Sick water?

Population living in river basins where freshwater withdrawal exceeds 40 per cent of renewable resources

Million people

Asia and the Pacific

Projection for

2 964

2050

2025

2010

2 110

Africa

552

Latin America Caribbean

North America

Europe

West Asia

217

239

119

137

133

Population by region was calculated averaging the results forecasted by the scenarios of the GEO-4 report using the WaterGAP modeling.

Source: Fourth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4 report), UNEP, 2007.

Figure 19 .

exposed land, where floods also spread diseases and cause diar- rhoea through the flooding of open sewage or inadequate sew- age infrastructure. Increased capacity to capture and store water, as well as efficient use of water, and maximizing resources that are available will be important adaptation strategies. Increasing pressure on water resources through increasing populations and more unreliable rainfall has in some regions pushed the exploitation of groundwater resources as other sources decline. Eighty per cent of drinking water in Russia and Europe comes from these slowly repleating resources (Struckmeier et al , 2005).

in the timing and intensity of rainfall, or the period of time without rain, as well as affecting the quality of water in rivers and lakes through changes in the timing and volume of peak discharge and temperature (IPCC, 2007). Anticipation of more droughts and extreme rainfall events has impacts for non-existent or old, inadequate wastewater treat- ment facilities highlighting the need for infrastructure that can cope with extreme surges of wastewater. Changes in the reli- ability of the water supply have major impacts on the livelihoods and health of the poorest communities which rely on rainfall or surface waters and tend to settle in the available low-lying flood-

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