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Consider a few facts:
The most water intensive crops are, in declining order of water use:

Beef: 15,500 liters are needed to produce 1 kg. of beef.
Pork: 4,800 liters per kilo of pork
Chicken: 3,900 liters/kg
Wheat: 1,300 liters/kg
Milk: 1,000 liters/kg
Potatoes: The lowly potato performs best , in terms of water utilization, requires only 900 liters per kilo.

Armed with the knowledge now consider the evolution of diets as economy grow and change. In the past, families in very poor nations have typically relied heavily on vegetarian diets – grains, berries, flowers etc. Except in countries where cultural and religious tradition prohibits (beef in India, pork in Muslim world), the economic history of world since 1900 reveals clearly that rising incomes leads to a shift toward more meat in diets.

For freshwater supplies this is an important development. Raising a kilo of wheat requires 1000 liters of water. 15,500 liters of water are needed to produce a kilo of beef, at least, 11 times that that for wheat.

An example of the wheat/beef trade off. In 1985, when China first began to grow rapidly, the average Chinese consumed 9.1 pounds of meat per year. By 2008 with per capita income at least twice that of 1985 the average Chinese ate 23 pounds of meat – 2.5 times as much in only 13 years.

More generally, as poverty decreases in emerging nations, we find that intensity of water use rises . As a result, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. estimates that by 2030 the world will need 60% more water for agriculture merely accommodate population growth and economic growth in emerging nations, let alone rich nations .

In spite of these considerations, governments all over the world continue to preside over waste of water in such “green backfires” (see Chapter ___) as the subsidies for producing corn for biofuels in the U.S., in the vain hope of reducing global warming.

It has been estimated that over half of all government investments in agriculture in LDCs in the late 20th Century went into irrigation development. In Mexico fully 80% of all public investment in agriculture has been in irrigation projects. There, charges for irrigation water average only 11% of total costs. And in a sample of World Bank irrigation projects in LDCs revenues covered only 7% of project costs, on average. In most other countries revenue from farmers cover less than 20% of capital and operating costs. Again we see that when a resource is underpriced, it will be overused and wasted.

Very cheap prices for irrigation water have, of course, resulted in very high rates of water waste, whether from the Colorado River, the Indus River, or the Aral Sea of the former Soviet Union, straddling Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. In sun-Saharan Africa, 42% of the population lacks access to improved water sources, and regional water shortages are very serious. Before long local water issues could become easily global and wars may be fought over water.

What can be done?

First it must be recognized that the overuse of drinking water for households is not a major cause of the problem, but again substantial water is wasted by:

  1. Under pricing of drinking water
  2. Very large leaks in local water systems that are under maintained an in ill repair (Indiana, NYC)

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Source:  OpenStax, Economic development for the 21st century. OpenStax CNX. Jun 05, 2015 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11747/1.12
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