UNITED NATIONS: The world’s limited reserves of clean, fresh water are shrinking fast and posing serious threats to public health, political stability and the environment, according to an analysis released by the United Nations.

The 600-page report, the most comprehensive assessment of the planet’s most essential natural resource, predicts that as many as seven billion people in 60 countries could face water scarcity by 2050. In just 20 years, the report predicts, the average supply of water per person worldwide will have dropped by one- third, affecting almost every nation and especially those already on the economic edge.

“Of all the social and natural crises we humans face, the water crisis is the one that lies at the heart of our survival and that of our planet Earth,” said Koichiro Matsuura, director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the lead agency among the 23 UN groups that collaborated in the report’s creation.

Mismanagement, global warming and population growth have caused the crisis, the report says. Solutions are within reach, but because of political “inertia,” it says, “the future for many parts of the world looks bleak.”

The release of the World Water Development Report, more than two years in the making, comes one week before the start of an international summit, the 3rd World Water Forum in Kyoto. Delegations from more than 100 nations, along with thousands of other participants, will try to hammer out principles and goals to defuse the planet’s water problems and avert the water wars that some foresee.

The report paints a dire picture of a precious resource growing increasingly scarce and sullied because of failed water management policies, including an over-reliance on large dams and shortsighted efforts to over-privatize the fresh water market.

But it also points to the possibility of a happier hydrologic future, in which improved infrastructure, sensible pricing plans, conservation technologies and water treaties are brought to bear.

The key, the report concludes, is a better understanding of water’s pervasive importance, intelligent investment and a broader implementation of the UN dictum that access to clean water is a human right.—Dawn/The Washington Post News Service.