Alok Sikka

When considering the effects of climate change, many people tend to think of headline-grabbing wildfires, superstorms, or mega-droughts. But some of the most devastating impacts are quiet and creeping. For example, ocean acidification, caused by absorption of anthropogenic carbon dioxide, is slowly reshaping marine ecosystems. Moving inland, a lesser-known insidious threat is also fundamentally altering the environment and very ground beneath our feet: rising salinity.

By Alok Sikka, Bunyod Holmatov, Claudia Ringler and Mohsin Hafeez Although South Asia is home to a quarter of the world’s population, it holds less than 5 per cent of global freshwater resources. The water supply-demand gap is considerable; South Asian economies are highly reliant on hydropower, while their agricultural systems account for a third of all global groundwater pumping.

Women sell vegetables at a market in the Siraha District, Nepal. Photo: Nabin Baral/IWMI Perhaps no other region in the world faces such a stark combination of enormous potential and profound challenges as South Asia does. Its rapid economic growth, swift urbanization and growing populations are met head-on with acute environmental concerns and resource constraints. Although South Asia is home to a quarter of the world’s population, it holds less than 5% of global freshwater resources.