The results of an assessment of 50 years of water-management practices, carried out by 700 experts from around the world over the past five years, were published at the World Water Week in Stockholm on 21 August 2006. The report, authored by CGIAR, a strategic agricultural research alliance, calls for a radical new agenda for agricultural water management.
The proposed agenda highlights the need to obtain the maximum social, environmental and economic value out of every drop of water and thus the urgent need to increase water productivity. It also calls for multiple uses of water (such as integrated systems for domestic use and crop growth) and improved water governance.
Another report, published by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) on 16 August 2006, states that one in three people in the world currently suffer from water shortage and that Europe "will become dramatically dryer this century" as a result of climate change.
The WWF Rich countries, poor water report argues that a "combination of climate change and drought and loss of wetlands that store water, along with poorly thought-out water infrastructure and resource mismanagement, is making this crisis truly global". It states that water-intensive tourism and explosion of irrigated agriculture are endangering the water resources of the Mediterranean, and pollution remediation in Europe's heartland will not be enough to rescue contaminated water sources.
The WWF is thus calling on governments to search for solutions, which include repairing ageing infrastructure, reducing contaminants, and changing irrigation practices in the way that crops are grown.
