Death of world's rivers : Disaster in the making.

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The Independant, 13 Mar 2006. Death of the world's rivers Disaster warning

from UN as investigation reveals half of the planet's 500 biggest rivers are

seriously depleted or polluted By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

Published: 12 March 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article350785.ece

 

 

The world's great rivers are drying up at an alarming rate, with devastating

consequences for humanity, animals and the future of the planet.

The Independent on Sunday can today reveal that more than half the world's 500

mightiest rivers have been seriously depleted. Some have been reduced to a

trickle in what the United Nations will this week warn is a " disaster in the

making " .

From the Nile to China's Yellow River, some of the world's great water systems

are now under such pressure that they often fail to deposit their water in the

ocean or are interrupted in the course to the sea, with grave consequences for

the planet.

Adding to the disaster, all of the 20 longer rivers are being disrupted by big

dams. One-fifth of all freshwater fish species either face extinction or are

already extinct.

The Nile and Pakistan's Indus are greatly reduced by the time they reach the

sea. Some, such as the Colorado and China's Yellow River, now rarely reach the

ocean at all. Others, such as the Jordan and the Rio Grande on the US-Mexico

border, are dry for much of their length.

Even in Britain, a quarter of the country's 160 chalk rivers and steams - such

as the Kennet in Wiltshire, the Darent in Kent, and the Wylye in Wiltshire - are

running out of water because too much is being abstracted for homes, industry

and agriculture.

This week an influential UN report will officially warn the world's

governments of an " alarming deterioration " in the planet's rivers, lakes and

other freshwater systems. Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the United

Nations Environment Programme, told the IoS yesterday that the state of the

world's rivers is " a disaster in the making " .

The UN's triennial World Water Development Report, compiled for an

international conference in Mexico City which opens on Thursday, warns that " we

have hugely changed the natural order of rivers worldwide " , mainly through giant

dams and global warming. Some 45,000 big dams now block the world's rivers,

trapping 15 per cent of all the water that used to flow from the land to the

sea. Reservoirs now cover almost 1 per cent of land surface.

The UN report says that demand for them " will continue to increase " , but

recommends that they should be barred from the world's remaining, undammed

" free-flowing " rivers.

 

 

 

 

" Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest

of life by the power of the spirit. " - Aurobindo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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