WATER AND HUMAN SECURITY

Abstract

As human populations and economies grow exponentially, the amount of freshwater in the world remains roughly the same as it has been throughout history. While the total quantity of water in the world is immense, the vast majority is either saltwater (97.5 percent) or locked up in ice caps (1.75 percent). The amount economically available for human use is only 0.007 percent of the total, or about 13,500 km This comes out to only about 2300 m per person – a 37 percent drop since 1970 (United Nations 1997). Adding complexity to this increasing scarcity is the fact that almost half the globe’s land surface lies within international watersheds (i.e., that land which contributes to the world's 261 transboundary waterways).