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Farmers in South Asia have been fighting with serious droughts in some areas and terrifying floods
in others for some years now.
Ten years ago farmer Bhairu Singh saw water in the well on his dry wasteland in western India.
Experts say, however, things are not going to get any better for Singh and millions of farmers.
The reason? It is global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
According to U.N. estimates, about 2.3 billion people in about 50 nations will be troubled by frightening water shortages by 2020 because of global warming.
For Singh, chief of a village in the besert state of Rajasthan, finding water is an everyday struggle.
He said, “We've been facing a drought for yearas. Our wells have dried up, our crops have withered away and our cattle, too, have died over time.”
He added, “Even though it rained a little this year, it wasn't enough to make up for all those years.”
The gorwing water crisis will only be made worse by yhe melting of mountain glaciers across the world.
Experts say the melting of those glaciers can account for as much as 95 percent of water in river networks.
The Himalayan glaciers are the source of fresh water for many South Asian rivers such as the Ganga and Brahmaputra.
According to some estimates, these glaciers have already receded in the past ten years.
“Himalayan glaciers are shrinking because of climate change,” said a water specialist for the Nepal government.
“This may result in heavy water shortage not only in Aepal but in India and Bangladesh during the dry season. And this may cause flooding in the wet season. Another important consequence of global warming concerns glacier lakes. The glacier lakes may burst their banks due to climate change and cause big floods down the rivers.”
According to a report by the U.N. environment Program, global warming would cause more than 40 Himalayan glacier lakes to burst in the next few years.
The report adds that this would cause floods and would kill thousands of people.
what's worse, world temperatures are predicted to increase by between 1.4 and 5.8℃ by 2100 and sea levels to rise between 9 and 88 centimeters.
In that case, small islands such as the Maldives and many islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific are in danger of drowning.
Sea level rises would make cyclones and storms more dangerous for the people living near the sea.
Already the impact of climate change is clearly seen in the rising summer temperatures in South Asia.
They go up to 50℃.
Monsoons have become harder to predict.
It is now one of the world's most carefully watched phenomena.
Growing populations and greater demand from agriculture, cities and industry also result in a big fall in water availability.
The availability of water for each person in India has fallen to 1,869 cubic meters from 4,000 cubic meters 20 years ago.
Some scholars say it could drop below 1,000 in 20 years.
Water availability in Canada, Russia, the U.S., Japan and China in 2003 was about 90,000, 30,000, 10,000, 3,300 and 2,300 cubic meters respectively.
During the summer, thousands of people in Indian villages walk around for miles in search of water.
Even in cities, water is a precious commodity, and it sometimes leads to street fights.
Too much tapping of ground water has also invited shortages.
“Floods and droughts have been with us for hundreds of years,” said an expert from the Center for Science and Environment in Delhi, “but the impact has become far worse because water is being used more freely and carelessly.”
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