Water Scarcity

Water scarcity: insufficient water supply to satisfy normal requirement

Flood: overflow of water onto a normally dry area/ large amount of water rising to
cover land
Drought: prolonged shortage of rainfall
Economic water scarcity: water is physically available but is not affordable
Physical water scarcity: no water is available at all

Task 2
Nowadays, there are about 1.2 billion people around the world suffering from
water scarcity, which is almost 1/5 of the worlds population. 1.8 billion People
are estimated be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity,
and two-thirds of the world's population could be living under water stressed
conditions.

It is more likely to find people suffering from water scarcity in developing
countries, especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region e.g.
China, India and Israel. A lot of people who live in these countries has jobs
related to agriculture.

Water scarcity would lead to food shortage as without sufficient water, not
enough crops can grow. We might lose up to 40% of the world grain harvest.
Water scarcity can also lead to diseases such as trachoma (an eye infection
that can lead to blindness), plague and typhus. Tension between countries
about water supplies could be developed and could eventually lead to war.
Economic downturn could be cause as with the lack of food and water, a
country cannot function.


What is the 2030 perfect storm?
The perfect storm of 2030 is the idea of John Beddington, the UK government
chief scientific adviser and it is when serious problems and events, for example:
the increasing food, water and energy demand, coming together and forming
a massive storm of problems which the world cant cope with.
The world's population will rise from 6bn to 8bn (33%)
Demand for food will increase by 50%
Demand for water will increase by 30%
Demand for energy will increase by 50%

The population is estimated to be around 7.001 billion people. It has steadily
increased since the great famine and Black Death. The growth rate of the
population peeked in 1963 and has declined since then. It is estimated that in
2050 the population will be 9.2 billion.

Task 3 researches
The growing population means less people will get the sufficient amount of
water need for daily life, which is 50L.
75% of the worlds water is stored in glacial mountain areas. This helps
regulate the water storage but with the climate change, this system is
changing. Most glaciers are retreating or losing more water than gaining.
Places severely affected by this are areas that get their water from the
Himalayan glaciers, which also feed 7 major rivers. They are the second largest
storage of water after the polar region, which has 45000 glaciers. The glaciers
are dwindling fast and if current rates continue, 2/3 of glaciers will be gone in
2050. Before the draught comes, there will be a massive flooding.
The South American Andes is also affected severely because of the melting of
the glaciers.
To delay these problems, building dames to contain the melted water could
help in certain cases but they are expensive and are only a short-term solution.

Global warming is not the only factor that caused water scarcity.

Population growth - an increasing number of people means less water for each
person.
Food production It needs a lot of water in order to grow food. It takes 1000 tons
of water to grow one ton of grain.
Water quality the water quality in some places are not at all suitable to use.
Water demand there has been an increased water demand. However, as the
amount of water in the world never increases and some are being polluted, some
of the demands cannot be satisfied.
Climatic change and variability The weather pattern changes, which means some
places, would have more unpredictable floods and droughts. There wont be
enough water in places with droughts and the water would be undrinkable in
places with floods.

Solutions to water scarcity

One possible solution is the use of desalinisation technology. This system is
described as filtering salty water through membranes and removing the salt
through electrodialysis and reverse osmosis. This has worked for about 130
nations in North Africa and the Middle East. With this system, these nations are
currently producing 6 billion gallons of usable water per day.
Also, you can reuse water in homes, for example: making toilets more water
efficient, making home insulation better so water is not wasted when warming
water for showers.
Another solution is to invest in water purification so water that has been in floods
can be cleaned and drunk.