I guess even having the most renewable fresh water in the world is no guarantee against a water crisis.

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Originally posted by article
In Brazil's biggest city, a record dry season and ever-increasing demand for water has led to a punishing drought. It has actually been raining quite heavily over the last few days in and around Sao Paulo but it has barely made a drop of difference. The main reservoir system that feeds this immense city is still dangerously low, and it would take months of intense, heavy rainfall for water levels to return to anything like normal.

So how does a country that produces an estimated 12% of the world's fresh water end up with a chronic shortage of this most essential resource - in its biggest and most economically important city? It's interesting to note that both the local state government and the federal government have been slow to acknowledge there is a crisis, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That might have been a politically expedient position to take during the recent election campaign, when the shortage of water in Sao Paulo was a thorny political issue, but the apparent lack of urgency in the city and wider state now is worrying many.

At the main Cantareira reservoir system, which feeds much of this city's insatiable demand for water, things have almost reached rock bottom. Huge pipes suck out what water remains as the reservoir dips below 10% of its usual capacity. In the town of Itu, not far from the slowly diminishing reservoir, Gilberto Rodriguez and several of his neighbours wait patiently in line. All of them are carrying as many jerry cans, empty plastic drinks bottles or buckets as they can muster. For weeks now they've been filling up with water from this emergency well. Twice a day Gilberto heaves the full containers into his car and heads home.

The car-crash scenario of a record dry season coupled with the ever-increasing demand for resources from South America's biggest city seems almost to have caught the state water authority, Sabesp, by surprise. The authority, in turn, is being widely criticised for failing to plan and is now trying to manage a crisis. Home to some 20 million people, the sprawling city of Sao Paulo continues to grow. But the failure of city services and basic infrastructure to keep pace merely exacerbates the problems, in particular the dwindling supplies of clean water.

Open sewers mean that Sao Paulo's rivers are completely polluted. They're now part of the problem rather than, as should be in times of drought, part of the solution.

"People here were brought up to believe that water was a resource that would never end," Maria Cedilla tells me at her office in downtown Sao Paulo, a leviathan of a metropolis that has long since outgrown any system that could adequately support it.

But now one of Brazil's leading scientists is suggesting that the causes of the drought may be even more worrying for Brazil in the long run. There is enough evidence to say that continued deforestation in the Amazon and the almost complete disappearance of the Atlantic forest has drastically altered the climate. "The forests have an innate ability to import moisture and to cool down and to favour rain. If deforestation in the Amazon continues, Sao Paulo will probably dry up. If we don't act now, we're lost," adds Mr Nobre, whose recent report on the plight of the Amazon caused a huge stir in scientific and political circles.

Water shortages have the potential to harm the economy too, and that's where the politicians in Sao Paulo and Brasilia just might start to act. Sao Paulo is by far Brazil's richest state - the engine of the country's economic growth - but if water and electricity, generated by hydroelectric dams, start running out the consequences for the economy could be dire.

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Originally posted by article
Rank Country Total renewable water resources (cu km)
1 Brazil 8,233
2 Russia 4,508
3 United States 3,069
4 Canada 2,902
5 China 2,840

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