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World Water Day 2012: Water, mountains' "blue gold"

22.03.2012

It’s our planet’s most precious resource and our cities our powered by it: it’s water! And water comes from mountains.  It flows from the watersheds at higher altitudes creating life along its course, all the way down to the river deltas.  The sustainable management of water is the single most important priority for all mountain regions.  Water is a true mountain service and all other services depend on it.  That is why mountains are rightly called water towers.  In fact they are a lot more – they are Towers of Life. All of the major rivers rise in mountain regions, providing about 50 percent of all freshwater to downstream users. Without water, there is no food to feed growing populations.  Without water and mountains, there are no solutions to meet the growing demand for clean energy.  Without water, biodiversity and ecosystem integrity cannot be sustained.  Without clean and reliable water, human and global well-being is jeopardized. More in the March issue of “Peak to Peak”!
Some facts:

• 783 million people still lack access to clean water
• 40% of the food is irrigated, half of which uses groundwater
• Most of the water we ‘drink’ is embedded in the food we eat
• Producing 1 kilo of beef consumes 15,000 litres of water while 1 kilo of wheat ’drinks up’ 1,500 litres
• 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted or thrown away every year. Cutting that amount would save water!
• Lack of access challenges poverty reduction goals (especially health, education, and food production)
• Water scarcity is a growing reason for local and regional conflict

UN World Water Day 2012: We are thirsty because we are hungry! (Official Website)

• Mountain Partnership and Rio+20:  “Water, Food and Energy nexus: why mountains matter” (26 March 2012, UN headquarters, New York)
• Last Call at the Oasis (Video)