Sustainability Assessment
Fresh Water Scarcity - By Andy Beuzenberg 9VNC
Why is fresh water so scarce
Why is fresh water so scarce? Well there are several key contributors, many of them which could be managed much better than what they currently are. The 1st one i will mention is overuse, which can be anything from growing your lawn to farmers not effectively watering crops or pastures. Then we have probably the biggest contributor and that is water pollution, anything from carcasses to chemicals to fecal matter can contaminate water. One of the main issues is that even small quantities can be very damaging to large calm bodies of water. Moving on to a lease common form of water scarcity, and that is conflict or strict governmental control, especially in dictatorships. In some areas people may be cut off from water if there is a serious conflict, one example would be some cities that ISIS control where they do not let people leave the cities therefore potentially blocking water supplies. In other areas governments (and not always corrupt ones) keep a very strict control over water supplies.
The problems with not having fresh water
There are many problems with not having fresh water here are a few bullet pointed
- Hunger, if you can't grow crops or raise livestock what will you eat or trade?
- Diseases, if you don't have fresh/filtered water then you are vulnerable to water borne diseases such as Cholera.
- Sanitation, without clean water there is no way to clean food, livestock or people.
2 Points of view on water scarcity
I presume that our central African will be constantly on the look out for fresh water or any kind of water depending on how developed the region the are living in is. There is little or no easy access fresh water, many sources are polluted increasing the chance of water borne diseases spreading. They are looking at a very bleak period over the next 50 years with increasingly little water, so they are quite desperate for fresh water and change is needed.
Canadian
I presume that Canadians really aren't too concerned about their fresh water supply as they can just rely on constant glacial water flow, their fresh water is likely to continue to be abundant for the next 50 years, so really they are quite content.
What could be done to fix water scarcity
- Education, there are a lot of people out there who lack water conservation educating and who clearly need, what with the huge quantities of water being polluted. Education isn't just about stopping pollution it's also about making sure that water is used wisely and not wasted.
- Recycling, yes, you can actually recycle water, it's just it requires some heavy machinery to be done on a large scale, which may make it not so good an option for less developed countries.
- Improved sewage, making sure that no fecal matter is dumped into water supplies is a major step into making sure that water stays fresh and drinkable.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Causes, effects and solutions of water scarcity - conserve energy future (2015) Available at: http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-of-water-scarcity.php (Accessed: 16 March 2016).
Great things from small things .. Nanotechnology innovation (2016) Available at: http://genesisnanotech.wordpress.com (Accessed: 16 March 2016).
Living, C. of (2009) Cost of living in Canada. Available at: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Canada (Accessed: 16 March 2016).
Messinger, J. (2016) Other sites. Available at: http://www.wri.org (Accessed: 16 March 2016).
Citations, Quotes & Annotations
Causes, effects and solutions of water scarcity - conserve energy future (2015) Available at: http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-of-water-scarcity.php (Accessed: 16 March 2016).
(Causes, effects and solutions of water scarcity - conserve energy future, 2015)
Great things from small things .. Nanotechnology innovation (2016) Available at: http://genesisnanotech.wordpress.com (Accessed: 16 March 2016).
(Great things from small things .. Nanotechnology innovation, 2016)
Note: Water Shortage Graph
Living, C. of (2009) Cost of living in Canada. Available at: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Canada (Accessed: 16 March 2016).
(Living, 2009)
Messinger, J. (2016) Other sites. Available at: http://www.wri.org (Accessed: 16 March 2016).
(Messinger, 2016)
Note: Diagram of world fresh water stress