Water refugees: disappearing groundwater could force cities to relocate

Updated - Tuesday 10 February 2004

?With most of the nearly 3 billion people to be added to the world's population by 2050 living in countries where water tables are already falling and where population growth swells the ranks of those sinking into hydrological poverty, water refugees are likely to become commonplace?, says Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute (EPI). Until now most ?water refugees? have come from villages, but eventually whole cities might have to be relocated, such as Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, or Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan province. By 2010 it is expected that both cities will have exhausted their supply of groundwater. Villages in northwestern India have been abandoned because over-pumping of local aquifers. The 4,000 residents of a village in the western reaches of Inner Mongolia were forced to leave because their aquifer was depleted. Millions of villagers in northern and western China and in parts of Mexico may have to move because of a lack of water.

Contact: EPI, USA, epi@earth-policy.org, http://www.earth-policy.org

Source: EPI, 28 Jan 2004

EPI - Water Scarcity Spreading, http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/indicator...