More than half of global food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years, without urgent action to conserve water and stop destruction of the ecosystems we depend upon for fresh water, the Guardian reported this week.
This was the key finding of a major review by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, which also concluded that global demand for fresh water would outstrip supply by 40% by the end of this decade.
The news came as the European Environment Agency reported that two thirds of the EU’s water bodies were in bad condition and water scarcity was affecting a fifth of its land each year (£).
Closer to home, both the Observer and the BBC published exclusives this week about illegal sewage dumping by England’s privatised water companies. The BBC reported yesterday that United Utilities “repeatedly dumped millions of litres of raw sewage illegally” into the iconic Lake Windermere “over a three-year period”.