The council, an international agency supported by the United Nations and World Bank, is seeking 10,000 volunteers from around the globe to describe water problems affecting their lives, and to suggest solutions.
"We are empowering any interested person to gather information on water problems and solutions and address them directly to the policy makers," the council said in a news release Wednesday.
William Cosgrove of Montreal, vice-president of the council, said the program is intended to raise awareness of problems in developing countries, but North America has its share of bad water management as well.
"Neither the United States nor Canada have made much progress in this area," Cosgrove said.
Cosgrove supports the contention of University of Alberta scientist David Schindler that parts of Canada face severe, long-term water shortages if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
"All of the models that I have seen from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (a UN science agency) . . . show that part of North America is going to be suffering from increased water scarcity," says Cosgrove.
"In the Great Lakes basin we're already withdrawing all of the water that we should . . . without causing harm to the water levels and the whole system."
Perhaps the most spectacular water disaster described on the Website (www.worldwaterforum.org/voice/en/) is in Bangladesh, where UNICEF drilled thousands of wells without realizing the groundwater in some areas contains high levels of soluble arsenic.
Now an estimated 36 million people in the country are suffering from arsenic poisoning.
"The most devastating truth is that arsenic poisoning in our water supply has no effective treatment," says a Bangladeshi professor on the site. "Each day, several arsenic-poisoned people are dying in rural areas."
Another writer from the Magu district of Tanzania says the water supply there is adequate for less than half the total population. During the dry season people must travel eight to 10 kilometers to find water.
"The water problems occurring around the world constitute a global issue threatening the very existence of human beings," says the World Water Council.
"We, the present generation, should shoulder the responsibility for addressing these issues. We cannot pass the burden on to the next generation."
Source: Canadian Press
