Scotlands water

Forget oil ... It is water the world wants more than anything else.

Last week the Environment Agency warned parts of England were facing a drought this year. Seven water companies have announced hosepipe bans in the southeast from next month. It is not just the southeast of England that is short of water. According to the latest United Nations (UN) water report, published last week, there are a billion people across the world who do not have access to safe drinking water, and the number is rising.

Droughts and water shortages are common across large parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Two-thirds of the Arab region's available surface water originates from outside of the region, leading to many conflicts with upstream countries. Experts have often predicted that "water wars" will break out in the Middle East as nations struggle to feed their people and water becomes scarcer. At the UN World Water Forum in France, the former Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, warned there was no substitute for water. "The deficit of fresh water is becoming increasingly severe and large scale," he said. "Continuation of water consumption at 20th-century rates is no longer possible."

In his book, Peak Water, Scottish writer and a political adviser to the Scottish Government, Alexander Bell imagines the decimation of Dubai, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. "The great monument to 21st-century civilization lies in ruins, shattered into the sand like so many before," he wrote. "Not long before the world had fought over oil, but now water is the prize."

In another scenario, he has both Chicago and Toronto smashed into "twisted steel and broken concrete" after a war between the US and Canada over access to water. Canada is one of the wettest countries in the world, but the US is growing short of water, partly because it consumes two and half times more per person than Europe. Debates have raged for decades over whether Canada should sell water to its southern neighbours. The US problem is illustrated by Las Vegas. To sustain the city's two million people, water is brought 1400 miles from the Rockies by the Colorado River via a vast artificial lake created by the Hoover Dam. "This may be a sure case of ecocide," observed Bell. "Las Vegas can only die, and within our lifetimes, because the water supply is running out."

Even in Europe, as many as 120 million people lack access to safe drinking water. "Water resources are under pressure in many parts of Europe, and it is getting worse," warned Jacqueline McGlade, the executive director of the European Environment Agency, based in Copenhagen. "With climate change making water supply less predictable, it is extremely important that Europe uses water more efficiently for the benefit of all its users. Water resources should be managed as effectively as any other natural asset owned by countries." Farmers, who use about a quarter of Europe's water, need to adopt less wasteful ways of watering their crops like "drip irrigation" , she said

Large parts of Spain, France, Ireland and the southeast of England are shown to have "extreme water stress". The whole of Italy and other parts of France, Spain and England are said to be enduring "water stress", while Scotland has "no stress".

First Minister Alex Salmond views Scotland's water is a natural resource with the potential to swell the national coffers by selling it to England. Salmond suggested that Scotland could help alleviate the long-term shortages. "..you would sell it on...as an ongoing commercial transaction." The Scottish Government said Scottish Water could make a profit out of selling water to England. But the idea of selling water to England has run into criticism from other experts, who warn that it would be impractical, polluting and expensive. "It is not simple," said Dr Jon Hargreaves, chief of Scottish Water for six years until 2007 and now chair of the British Waterways Scotland Group. "Ultimately, it depends on the market.

Chris Spray, a professor at Dundee University's water centre and a former director of environmental science at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency explained that it raised a series of difficult questions about ecological damage, costs and ownership. Dr Sarah Hendry, another Dundee University specialist said exporting water would also mean that you would have to turn it into a commercial commodity, which would open up the difficult political issue of who should own and benefit from Scotland's water. Scotland's water has no legal owner.

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