BERLIN, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Germany risks being caught unprepared by water shortages in the future, Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said Tuesday while presenting the government's draft national water strategy.
"Three drought years in a row have shown that Germany's abundance of water can no longer be taken for granted," Schulze said in a statement. "My goal is that even in 30 years' time, clean water will always be sufficiently available everywhere in Germany."
Groundwater, lakes, streams and rivers in Germany must become cleaner in order to achieve this. Infrastructure, land use and urban development also require "better adaptation to the consequences of climate change," she said.
Analyzing the challenges for Germany's water economy up to the year 2050, the strategy suggests the establishment of a supra-regional water supply system that would require interconnected networks and long-distance pipelines to compensate for regional differences in water availability.
Furthermore, forecasting abilities would need to be improved in order to determine where water would be available in the future and to identify the regions where water could become scarce, according to the Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU).
Germany's federal states and municipalities would receive one billion euros (1.22 billion U.S. dollars) over the next ten years to "improve the ecological condition of water bodies and increase their resilience to climate change," the BMU noted. Enditem
