children are dying at the rate of one every minute from diseases contracting from unclean water. Those diseases kill more children under the age of five than malaria, measles, and AIDS combined.
4. One-quarter of healthcare services in the least developed countries do not have access to a clean water supply.
5. The five countries where the water crisis threat is most severe are undeveloped nations faced with the additional obstacle of not being able to afford to purchase water. Those countries include Libya, Western Sahara, Yemen, Djibouti, and Jordan. Four of the five are also in the midst of military conflicts that impede the acquisition and distribution of clean water.

The Water Crisis Ahead

1. The think-tank, Resilience, projects that half the people in the world will be living in water-stressed areas within the next five years. (Water-stressed defines an area where there is not enough clean water to meet necessary human demand.)
2. UNESCO expects that anywhere from 24 million to 700 million people will be displaced by 2025 due to water stress and water scarcity.
3. Demand for clean water will increase proportionately with the projected population growth. The global population is expected to reach 9.7 billion within the next 30 years. That is an increase of nearly two billion, or 24 percent. The demand for clean water will increase by 15 percent.
4. The U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment of Global Water Security anticipates “a 40 percent gap between the demand for water and the availability of water by the year 2030.”
5. The International Energy Agency predicts that energy consumption will increase by 35 percent by 2035. In turn, that will place an additional 15 percent demand for water.

According to Sea metrics,

“A water shortage is not only about a physical lack of water. If that were the case many parts of the U.S. would be in the same position as many of these countries. It is often more about economic resources, which is what makes it so important to understand that the global water crisis is a human problem rather than a series of isolated geographical inconveniences.”

As World Water Day 2020 approaches (March 22), Missions Box News will continue to apprise readers of the status of the water crisis. The crisis could become one of epic proportions that will require Divine intervention.

Ultimately, our answered prayers may be the only solution to the current and impending crisis as the world is reminded that it is ultimately unable to self-govern aside from obedience to our Creator.

To read more news on Global Water Crisis on Missions Box, go here.