ABSTRACT
In recent years there has been a growing perception of a looming water scarcity. There is a currently fashionable thesis that future wars will be fought over water, not oil. That is a debatable proposition, but the prognosis of acute water scarcity in the not too distant future cannot easily be disputed. The water available to us on earth today is no different in quantity from what was available thousands of years ago. That finite quantity has to be juxtaposed against increasing demands from a growing population. The population of the world, currently around 6 billion, is expected to exceed 8 billion by the year 2050. Apart from sheer numbers, the processes of urbanisation and ‘development’ are also expected to result in a vast increase in the demand for fresh water. It is this projection that leads to predictions of water scarcity, which could be severe in some parts of the world. (Incidentally, global figures are not of much practical significance: water is not an internationally traded commodity to an extent comparable to oil, and the
availability of water in a distant part of the world is not of much significance to a water-short country or region. A new concept of ‘virtual water trade’ has made its appearance in this context, but we need not go into it here).
