We can think creatively about water management, but unknown large global threats could cause a fundamental reorganisation of life on Earth, according to a water expert with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

“A doomsday scenario would be that if the Greenland ice sheet melts, and then there’s six metres of sea-level rise — all bets are off,” said David Purkey,  a senior scientist who heads SEI’s Northern California office. “I think we’ve got bigger problems than water scarcity at that moment.”

Reining in “water anarchy” due to inadequate regulation is one way to avoid the threat of water scarcity and secure resources for the future, according to a water expert at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

Hakan Tropp, director of the United Nations Development Programme water governance facility at SIWI, told AlertNet in an interview that governments should respond to consumer trends in developing countries by instituting new water management policies to avoid future shortfalls.

Fallout from the financial crisis is hampering efforts to prevent climate change, Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, told AlertNet in New York on Monday.

While some people are struggling financially, “the crisis is being used as an excuse by people who probably were never too convinced — or never really wanted to allocate resources to fighting climate change and to promote biodiversity,” he said.