Introduction: water, food and poverty in river basins

The world faces emerging crises of water and food. Its population already nears 7 billion and is forecast to be at least 9 billion by 2050. The increased population will need 70 percent more food than it does today (Bruinsma 2009), which has major implications for the global environment that supports the food system. That goal will be a lot harder to achieve than the green revolution last century.