Mankind might well appear to be winning its battle with nature but, if the conflict continues for much longer, it is certain to lose the war. Long before we have managed to extinguish the other species that share this planet, the destruction of its fragile life support systems will surely have wiped out whatever we would consider as civilisation today.

 

More and more persons, each wanting more and more things is hardly a sustainable proposition in the face of a finite resource base. Human ingenuity and technology can only buy us a little time – they cannot solve the underlying, fundamental problem. Only slowing the growth of demand for the services our environment provides can do that.

 

Over the past forty years, the limits set by nature have become increasingly apparent to some of us, though admittedly not to many. The main reason is, of course, that for most people – as for most ostriches -- it is easier to ignore the impending danger than to make the inconvenient changes needed to deal with it. For them, such limits exist only after they have already been transgressed. The trouble with that is, given the exponential mathematics of natural processes and the long lag times between cause and effect, it is already too late when the proof becomes available.

 

But how much proof do we need? Fossil fuels may well appear to be plentiful today, but it will not take many decades for them to become quite scarce, particularly if everyone starts using them as cavalierly as in the industrialised countries today. Why else would well informed nations go to war with others to protect the supplies of such resources?

 

The threats to other life support systems – the stratospheric ozone shield, global climate, biodiversity – have already reached stages where these issues have, within a decade of being recognised, raced their way up to the top of the international agenda.

 

Of all the resources and natural processes, water is the one over which major conflict is most likely within the next few decades. Not only among nations, but also between provinces and within communities.

 

The signs of such conflict are already with us, often camouflaged by uneasy truces and agreements: in the American South-west, in the Danube basin, in the Sub-continent. Civil strife over water resources has already occurred between states in South India, and led to tensions between metropolitan cities and their neighbouring countrysides.

 

Water is the lifeline of most human activities: agricultural, industrial, domestic. Nearly 70% of all living tissue and more than 50% of all raw materials in industrial production consists of water. Not only civilisation but life itself and water go hand-in-hand together.

 

The reason water has been taken so much for granted, and never explicitly treated as a resource is that for most of history, and in most parts of the inhabited world, it was freely and plentifully available. But, all of a sudden, it no longer is. Population growth and economic activity has, within the space of a few decades, taken it from worldwide abundance to local scarcity.

 

The primary reason for this is that, by tradition, water has been an “open access” resource. It has been available, on a first come first served basis, freely and free. This meant that it was used, and misused, without concern for its intrinsic cost or for its contribution to value addition. Or for the impact on its long term availability. And, of course, as it becomes increasingly scarce, it goes mainly to those who have the political power or economic capital to appropriate it by controlling the sources.

 

Recent studies have shown that water, more perhaps than any other resource, is grossly underpriced. Many users in agriculture, industry and homes get it at a price that is one-hundredth that of the cost of delivering it. And one-thousandth that of the value it adds to the products or services it makes possible.

 

No wonder our agriculture and industry depend on technologies that waste this precious resource with so much profligacy. And result in such rapidly accelerating scarcity.

 

Water, like other scarce resources, needs to be priced. Neither too high, nor too low – but judiciously graded to make it accessible to all segments of society and yet minimize any waste. It also needs to be placed within the local control of communities that can decide on its distribution among the different uses and users who need it.

 

Only thus will it be conserved and sustained -- and also be available to everyone, rich and poor, equitably and fairly.