9. Climate Change and Water Resource Availability: What to Do?

There is a widespread recognition that the world is facing a growing water crisis affecting the well-being of the poorest people. Rapidly growing populations, urbanization, agricultural intensification and climate change (such as global warming) all contribute to greater competition and scarcity of water resources. Despite massively increased provision of water facilities over the past few decades and the development of low-cost sustainable technical solutions to many aspects of water provision, millions still suffer from water-related diseases and the physical, social and economic burdens associated with scarcity. One of the keystones is represented by saving water that is being pursued through an ethic of consumption, as a challenge for environmental education of young generations. Teaching the younger generation water-saving means to embody the principles of sustainable development. In this paper, we also show the results of a general survey on the schools, carried out through monitoring and surveys that demonstrate how educating young people to a conscious use of water may represent a good model of sustainable development to face the global water crisis.