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Risks to water security, a threat to global sustainability: speakers
Coordinator to Federal Tax Ombudsman and Chairman Kyrgyzstan Trade House Meher Kashif Younis Thursday said risks to water security are the greatest threat to attaining global sustainability goals. Speaking at a workshop on “Approach to Water shortage must change ” held under the aegis of Gold Ring Economic Forum in Lahore, he said natural disasters […]
Coordinator to Federal Tax Ombudsman and Chairman Kyrgyzstan Trade House Meher Kashif Younis Thursday said risks to water security are the greatest threat to attaining global sustainability goals.
Speaking at a workshop on “Approach to Water shortage must change ” held under the aegis of Gold Ring Economic Forum in Lahore, he said natural disasters are occurring with alarming frequency and Climate change is disrupting global weather patterns, triggering increasingly extreme weather events including floods, droughts, and heat waves, exacerbating water scarcity and causing catastrophic suffering from Pakistan to the United States to Kenya.
He said global heating of between two to four degrees Celsius could cause up to 4 billion people to experience some level of water scarcity. Historically, water storage systems have enabled humans to thrive in a range of climatic conditions. But as the climate changes, many water storage systems are becoming – or in some regions have already become – no longer fit for the purpose. Exacerbating the water crisis is the fact that the world is already experiencing a widening water storage gap – the difference between the amount of water storage needed and the amount of storage that exists for a given time and place.
Meher Kashif Younis said that over half a century, while the global population doubled, natural freshwater storage declined by around 27,000 billion cubic meters due to melting glaciers and snowpack, and the destruction of wetlands and floodplains. Concurrently, the volume of water in built storage is threatened as sediment fills storage space in artificial reservoirs while maintenance of dams, water tanks, and other man-made structures lags in many regions, he added.
He said In short, global water storage is decreasing just when water storage is becoming critical to mitigating the effects of climate change. If we are to meet our climate adaptation and mitigation targets, inertia is not an option. To manage escalating hydro-variability, provide for increased water demands due to higher temperatures, and sustain progress in food and energy security, a fundamental change in how we conceptualize and manage water storage is required.
How must traditional approaches to water storage planning and management evolve to meet the progressively urgent needs of the twenty-first century?
He said the increased uncertainty brought about by climate change is daunting.
He said that some storage investments are proving unequal to the challenge and need to be altered for safety concerns and performance requirements; to handle increased floods.
He suggested, “A diverse storage system which incorporates characteristics of natural and built storage will be more resilient to weather-related shocks than individual facilities”.
He further suggested that evolving our water storage strategy is not the entire answer to climate change, but a holistic approach that brings together a range of economic sectors and stakeholders, both public and private, and, backed by investment, will create a strong foundation for sustainable solutions to adapt to climate change.
While concluding Meher Kashif Younis said it is clear that in the future, the regions that will emerge as most resilient will be those that have made the most of their water storage.
As we rise to the challenges of development in the context of climate change, smarter water storage solutions can be the difference between human suffering and securing a future.
