By Rich Bowden:

A growing population and increasing industrialisation have been listed as the chief threats to water supply in the Asia Pacific, according to a UN-sponsored report released last month.

The “Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2009″ study, released by the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), said the region had the world’s second lowest per capita renewable water resources despite having the biggest share of the world’s freshwater resources.

“Having the largest land area of the world’s regions, the Asia-Pacific region also has the largest share of the world’s freshwater resources,” said the study. “Total internal renewable water resources are 21,135 billion cubic meters. But this impressive endowment is coupled with large populations and high water utilization rates which give the region the world’s the second lowest per capita renewable water resources.”

“On average, the region withdraws about 11 percent of its total renewable water resources, second in the world, after the water-scarce Middle East, and on par with utilization rates in Europe,” it continued.

UNESCAP has said agriculture consumes the highest amount of water in the Asia Pacific region with 79.2 percent, though this proportion has reduced in recent years. However it warns of the increased use of water resources by the industrial sector in countries including China and Vietnam where water use has tripled since 1992.

This increase reflects the recent economic boom in countries such as China, a boom underpinned by the expansion of heavy industry.

However Lee-Huu Ti, chief of the water security section with the United Nation’s regional economic and social commission in Bangkok, told Voice of America News (VOANews) that the real problem lay in the pollution of water resources.

“Water quality [and] the deterioration water quality is a serious issue in Asia,” he said. “More and more water is polluted because of development. [In] most of the city urban areas the water has become much more dirty than before. Much more polluted than before – this is a general trend.”

Ermina Sokou, environmental affairs officer in the U.N. water resources section, added that poor access to adequate sanitation facilities was also hampering improvements in drinking water supply.

“Access to sanitation, that is a big issue and it’s bringing the whole household water security level down,” Sokou told VOA. “It affects human health, it affects environmental health and it also affects water quality, because a lot of pollutants that came from households and human settlements in the water are causing a lot of diarrhea diseases.”

While the UNESCAP report points to significant gains towards achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015, it said progress towards similar sanitation goals are lagging.

“Between 1990 and 2006, the proportion of the region’s population with access to improved drinking water sources increased from 74 percent to 88 percent,” said the survey.

“This places the region ahead of Africa at 64 percent, but behind Latin America and the Caribbean at 91 percent, and North America and Europe 99 percent. The region made the greatest gains in the rural areas where the proportion of the population with access to improved water sources increased from 63 to 83 percent.”

However the report found “…only, around 56% of the region’s population have access to improved sanitation, which is higher than in Africa at 39%, but lower than in Latin America and the Caribbean at 79% – and also lower than the global average of 60%.”

UNESCAP said the results vary on access to sanitation facilities throughout sub regions of Asia. Progress has been made in East and North-East Asia which increased access by 15 percentage points between 1990 and 2006.

A similar increase in access occurred in South-East Asia where the increase was 17 percentage points.

However the improvement was less marked in South and South West Asia and poor access in rural areas of Pacific states such as Kiribati, Solomon Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia were masked by high proportions in countries in the same sub region such as Australia and New Zealand.

“In the rural areas of the Pacific, the average is driven by Australia and New Zealand – which tends to mask low coverage in the smaller Pacific islands – 20% in Kiribati, for example, 18% in the Solomon Islands and only 14% in the Federated States of Micronesia,” said the study.

The statistics released in the Yearbook’s report are the region’s leading compilation of trends and statistical data for the Asia Pacific region providing “a detailed picture of the major economic, social and environmental trends over the past two decades,” according to a UNESCAP news release.

Tags: industrialisation, NGO, population, sanitation, sanitation asia pacific, UN, UNESCAP, Water, water asia pacific