President János Áder has warned of an imminent water crisis during the 8th World Water Forum in Brasília.
The president said the world must not take its water supply for granted; the water crisis is not the future but the present.
“If we don’t succeed in meeting our targets for water sustainability, then meeting the other targets will also become hopeless,” he said.
Citing data from a report by the High-Level Panel on Water, President Áder said that two out of five people now live in water-stressed regions.
The president added that some 2.1 billion people are forced to drink polluted water, and the sewage of 4.5 billion people is not properly treated. What’s more, around 80 percent of sewage is still released back into the environment without proper treatment.
President Áder warned that projections slated for 2050 paint an even more alarming picture. By then, half of the world’s population is projected to be living in water-stressed areas and desertification will affect one billion people. The number of water-related disasters is projected to increase dramatically, he added.
The president also highlighted that 40 percent of the world’s population lives in divided catchment areas. He said it was crucial that countries sharing rivers and ponds agree on their shared use and water pollution management.