Water Issues Confronting the Next President

Abstract

The analysis presented in this article is based on an intensive study of water issues that face the world. Explicit in its detailed recommendations about how the techniques available for increasing the supply of fresh water can be applied to meet the needs of economic development, as well as nurture the lives of the world's expanding population, is the sense that the next president should address the issues as soon as he comes to office because – as the editors of Fortune Magazine have emphasized – “water promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th: the precious commodity that determines the wealth of nations.”

Notes

Typical was the following notice I saw posted in 1991 in the rest room of the San Diego Airport: “PLEASE CONSERVE WATER. The San Diego region is in its fifth year of a water drought. As a result, the local Water Department has requested that water consumption be reduced by 20% starting April 23, 1991. Your cooperation in conserving this precious commodity, water, is appreciated. SAN DIEGO UNIFIED PORT DISTRICT.” Other localities imposed even more stringent restrictions.

Frank Collins reported: “Eighty percent of California water is used in agriculture, and at heavily subsidized prices, sometimes as low as one-tenth of the cost of producing it.” In “The Vanishing Waters of the Middle East,” The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 1991, 30.

Source: Currents—News from the World Water Assessment Program (UN-WWAP) Issue no. 21, November 2005.

Information from World Water Development Report “Water for People, Water for Life” (http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/table_contents.shtml#part1) and from the Web site Vital Water Graphics: Water use and management section, http://www.unep.org/vitalwater/management.htm

Ibid.

More information on how to obtain this and other Leeb research reports dealing with natural resources is available by calling toll free 877-883-8356. I take no position on the suitability of any of these stocks as investments and urge readers to consult with their own financial advisers as to the appropriateness of any of Dr. Leeb's recommendations for their own portfolios.

Article by Anat Georgi and Amiram Cohen in Ha'aretz, June 7, 2001.