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November 17, 2010Countries at Risk from Water Stress
The risk consulting firm Maplecroft has released an index measuring the countries most at risk from water stress:
The index is calculated by evaluating the ratio of a country’s total water use, from domestic, industrial and agricultural use, to the renewable supply of water from precipitation, streams, rivers and groundwater.At a national level, the Water Stress Index identifies the Middle East and North African countries of Egypt (1), Kuwait (2), UAE (3), Libya (4) and Saudi Arabia (5) as exposed to the most overall risk. Water stress in this region is not surprising as it only receives 1% of the world’s precipitation, of which 85% is lost, for example through evaporation. However, the key economies of Australia (19), India (29), China (40) and USA (51) have all been rated as ‘high risk’ due to massive ‘extreme risk’ areas of water stress, where demand is exceeding 80% of total renewable water resources.
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