ABSTRACT
The pattern and intensity of human activity have disrupted – through impacts on quantity and quality – the role of water as the prime environmental agent. In some areas depletion and pollution of economically important water resources have gone beyond the point of no-return, and coping with a future without reliable water resources systems is now a real prospect in parts of the world.
While the intensity of groundwater use, partly encouraged by subsidized rural electrification, has led to the emergence of many groundwater-dependent economies, their future is now threatened by aquifer depletion and pollution. Prospects for relaxing use of these key aquifers, remediating water quality and restoring groundwater services to ecosystems look remote unless alternative management approaches are developed.
Our ability to maintain the environmental services we depend on has improved but remains constrained by an incomplete understanding of the magnitude and impact of pollution, the resilience of affected ecosystems and the uses and management of water resources systems. A failure to monitor the negative impacts of water use on the environment and institutional weaknesses in many developing countries prevent effective enforcement of regulatory provisions.
Relevant information about pollution loads and changes in water quality is lacking precisely where water use is most intense – in densely populated developing countries. As a result, the often serious impacts of polluting activities on the health of people and ecosystems remain largely unreported. Still, there are signs of progress in how pollution and the risks of pollution can be mitigated, and trends in environmental degradation reversed.
