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Water Gap: The Overuse of Fresh Water

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Competition and Conflicts on Resource Use

Part of the book series: Natural Resource Management and Policy ((NRMP,volume 46))

Abstract

According to the United Nations report on the status of the achievement of the objectives set in the Millennium Development Goals, there are between 900 million and 1 billion people with no access to clean drinking water worldwide (around 750 million of them are in rural areas). The situation is even worse when considering sewage. Around 2.5 billion people do not have basic sanitary facilities, and given the population growth, this figure will hardly change. Approximately 1.5 million people die yearly as a result of water-borne diseases (Heymann et al. 2010: 4).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A look at the history of the environment shows, however, that Germany can certainly be classified as a good example of the systematic destruction of wetlands (as a result of such programs as so-called soil drainage or river regulation/straightening, among others)

  2. 2.

    International Water Management Institute

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für sozial-ökologische Forschung (ISOE), Wasserressourcen und Landnutzung, Hamburger Allee 45, 60486, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

    Thomas Kluge

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  1. Thomas Kluge
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Correspondence to Thomas Kluge .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Applied Sciences Trier Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, Hoppstädten-Weiersbach, Germany

    Susanne Hartard

  2. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Institute of Safety/Security and Risk Sciences (ISR), Vienna, Austria

    Wolfgang Liebert

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Kluge, T. (2015). Water Gap: The Overuse of Fresh Water. In: Hartard, S., Liebert, W. (eds) Competition and Conflicts on Resource Use. Natural Resource Management and Policy, vol 46. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10954-1_15

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