The number of people living in water-stressed countries is projected to climb from 470 million to 3 billion by 2025. With this number of people living in countries lacking enough water to be food self-sufficient, competition for grain imports will increase. Whether the United States, Europe, and other exporters will produce sufficient surpluses to meet those import demands is only half the issue. Hanging over these worsening water problems is the prospect of climate change. One likely effect of higher temperatures and more rapid melting of winter snowpacks is a reduction in available water supplies during the summer months, when farms and cities need water most.
Water scarcity is now the single biggest threat to global food production.
Only by taking action now to conserve the water supplies in our major crop-producing regions can we secure enough water to satisfy future food needs. She directs the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Massachusetts, and is a Senior Fellow of Worldwatch Institute. The current issue of World Watch magazine contains an article by Sandra Postel on water shortages that is available as a free PDF file.