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Is the world running out of water?A group ofscientists, economists and development experts who have been studying thequestion for the past five years think they have the answer.Their"Comprehensive Assessment", backed by the UN’s Food andAgricultural Organization and various research institutes, governments and aidgroups, will be released in November. But at the World Water Week, a conferencenow underway in Sweden,they have revealed some early findings. The bad news isthat a third of the world’s population, some two billion people, are alreadyshort of water. But things do not have to be this way.

Roughly 900m people, the assessment finds, live inriver basins where there is barely enough to keep rivers flowing and lakesfilled. Another 700m live in basins rapidly approaching this"closed"state, and a billion more live within reach of adequate water suppliesbut cannot afford to make use of them. The water table is falling fasting indensely populated and poor regions of Mexico and India. If current trends inwater consumption continue, these grim statistics will only worsen.

The main culprit is agriculture. It takes roughly 3000 litres of water to grow enough for one person for one day, or about alitre for each calorie. Demand for water will grow as the world's populationincreases and as people eat more-and more meat in particular Raising livestockrequires more water, per calorie, than growing crops. So the assessment suggeststhat, by 2050, agriculture will consume twice as much water as it does today Industryand domestic use, which now account for only a small fraction of water consumption,are also growing quickly, Global warming adds another layer of uncertainty andrisk.

In theory, the world would still have more than enoughwater to feed everyone under most scenarios. But it might require much morefood to be traded from sodden parts of Europe, North America and Russia toparched bits of Africa and Asia. Needless to say, subsistence farmers in thosecontinents are in no position to pay for imports of food and will become evenpoorer, presumably, if their water runs short. A few poor, dry and teemingcountries, such as Egypt, already depend on food imports, along with the odd richone, like Japan. But most governments are loth to put their consumers at themercy of he world's imperfect markets.

Instead, governments have traditionally tried toincrease agricultural output through huge and expensive irrigation projects.But smaller investments, in simple devices such as pumps to tap groundwater,are faster to deploy, yield greater returns on capital, and bring fewerenvironmental and social problems. Modest outlays on rain-fed agriculture, in particular,could sharply raise farmers' productivity in poor countries, and so help bothto lift their incomes and to reduce the need for an expansion of agricultureelsewhere.

Over half of world's food comes from rain-fedfarms, as opposed to irrigated ones Most of the world's poorest farmers,including the vast majority in Africa, rely on rain for their livelihoods. Ifthe rains fail. so do the crops. Channels to harvest and direct rainfall andsmall. sealed reservoirs or tanks to store it, would not only see them throughdry spells, but also allow them to eke bigger harvests out of the same fields.If adopted on a grand scale,the assessment argues, such techniques could doublecrop yields. In that case, the area under cultivation globally would only haveto rise 10 to meet rising demand for food-and there would be plenty of water togo round.

小试牛刀

1. The early finding issued atthe World Water Week suggests that ______.

A. a third of the world'spopulation lacks access to clean drinking water

B. the drop of the water tablehas caused poverty for some densely populated countries

C. the current trend in watercrisis might be exacerbated

D. the unaffordable cost is themajor reason for the worsening condition of water usage

2. Which of the following istrue according to paragraph 3?

A. Raising livestock consumesmore water that cultivating crops

B. Human should reduce theamount of meat they consume daily

C. The Industry demand of waterwill surpass that of agriculture

D. The water-supply predicamentis caused by multiple factors

3. According to paragraph 4, theshortage of water supply would ______.

A. lead to a global crisis offood shortage in the near future

B. stimulate the food exportfrom the poor to the rich

C. aggravate the geographicimbalance of food supply

D. force the government to fixthe imperfect markets

4. The report believes somesmaller invested devices can ______.

A. outweigh the giant ones interms of cost-effectiveness

B. solve the environmental andsocial problems for government

C. increase the return oncapital for the farmers

D. expand the scale of landthat can be usefully farmed

5. It can be learned from thelast paragraph that ______.

A. irrigated farms are Inferiorto rain-fed ones

B. rain fall is essential forAfricans livelihoods

C. efforts should be spared onbuilding irrigation system

D. irrigation techniques wouldreplace the need for rain

长难句解析

1.Needless tosay, subsistence farmers in those continents are in no position to pastorimports of food-and will become even poorer, presumably, if their water runsshort.

结构分析：本句主干结构为 farmers are in no position to pay for imports of food and will becomeeven poorer句子掺杂由and连接的两个系表结构。

参考译文：母庸置疑,亚非两个大陆的农民仅能勉勉强糊口,毫无能力购买进口的粮食。由此可以推测,如果用水日益匮乏,他们将更加贫穷。

2.Modestoutlays on rain-fed agriculture, in particular, Could sharply raise farmersproductivity in poor countries, and so help both to lift their incomes and toreduce the need for an expansion of agriculture elsewhere.

结构分析：本句主干结构为outlays could raise farmer's productivity and help both to.and to.. 。由both...and....连接的两个动词表语结构作第二个并列谓语的宾语。

参考译文：这种小花费在靠雨水供养的贫困国家更能迅速提高农民的生产率,既提高了农民收益,又降低了扩大农业用地的需要。