Water and Energy

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has issued the World Water Development Report for 2014 with a theme focused on water and energy. Increasing demand for both are intertwined.  Energy is needed to provide water and water is needed to produce energy.  Agence France-Presse (AFP) offers these highlights:

Global water demand is likely to increase by 55 percent by 2050. By then, more than 40 percent of the world's population will be living in areas of "severe" water stress, many of them in the broad swathe of land from North Africa and the Middle East to western South Asia. 

Asia will be the biggest hotspot for bust-ups over water extraction, where water sources straddle national borders. "Areas of conflict include the Aral Sea and the Ganges-Brahmaputra River, Indus River and Mekong River basins," said the report. 

Global energy demand is expected to grow by more than a third by 2035, with China, India and Middle Eastern countries accounting for 60 percent of the increase. 

In 2010, energy production gobbled up 66 billion cubic metres (2,300 billion cu. feet) of fresh water — more than the average annual flow of the River Nile in Egypt.

From the report: