Freshwater Crisis Now On

Water is crucial for all lives on the Planet. It is one of the essential resources for plants and animals to grow, likewise, approximately 60% of the human body consists of water. The Earth itself also consists of water by 70%. However, only a small fraction of water is available as fresh (2.5%). Furthermore, only 1% of the freshwater is easily accessible because most of them are trapped at ice cap or glaciers (National Geographic). Therefore, only about 0.007% of the total amount of water on the Earth is currently available to us.

Then, the question is - can it feed everyone on the Earth? 

Well, the answer could be YES before the world population reached 6.8 billion, which is the maximum number of people that the Earth can support under the above freshwater accessibility (National Geographic). Now that the world population is above 7 billion, and the answer is unclear. With a declining quality of water associated with man-made pollution and exploitation of water source, the number of people the Earth can feed is further falling down. So, how can we mitigate the rate of declining freshwater availability?

The problem is that people perceive water scarcity from very different angles, depending on where they live. If you live in a city where basic infrastructure works properly, you would find it difficult to understand the recent global water crisis than those who live in the middle of continent where little water runs or is available in underground. In this case, the latter is perceived as being under physical water scarcity. Egypt is one of the examples because of its arid climate and lack of surface flow and groundwater. In fact, they import half of their food every year as they cannot produce crops sufficiently under the insufficient water resources (BBC). 

By contrast, if someone lives in places where the amount of water withdrawn from rivers or lakes is relatively smaller than its capacity, they are considered to be under economic water scarcity. Examples are seen in the central to south African continent where water availability is very small compared to its abundant source of groundwater and its tropical rainfall. What these examples tell us is that freshwater is unevenly distributed across the world and that the accessibility is highly dependent on economic status of regions/countries where people live. This is one of the factors that make it challenging to combat the issue of global water crisis.

Similarly, the quality of water is another problem in discussing water as resource. Since the quality standard required varies depending on the intended use, for instance, domestic drinking water and industrial processing water (Taylor, 2004). Furthermore, as water storage shows a considerable difference in the condition (e.g. rivers and lakes as surface water and groundwater), it puts a further constraint on estimating the amount of water available to people for life. Considering all these factors, therefore, the previously raised question cannot easily be addressed because of the complex nature of water resources.

So, what would be a potential solution for this global water crisis? Again, there is not a definite answer to the question because of the nature of water resource. Instead, I shall look into various examples of water resource management programme across the world in upcoming posts. A particular interest lies in a theorized concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as a means of achieving sustainable development of water resources. Further explanation and motive on this thematic area shall be given in the next post.