YOU might have thought that a looming global apocalypse threatening the one thing essential to pretty much all life as we know it would be big news.

But, hey, we've got sport and celebrities and boy bands and other stuff to occupy our waking thoughts and dreams.

The science journalist Alok Jha has written a study, The Water Book, so focused on the dry science of H20 that at one point he mentions, almost in passing, dare one say drily: "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control and United Nations warn of a coming water apocalypse - there will be skirmishes between countries for decent access to water, they warn, and billions of people with lack of access to clean water by the middle of the century."

Got that? A generation from now will see water wars. In some ways this is not exactly new. The earliest battle in recorded history in 1274BC was at Kadesh, near the present Syrian-Lebanese border. It was between the Egyptian forces of Ramesses II and the Hittites under Muwatalli II. It involved several thousand chariots and is believed to have been largely about water, specifically the Orontes River.

Ultimately, most wars are over resources, whether land - lebensraum, as Hitler saw it - coastlines or minerals, but water is the chief resource required for life and the UN expects this to be the major source of a looming "apocalypse".

Cheer up. Things aren't like that in the developed West, I hear you say. Well, you don't get much more developed or west than California and, guess what? The Golden State, the most populous in the US, home of Apple, in the top-10 economies in the world if it was a nation, is in the grip of a drought that has been worsening for four years.

"We're in a drought unprecedented in our times," was how the state water board convener put it last week after Governor Jerry Brown announced enforced consumption cuts.

But in the land of the free not everyone is equal. Homes and business will bear the brunt but not the main culprit, big farming, which consumes 80 per cent of the water.

This is because of exemptions or limits to cuts for "senior rights holders" who date back to those European settlers who first ousted the native Americans and staked claims citing manifest destiny. There are also "junior" rights holders who date back only to 1914 who have limited privileges.

The problem is for the US as a whole, since California's agri-business provides half of the fruit and vegetables produced in the entire country. Alfalfa, almonds and pistachios, followed by rice are the thirstiest products. Alfalfa is used to feed tomorrow's Whoppers and Big Macs, since you ask.

Research by Mother Jones magazine shows it takes a gallon of water to produce a single almond, not much less for a pistachio, and an astounding five gallons for a single walnut.

Nor is desalinisation of sea water a fix. Expensive and limited, a huge plant being built in San Diego will produce seven per cent of local needs in just that part of California at cost of $1 billion.

But that is in a state with deserts. It can't apply to wet old Scotland, can it? Before being complacent about this, cast an eye over the Irish Sea to an island which, I can state with confidence, has no deserts. It's called the Emerald Isle for a reason, but lush greenness is no barrier to trouble with water.

Two months ago, tens of thousands took to the streets of Dublin in the latest protests that have been likened to our own poll tax demonstrations. A non-payment campaign, protests, rows over police tactics all sound familiar.

The problem there is one of infrastructure and political ineptness. When the Celtic Tiger roared they left water in the hands of local councils, who spent all the money on teachers and social workers. When the crash came the only way to fund improvements to crumbling infrastructure was by creating a national quango and allowing it to install meters and charge consumers heavily, hence the protests.

Here, watch the manifestos for next year's Holyrood election. Beware in particular the call for "mutualisation" of Scottish Water to "free up" public money. Many consider that a precursor to privatisation, particularly in the looming age of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the deal that liberalises access to privatisation of public services.

Who knows? Our water could end up being owned and operated by an American firm from, say, California. What could possibly go wrong?