The dire warning that hurried urbanization coupled with rapid industrialization and wasteful use of water are devastating fragile natural resources and undermining the health and well-being of a growing number of people has gone unheeded. Without a shade of doubt, water, not oil is the most precious fluid in our lives, the substance from which all life on earth has sprung and continues to depend on. To be more precise if we run short of oil or other fossil fuels we can use other alternative sources but if we have no clean, drinkable water, we are doomed.

Shockingly for a planet that is 71 per cent water less than 3 per cent of it is fresh. And most of it is in the form of ice and snow in Greenland and Antarctica or in deep underground aquifer. And less than 1 per cent of that water -- to be more precise 0.01 per cent of all earth's water -- is considered available for human needs. But even then much of it is far from large populations. At the dawn of the 21st century, more than one billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and some 2.4 billion -- 40 per cent of the world population -- lack adequate sanitation.

Alarm bell has been sounded from various international organizations like the World Bank, UNDP, WHO, FAO, UNIDO, UNESCO etc. on the availability of fresh water resources. Reports circulated by these organizations indicate that the world's supply of clean fresh water already threatened by growing levels of pollution, is going to be so scarce in some areas that if current trends continued, two thirds of humanity will suffer moderate to severe water stress within 30 years. The report warns that the situation not only imperils human health and development on a large scale, but also aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems on which much of the human life depends. There is clear and convincing evidence, the report says, that the world faces a worsening series of regional water quantity and quality problems largely as a result of poor water allocation and wasteful use of water resource and lack of adequate management.

The World Bank estimates that 3.3 billion people in the 127 countries of the developing world suffer from water related diseases like diarrhea, dysentery, infection by intestinal worms, dengue fever and Malaria. Here are some more statistics compiled by the United Nations university in Tokyo.

• Every 8 seconds, a child dies from a water related disease.
• 80 per cent of diseases in the developing countries are caused by contaminated water.
• 50 per cent of people on earth lack adequate sanitation. 20 per cent of fresh water fish species have been pushed to the edge of extinction due to contaminated water.

Unfortunately, such statistics don't seem to be persuasive enough for either the world or regional leaders to act expeditiously, or meaningfully, on water management issues.

The glaring lack of attention to water issues seems especially puzzling in light of the fact that the estimated cost to provide safe water in rural areas is $50 per person per year and about $100 per person in cities, according to UN estimates. Current world investment in water related development projects is $8 billion per year, an amount roughly equal to the annual pet food purchases in Europe and the United States of America, said Klaus Toepfer, former head of the UN Environment Programme. The apathy of the state governments in developing countries or more pronouncedly of the world leaders to water issues may be termed as the most critical failure of the 20th century and a major challenge for the 21st century, contends Peter Gleick, one of the world's leading experts on fresh water resources.

Gleick further says that there are many tools for doing so, and the economic costs are not high compared to the costs of failing to meet those needs. There is hardly any second thought about the fact that we are now facing a world water gap and because of our apathy it is getting worse with each passing day. The consequences of failing to bridge the gap will be higher food prices and expensive food imports for water scarce countries that are predominantly poor. Hunger and thirst are linked to political instability, bad governance and low rates of economic growth resulting from perils in water supply system.

Moreover as much as the world becomes urbanised, its water crisis deepens. Large cities already bursting at seams -- Dhaka, Cairo, Mexico -- rely on ground water but aquifers take decades to recharge while the population growth in these cities is exponential. And as urban demands for water increases, supply of the developing world's already water starved areas will be further affected creating an insurmountable food security crisis. Experts agree that the crisis is partly due to natural cycles of extreme weather and the expansion and contraction of arid regions. But human activity is playing an ever greater role in creating water scarcity and "water stress" -- defined as the indication that there is not enough good quality water to meet human needs.

Against the backdrop of severe water crisis hitting almost two thirds of the global population, Bangladesh once considered a country of abundant water resources or otherwise known as a country of rivers, is also now facing an acute water crisis. This is due to the fact that out of 230 big and small rivers in the country, there now exists about 175 rivers and most of them with a meandering flow. From the north east of Bangladesh to south west rivers namely Chitra, Barak Kaliganga, Kartoa, Garai, Bhairab, Bhadra, and Kumar and a host of others are now only names to be traced in a book of geography. This is due to several factors : Rivers and lakes are drying up due to siltation, most rivers have changed their original course because of obstructions raised here and there with unplanned dikes and sluices; no new tanks, lakes and reservoirs in any part of Bangladesh have been excavated during the last few decades and lastly the river water has been dangerously polluted.

Because of careless and senseless human activities, rivers now contain many bacteria from human waste and other harmful effluents like cadmium, ammonium, chromium, and even mercury thrown in the rivers Buriganga and Shitalakhya, Turag and Balu surrounding the city of Dhaka and Narayanganj. Noticeably, an estimated 90 per cent of sewage and industrial wastes in our part of the world is discharged into rivers, lakes and seas without any treatment. To make things worse, as already mentioned, conservation and supply of fresh water that might dilute the sewage are dwindling in many areas. Say for example Uttara lake just in the outskirt of the city is a large water body running through the densely packed residential blocks on the western side of the Dhaka-Tongi highway is now a giant sewer. With the sewer lines and waste water pipes of the fast growing residential area, garments and knit wear factories, shopping malls and kitchen markets put inside the lake at different locations, it is now a cesspool of blackish stagnant water laced with human excreta, animal residue, toxins and poisons of all varieties.

The woes of the residents do not end there. With encroachments of the lake going apace and garbage and piling materials of the apartment builders finding way into the lake its bed has raised. Pathetically true, living and breathing have become difficult because of the horrible stench coming from the polluted toxic water of the lake.

For centuries water in lakes and rivers has meant purity and life. Sadly true, poisoned waters in the Uttara and Gulshan-Baridhara lakes now symbolize not life but death. Alas! these could have been, if properly preserved, pure surface water sources in a country hit by acute water crisis.

Dhaka city's ground water aquifers, the veins of water below the ground were emptied so drastically that polluted water laced with toxins rushed in, destroying them for good. Reports have it that residents of Wari, Gandaria, Lalbagh and most of older part of the city fill their pitcher with water that is yellowish. They don't know if they are drinking poison! A disaster is unfolding all over the 1500 km. Greater Dhaka city area as the recent World Bank report on Dhaka city water situation reveals.

With pipes drying up, the search for water is frenzied. The first trickle now comes up from a depth of about 100ft. Dhaka WASA now lifts about 160 crore litre of water per day, about 90 crore litre less than what the citizenry needs. As the WASA supply falls, everyone from the apartment builders to individual house owners in all parts of the city frantically bore into the earth for water. But these unseen storehouses are drying up with frightening regularity.

Matters are worse in villages, despite the spread of bore wells in most villages. And so a great thirst settles over the country every summer. But as the growing desperation of the towns and villages of the country indicates, we are nearing a catastrophic drying. The demands for water for drinking, irrigating fields, industries and even power stations -- are skyrocketing. There are pointers to the fact that we are fast approaching a point of absolute scarcity.

Much of the blame rests with the authorites that would not curb the siphoning of ground water. Dependence increases as surface water sources, mainly rivers and lakes, are sullied by sewage and industrial pollution. In rural Bangladesh drinking water availability is severely affected when ground water is sucked away by unregulated bore wells now in operation for irrigation. But irrigation is a cash cow on which water needed for drinking is squandered by a group of people desperate to meet the immediate needs.

Md Asadullah Khan is a former teacher of physics and Controller of Examinations, BUET.