Name: Trisha Anne C.

Sy
Section: STEM 12-C

Summary or Outline of Ideas

Topic: Water Scarcity

I. Introduction

Water Scarcity is the lack of clean water available to use by the people in a certain
region, accompanied by water scarcity are common climate problems like El nino,
La nina and drought in places around the globe (UN, 2013). Water is a fundamental
essential for life on our planet. People like all other earthly species rely upon clean
water for the safety of their healthy. While 71 percent of the Earth is secured by
seas, the freshwater assets contained in springs, lakes, streams, and ice sheets are just
3% of this totality. There has been a great problem in water supply in the past few
years especially those in the rural parts of the world or the people who are isolated
for examples those who are living in the mountains or the tribes that struggle to
survive. This is because potable water is either frozen in ice or buried deep in the
ground, it is approximately 11.35% of all non-ocean water and just 0.31% of all
water. There is 4.3917 million cubic kilometers of this accessible fresh water. If you
brought it all together in a single drop, it would form a sphere 203 km across
(Nieman, 2014). This become an alarming environmental problem because
Agriculture, Health and, the Economy is threatened when we ran out of accessible
and potable water to use; with this water management and water security is an
essential role of our citizens today (Vorosmarty et. al., 2014).

II. Reflection
A. How does the environmental issue affect the following?
a) Environment
Water scarcity has a tremendous effect in the environment
especially in the depletion of wetland areas where clean water is
obtained such as springs, lakes, and streams. It also increase
salinity, nutrient pollution, and the loss of floodplains that makes
rehabilitation of urban streams impossible and post a bigger threat
to the community. Water scarcity also has an adverse effect in the
ecosystem, since it is not only us who depends on clean water but
also animals. Some of the wetlands that are depleted are also
habitants to different species, depleting these habitants displace
many animals that contribute to the factors for their death.
Subsidence, or the gradual sinking of landforms, is another result of
water scarcity because people have taken up a lot of underground
water that it would leave a hollow space between lands that causes
sinking in different parts of the world. In the Philippines, water
scarcity has caused depletion in wetlands that endangers many
wildlife species in our ecosystem.

b) Society and Economy

The effect of water scarcity in the Philippines can be mostly seen in
the society and economy. Water scarcity puts a major threat in
agriculture because low water source would be a problem for
irrigation. We also face El Nino, so this really post threats to our
farmers and our economy. Millions of crops withered due to lack of
water supply in their places. Water scarcity also post threat to the
health. When water is scarce, people are often forced to rely on
drinking water sources that may not be safe, and they also lack
sufficient water for basic hygiene to prevent infection including
from foodborne and waterborne diseases. Also due to water scarcity
people tend to store water, but mishandling water storage can lead
to mosquito breeding and consequently increase the cases of
mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever especially in the
rural areas where things are not in a good condition especially the
environment.
 c) Researcher community
Water scarcity really place a big pressure to us humans, how will
we be able to conserve water for our future and more, but it puts
more pressure and challenge to our research community. Since
there are just limited amount of water our research community have
no time to waste in researching ways how to stop this depletion.
This is a very big problem for our research community because they
have a time to beat, they need to invent ways to help our planet save
its remaining clean water before it runs out and create a bigger
problem for the community and the world. But, in the past few
years since modernization have occurred many ways ae invented to
help prevent water scarcity, from movements to prevent climate
change; because climate change is also one of the reason for water
scarcity. To inventing ways how to desalinate and recycle water,
such as removal of pollutant from water, and different ways of
wastewater treatments.

B. What are the causes of the environmental issue? (Explain how the issue
happens; how does it become a concern to address to; integrate and apply
your knowledge in Chemistry to explain the mechanisms.)

C. Imagine yourself as an environmental chemist, what could be the challenges

for you in addressing this environmental issue and concern?

III. References (use APA referencing, arranged alphabetically)