by Donna M. Houston

Created on: May 30, 2008

How is the struggle for water, such as in Ethiopia and Kenya, shaping conflicts in this century?

How long do you think you can live without water? Depending on whom you ask the answer is somewhere between three days and three weeks. Terry Schiavo survived for an unexpected 13 days without fluids. The fact is that one day without clean, potable water puts you in the danger zone.' Our bodies are comprised of two-thirds water. Second only to oxygen it is the most needed nutrient of the human body. A minimum of 2 quarts a day are required to maintain optimal health. The immediacy when your life not just your livelihood - are threatened, when survival time is measured in days or weeks underscores the urgency of the water shortage crises unfolding throughout the world.

That renewable resource water can no longer keep pace with the demands of a shrinking planet. In the IRIN in-depth series: "Running dry: the humanitarian impact of the global water crisis" New Scientist environmental expert and author Fred Pearce states "Our demand for water has turned us into vampires, draining the world of its lifeblood". Growing populations and burgeoning industry effect weather-patterns worldwide while some farming technologies tax already burdened water sources. Lakes are drying up and rivers are running toxic: we are running out of water.

Still it is hard to see with a global vision when it is personal. In February 2008, over 14,000 livestock were lost due to drought in the Borena Zone of Ethiopia. In Kiberia, a massive Kenyan slum, more than 800,000 people share just 600 toilets. Most of them live on less than one dollar a day yet they can pay up to five times more than their wealthier neighbors for often unhealthy water. Klaus Topfer, former Chief of the UN Environment Programme said in 2002, "Without adequate, clean water there can be no escape from poverty."

Thirty years ago the late Anwar Sadat said The only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water." That sentiment was repeated by Boutrous Ghali in 1988, "The next war in our region will be over the waters of the Nile, not politics." Prescient words in the face of the many conflicts worldwide over water so far this century. Anwar Sadat may have been speaking out against the proposed construction of dams in the headwaters of the Blue Nile by Ethiopia but they ring just as true today, in a universal context.

A report on the BBC in 2000 told of thirsty monkeys attacking villagers for water in drought stricken Kenya.

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