Some thoughts on Water ,Climate and the MDGs

1. Climate change has undeniable impacts on water.Direct ways in which climate change impacts the water cycle: effects on precipitation and evaporation cycles.
2. Changing water cycles caused by climate change will affect food production, land use and survival of plant and animal species.
   
3. A balance between mitigation and adaptation strategies has to be established at policy and programme levels so that ‘win-win’ solutions can be realized.
4. Agriculture, as the sector requiring the largest percentage of water resources, is a primary area for development of adaptation strategies.
5. Evidence of the impact of climate change on the earth’s hydrological cycle is mounting in many regions of the world, in the form of increased frequency of floods, droughts and other water hazards and changes in long-term trends in precipitation. In many countries, water “stress” in its various forms is likely to soon become the normal state of affairs.
   
6. Water and the Millennium Development Goals -The Millennium Goals include the following water-related targets:
   ‘To halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the
   world’s people whose income is less than one
   dollar a day and the proportion of people who
   suffer from hunger and, by the same date, to
   halve the proportion of people who are unable
   to reach or to afford safe drinking water.’
   ‘To stop the unsustainable exploitation of water
   resources by developing water management
   strategies at the regional, national and local
   levels, which promote both equitable access
   and adequate supplies.’
7. The Himalayan Rivers and the basins fed by them are
   particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
   Half a billion people live in these river basins, supporting
   a further half billion with food and other needs in their
   hinterlands. The rivers in the southern Himalayas support
   wheat cultivation on a huge scale during the rabi season
   (November to March/April). A diminution of dry season
   flows from snowmelt due to the receding snow line from
   climate change would have a seriously adverse impact on the
   lives of over a billion people in Asia, aggravating the tensions
   over sharing dry season flows.
   – The International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID)
8. Water is part of the vital nexus of climate change, energy,
   food, environmental degradation and economic development.
   Climate change can also directly affect demand for water, for
   instance though changes in demands from industrial cooling,
   household use, or irrigation.
9. Global warming is likely to result in an intensification,
   acceleration or enhancement of the global hydrological cycle.
   There is already evidence that this is happening in some regions
   through increased frequency of floods and droughts and changes
   in long-term precipitation trends. 

Source:The United Nations World Water Development Report 3: Water in a Changing World