By Brett Walton

Circle of Blue – December 20, 2018

A cholera outbreak in Yemen that sickened more than 280,000 people amid a brutal civil war. Day Zero panic in Cape Town. Warnings from the UN climate panel that the planet’s ecosystems are changing more quickly than predicted.

2018 was a tumultuous, eventful year in water. Two questions, as always, hang in the air: Can leaders recognize environmental and social change? If they do, will they respond?

The evidence of monumental alterations to land, water, and air was unmistakable this year. Even government agencies acknowledged it. India’s government-chartered think tank called the continued decline of India’s groundwater and its contamination the country’s “worst water crisis.”

Meanwhile, the head of Iran’s Environment Department said in October that excessive water consumption in that country, where aquifers and lakes are drying up, could result in “terrible social consequences.”

In Pakistan and elsewhere, the depletion of rural water sources is leading farmers to abandon orchards and fields and migrate to already crowded cities.

A growing number of businesses are recognizing the risk of water shortages and floods, according to reports from CDP and the World Economic Forum.

And yet, despite these warnings, government responses are not yet equal to the task. In June the United Nations reported that countries are not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of universal access for water and sanitation. More than 2 billion people today do not have water at home that is free from bacterial contaminants.

In November, the UN also reported that carbon emissions rose in 2017 and country pledges to reduce emissions are not strong enough to avoid two degrees Celsius of warming. Change is coming, whether or not leaders are prepared.