Water Crisis. This term refers to the global problem of lack of access to clean water to the people of this earth.

by aadharshd (student)

Introduction

What is the “Water Crisis” exactly? This term refers to the global problem of lack of access to clean water to the people of this earth. While the world's population tripled in the 20th century, the use of renewable water resources has grown six-fold. Within the next fifty years, the world population will increase by another 40 to 50 %. This population growth coupled with industrialization and urbanization will result in an increasing demand for water and will have serious consequences on the environment.

This image shows the scarcity in most parts of the world. This scarcity affects people in many ways. Countless number of people die every day because of lack water, water-borne diseases and lack of water to water their crops.

Facts about the Water Crisis:

884 million people lack access to safe water supplies; approximately one in eight people.
3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease.
Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease.
Over 50 percent of all water projects fail and less than five percent of projects are visited, and far less than one percent have any long-term monitoring.
More than 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged and untreated, polluting rivers, lakes and coastal areas.

Why is water an inseparable part of life?

The human body is 75% water and our blood is 90% water. Three-fourth of the Earth is also covered in water. If we lose 5% of the water in our body, we will faint and if 10%, we will die. We can survive a maximum of 3 days without water as it the most important substance for our body.

The most important thing about water is that it helps the human body in so many ways. Water is a good medium for regulating the temperature of our body. It changes temperature slowly and so helps the body remain in the narrow range of temperature necessary for life and many other bodily functions. Because our body is mostly water, it is able to prevent losing heat very rapidly. Water also helps keep you cool by sweating. The evaporation of sweat helps cool the surface of the skin. According to scientists at the University of Nebraska, you lose up to a pint of water in sweat every day even without strenuous physical activity.

Another crucial role water plays in the body is providing structure that protects vital organs. Your eyes, brain and spinal cord all sit in a protective fluid layer made mostly out of water. Without this fluid barrier, minor bumps and shakes would cause structural damage to these fragile and sensitive organs.

Water is also needed for digesting our food, absorbing and transporting the nutrients to various parts of the body. Water also plays a major role in excretion. It carries waste products from cells so that it can be excreted out of the body.

The most important and pressing reason to drink water is to avoid dehydration. If you go too long without adequate hydration, you will soon suffer loss of motor function and cognitive skills. The conditions will worsen until unconsciousness and ultimately result in death. Without water, you would die within three days under ...

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Benefits of Water in Society

Water is used for many things in today’s world. The most important being drinking. Without water we cannot survive. Water is also important in agriculture since we need water to water the crops. This provides us with food to eat. Plants absorb their nutrients from the soil in the form of dilute aqueous solutions.

Chemical industries are the greatest consumers of water; for instance, 170 liters of water is needed to manufacture just 1 kg of steel and about 144 tons of water is needed to produce one ton of paper. Water also provides us with electricity through hydro-electric dams. It is a renewable energy source which will never run out. We can harness this energy through tidal energy and hydro-electric dams but these are expensive to build.

Various Pollutants of the Water

What exactly pollutes the water in the world? The pollutants can either be a toxic substance or an organic substance. Toxic water pollutants come from man-made chemicals and substances that are not naturally occurring in the water. These include pesticides, heavy metals, industrial compounds, etc. These substances in the water are a true health risk to anyone who ingests them.

Organic water pollutants refer to substances like plant residue, manure or sewage. When bacteria are in the water, it decomposes organic material which in turn decreases the oxygen level in the water. When the oxygen level is decreased, it kills organisms which in turn create a cycle where there are more decomposers in the water and less oxygen. This cycle is called eutrophication.

Various Factors Which Lead to Water Crisis

According to me, the main factor which leads to a water crisis is population overgrowth. Since there are more people, the demand for water will increase and it will become scarce. Another effect of population is that it will lead to more pollution as more factories will be opened and they will be dumping waste chemicals in bodies of water. Another effect is when trees are cut down to make space for houses and agriculture. When the trees are cut down, the soil can be eroded and contaminate rivers and other bodies of water.

Misusage of water is another contributing factor. The reason why people waste water is because they are not educated on why water is so important and how scarce it is. They don’t know how to save water. Some people do not know how valuable water can be to the 2 billion people who don’t have access to clean water. They use as much as they want instead of conserving water.

Role of the Individual, Society and Industry

In order for the irrational use of water to stop, everyone individual must know about the water crisis and how valuable water is. This can only happen when everyone is educated on how to save water. If they are already saving water, they should spread their knowledge and concern so that the society will be educated and start saving water too. Once the society starts saving water, more people will be encouraged to save water too.

Industries should start realizing the importance of water and stop polluting bodies of water by dumping their waste in them. Instead they should recycle their waste and raise awareness about water pollution in public and encourage other factories to do the same.

The easiest way to help to solve this problem is to donate money to various charities around the world such the Water Org, H2O for Life, Lifewater, etc.

As an individual, I should learn all the ways I could save water in and start implying them in my daily life and also spread my knowledge to others. For example, I could turn off the tap while I brush my teeth and I should spread my knowledge to my peers when I get the chance.

Potential Health and Environmental Hazards of Irrational Usage of Water

When we misuse water resources, we are also polluting the water and making the water scarcer for some people. This leads to water-borne diseases and dehydration that lead to deaths of people. At any time, it is said that half the world’s hospital beds are occupied by a patient sick due to some water-borne disease or poor sanitation and hygiene.

The environmental hazards are the pollution of water in the process of the misusage of the water. For example, some factories might use bodies of water to get rid of waste and this leads to water pollution. The toxic chemicals that are dumped kill all the living things in the body of water that the pollutant is dumped in. There will be almost no life in there and it will be very hard to re-establish an ecosystem in that body of water.

Role of Science in Attempting to Solve the Problem

Since 42 percent of water used for agriculture is lost through inefficient irrigation, the need for technological advances in crop irrigation technology is clear. One possible solution is the use of drip irrigation systems - - these tend to be much more efficient, with as much as 95 percent of the water they distribute being useful and accessible to the crops.

Bioengineers are trying to genetically modify plants so they need much less water to grow; this would make artificial irrigation of crops much easier or even unnecessary.

Science can help in attempting to solve this crisis by researching new water purification techniques that are cheap and efficient. Desalination is the most commonly used method. Although the costs of these desalinization plants are high, the facilities will become less expensive to operate as technology improves.

Other countries like Singapore use a process called Reverse Osmosis which does not require any heating but this method isn’t very efficient and can only produce a little clean water from lots of dirty water.

Another way to purify water is through filtration but this is not fool-proof because there is no perfect filter which can prevent even the tiniest of residue from getting past it. If science could discover a fool-proof perfect filter, it would benefit a lot of people.

Factors

Environmental

When science discovers new techniques of recycling waste chemicals that come out of the factories, there would be less toxic chemicals dumped into rivers and lakes around the world. This would benefit the environment because we are saving an ecosystem and marine creatures from dying because of being poisoned. Since all the ecosystems are interconnected, if even one ecosystem is disrupted, so will all the others and this is why it is important to prevent water pollution.

Social

Lots of people would be benefited if science discovers cheap ways of providing clean water to rural areas and to people who don’t have access to clean water. It is estimated that about 1 billion people don’t have access to clean water. All of these people could benefit if they had access to clean water and there wouldn’t be so many deaths caused by water-borne diseases. If they had access, it would prevent women and school children from walking kilometers under the sun to collect contaminated water. It would also allow the children to go to school instead of skipping school hours to find water.

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