Water Scarcity Case Study

1. Introduction

Water is a source that humanity need for both domestic and industrial use and is utilized in a huge amount. Thus, there is a pressure on water. The increase of population and the industrial development of the majority of countries aggravate the problem. The excessive consumption of water coupled with the scarcity of this resource makes the issue even more critical. According to Lefort, water covers around 70 percent of the Earth, freshwater makes up only 3 percent of it, moreover, almost all of that is unattainable to use. (Lefort, R.,1996) Generally, only about 0.01 percent of the world’s total water supply is considered available for human use. What is more frustrating is that only a few sources of fresh water can be relied

The arid climate even aggravates the situation. Therefore, it seems important to analyze the situation in the region and find solutions to the issue. Obviously, the negative impact of the lack of water is unbearable. Water scarcity already has an impact on every continent. Based on Human Development Report in 2006, nearly 1.6 billion people, face an economic water shortage, a situation when a country misses the infrastructure needed to extract water from rivers and ponds. (Human development report 2006, 2006) Water scarcity leads to a large range of problems: lack of access to drinking water, hunger, lack of education, disease and sanitation issues. The scale of the problem is shown on a map

(Introduction To Desalination Technologies in Australia, 2002) http://www.sydneydesal.com.au

4. 2. 4 Usage

On the whole, a large amount of desalination plants have been built in half a century, since 1965 to 2011. The below chart shows the location and the spread of desalination plants by country. According to Water Desalination Report,

Desalinated water is mostly used in the Middle East, (mainly Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain), which makes 70% of global capacity; and in North Africa (mainly Libya and Algeria), which amounts to nearly 6% of worldwide capacity. Among developed countries, the U.S. is one of the major users of desalinated water (6.5%), particularly in California and Florida. (Desalination.com, 2016)

www.desalination.com

The graph below represents information about locations of declination plants.

5.5 Quality of water

“More than 300 million people in 150 countries now profit from access to harmless, quality water from desalination. Worldwide there are over 15,000 desal plants." (Neil Palmer,2013