Award winning paper questions link between water scarcity and poverty
A far reaching overview of water, agriculture and poverty has won a Paper of the Year award from the International Water Resources Institute. The authors, including IWMI scientist Mark Giordano, looked at river basin level case studies from 3 continents and concluded that perceptions of water scarcity do not necessarily reflect its actual availability, or link directly to levels of poverty.
"People with less available water are not necessarily poorer than those with abundant water," says Giordano. "In fact, some of the poorest people live in water-rich areas such as Bangladesh, where the poor suffer disproportionately from flooding. Some of the world’s richest people live in water-scarce regions such as Israel."
