Family Planning and Population Dynamics Are Key to Water Security

Lake Chungará and Parinacota volcano in northern Chile | Credit: Gerd Breitenbach, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licenseOpinion by Céline Delacroix (ottawa, canada)Friday, August 28, 2026Inter Press Service OTTAWA, Canada, August 28 (IPS) - This week is World Water Week, the annual conference of governments, business, and civil society on building a water-secure future as global population, climate disruptions, and water demand increase. In Washington, it’s also Water Resources Development Act season, when every two years the US Congress reauthorizes the legilslation that funds US drinking water, wastewater systems, and flood risk management projects. Water security ought to be something everyone can agree on, and there are long traditions of bipartisanship in past WRDA reauthorizations, and of diversity and inclusiveness in World Water Week conferences. But these days, water is increasingly a trigger for division, from the public outcry over data center water usage to anti-abortion activists introducing legislation to designate the abortion medication mifepristone as a water pollutant and get the US Environmental Protection Agency to regulate it, w...