Water shortages will be the world's biggest problem in the next decade, compounded by a growing
global population, Britain's chief scientist John Beddington said on Tuesday. Skip related content
Climate change is forecast to disrupt rainfall patterns, leading to more severe droughts and floods,
posing problems for the supply of fresh water. The  world's population  which about 6.6 billion is
forecast to rise by 2.5 billion by 2050, while growing wealth and urbanization is fuelling demand for
water.The U.N.'s climate panel says 90-220 million people in Africa risk facing extra stress on water
supplies by 2020 due to climate change.That will have knock-on effects for farms which are stoking
the problem by depleting groundwater in dry countries, environmentalists say."The availability of
fresh water, I believe, is probably going to be the first problem that has got to be addressed," said
 the British government's chief scientific adviser."Agriculture is intimately linked with that, but I would
say water is probably going to be more concerning over the next 10 years," he said.

A welter of factors could combine to stoke risk, he said.

"Population growth, an increase in wealth, urbanization, and ... climate change, all of those are going to
 present really big problems to humanity," he told the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit.