Humankind, as it enters the 21st Century, is faced with a zillion water 'problems', and the most important of these are discussed on the web pages that follow. It is critical to remember, however, that most of these problems are NOT unique to water. All over the world precious natural resources are under pressure from the combination of increasing population and bad management. Water, though vital to our survival (in very small quantities) is no exception.

The first, and most difficult to deal with where water is concerned, is natural Distribution. The water on this earth is simply never where we need or would like it to be, in place or time. Then there is the world's burgeoning Population; if the number of people on earth had stayed where it was 100 years ago, there would be in effect no water problem.

More than half the water that is 'taken' by society is wasted. Compared with those first two, extremely difficult to deal with, problems the third, Profligacy, is very much within our capacity to address. The fourth, Pollution, which now drastically reduces the amount of pure water available for human use, is also amenable to improved management.

Where rivers flow across national boundaries, the effect of water shortages, like so many international problems, is also compounded by Politics. Also in the political realm is the question of why, in a post Cold War world, the rich nations choose to spend more on weaponry than on water aid; the word that answers it best seems to be Parsimony.

All of these dimensions of the situation need to be factored in to our understanding and attitudes with respect to the possibility and prospects of a Global Water Shortage.