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An essay on the causes of water scarcity
An essay on the causes of water scarcity
An essay on the causes of water scarcity
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Despite substantial rainfall from annual monsoons and access to vast aquifers in the northern region of the Maharashtra state, Mumbai has never been able to provide piped water or sanitation for all, or even most of its residents. According to one report, the city has a notional per capita water availability exceedingly that of London, yet it fails to provide even the most affluent communities with 24 hour piped water. Relying on a crumbling, century-old system of fragile pipes that is woefully inadequate, even just for the city proper, Mumbai’s water system can be accurately characterized as in crisis. Water leakage and pipe ruptures are extremely common, some estimates suggest as must as 20% of all the City’s piped water is lost in this manner. Projects to build new reservoirs and upgrade failing infrastructure have been stymied by perpetual funding shortages and severe delays, leaving much of Mumbai’s population underserved or completely unserved.
The polarization of the social and cultural landscape is reflected in the complex political machinations behind the provision of water resources. Municipal Corporation of the Greater Mumbai (MCGM), the municipal government of Mumbai, is responsible for distributing and allocating water resources in the city. The centralized nature of this governing body and the ongoing water crisis lends itself to corruption, misallocation, and preferential treatment of favored parties. With limited political representation, residents of informal settlements are consistently and systematically denied adequate access to water resources and sanitation. The MCGM for example, officially offers slum dwellers 45 liters per person per day of water, a mere 30% of the amount allocated to a citizens living in...
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...istribution Improvement Project (WDIP) and it’s pilot project was to be established in the K-East ward, another large slum community. Citizens of the ward were able to effectively organize a broad-based community resistance effort through persistent and tenacious community organizing. Local youth groups were formed and they joined with leaders of other community-based organization voicing their concerns over the proposed project and the rationale behind it. They eventually succeeded in repelling the privatization effort, largely due to the awareness raised by a speech a local representative gave in the Indian House of Representatives in 2007 and the arrest of six prominent local activists who stormed a stakeholders meeting. The speech and the arrests received significant covered in legacy press across the state and the proposal was immediately withdrawn by the PPIAF.
“Last Call at the Oasis” is a documentary about our world’s water crisis. The film discusses how many large cities in America are getting closer to use up their available water, how many areas across the globe do not have access to drinking water and are forced to drink contaminated water, how water shortages are causing acts of violence and are causing stress to agricultural communities, and a possible solution of using recycle water to stop us from wasting so much water. The film goes around the globe to talk to scientists who are studying contaminated water, people who have become very sick due to this water, and to the agricultural community in Australia where, unfortunately, some farmers have take their own lives due to water shortages.
Maude Barlow’s “Water Incorporated: The Commodification of the World’s Water” gives a voice to a very real, but vastly unknown, issue: the privatization of water. I refer to it as vastly unknown because it wasn’t until this article that I was even aware such a power struggle existed. Barlow first introduces startling statistics, meant to grab the attention of its readers. Once she has your attention, she introduces the “new generation of trade and investment agreements.” (306)
While it may be easier to persuade yourself that Boo’s published stories are works of fiction, her writings of the slums that surround the luxury hotels of Mumbai’s airport are very, very real. Katherine Boo’s book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers – Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” does not attempt to solve problems or be an expert on social policy; instead, Boo provides the reader with an objective window into the battles between extremities of wealth and poverty. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” then, exposes the paucity and corruption prevalent within India.
In the documentary, Blue Gold: World Water Wars, it follows several people and countries world-wide in their fight for fresh water. The film exposes giant corporations as they bully poorer developing countries to privatize their own supply of fresh water. As a result of the privatization, corporations make a hefty profit while the developing countries remain poor. Blue Gold: World Water Wars also highlights the fact that Wall Street investors are going after the desalination process and mass water export schemes. This documentary also shows how people in more developed nations are treating the water with much disregard, and not taking care of our finite supply. We are polluting, damming, and simply wasting our restricted supply of fresh water at an alarming speed. The movie also recognizes that our quick overdevelopment of housing and agriculture puts a large strain on our water supply and it results in desertification throughout the entire earth. The film shows how people in more industrialized nations typically take water for granted, while others in less industrialized nations have to fight for every drop.
4. United Nations Development Programme, U.N. Human Development Report 2006, Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty, and the Global Water Crisis, web. 6 Dec. 2009 http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr2006_english_summary.pdf
Caused by climate change and urbanization, water shortages are a major concern of the Mexican government at both the local and federal level. Mexico City, the third largest city in the world with more than twenty million inhabitants, struggles with water scarcity because of the potential risk it poses to the wellbeing of its citizens. Similar to the situation in other megacities, such as Jakarta and Bangkok, Mexico City’s water supplies are being depleted because of a growing urban population. (CBC News , 2009 ) Unable to sufficiently supply the increasing population size of the city, the water in the Mexico Valley aquifer is being drawn out faster than the aquifer’s recharge rate. Exacerbated by the fragmented nature of Mexico’s political culture, the exploitation of Mexico City’s water resources due to a growing urban population is detrimentally degrading the environment and creating a self-perpetuating problem that places the city and its inhabitants at risk.
In Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo tells the stories and struggles of families living in a slum adjacent to the Sahar Airport in Mumbai, India. Boo details the ways in which the residents of this slum, Annawadi, attempt to escape their poverty, but fail to do so. Despite numerous initiatives sponsored by the Central Government of India to improve the lives of the many individuals living in Annawadi, these programs are ultimately unable to do so due to deep-rooted corruption in the city of Mumbai. Regardless of this, the residents of Annawadi seem to accept corruption as a fact of life, and do little to fight it. As illustrated over the course of Boo’s narrative, this results from the fact that many Annawadians recognize the ways in which the laws of their society allow for the unfair treatment of certain groups of people, especially the poor and religious minorities, and are also cognizant of the fact that they have no real power to change a system that
This is because only a small part of the population, particularly in developing countries, have access to water of acceptable quality. It is estimated that in some countries only 20% of the rural population has water of satisfactory quality. Based on these statistics, it is clear the urgent need for awareness about caring for water use. Almost without realizing it, we are seriously jeopardizing this essential resource, not for us but for our children's children and their generations, aware that in other parts o...
Water is not a want but a necessary human right people need in order to survive. However, there are about 660 million people in the world that do not have access to safe water. There are also, an estimate of, 2.4 million people who do not have an accessible toilet. In order to get the water needed, many people have to find hours every day collecting water. Due to this education and commerce become harder and less of a priority, a community cannot thrive when there safe water is lacking. By providing safe water and sanitation for those who do not have it they believe they can achieve global equality and make a better and brighter future for
there will be four or five people living there. The shanty towns lack basic amenities such as electricity, gas, drainage, running water and. toilets and in Mumbai there is just one communal tap that only runs for an hour a day, but in other places such as Nairobi the people have to try and pay for their water at inflated prices or either get it. from the Nairobi Dam which is polluted. Another major problem in the LEDC cities is the poor infrastructure.
This, however, does not mean that India is solely responsible for certain deadlocks, even though its share of responsibility may be larger than other countries which have their own physical limitations and political apprehensions. As elsewhere in the world, and more particularly in the subcontinent where population explosion continues and environmental degradation worsens, water resources, like energy, are going to be much lower than the increasing demand, even if they are harnessed to the most optimum. Given the depleting resources of water, the issues of human security, and water security as its most crucial part, are going to assume astronomical proportions. The issues of water distribution and management are bringing not only countries of the region, but also states and regions within provinces into conflict since they are not being settled amicably within a grand framework of riparian statutes respecting upstream and downstream rights. What is, however, quite appreciable is that the countries of the subcontinent have made certain remarkable efforts to resolve their differences over water distribution through bilateral agreements.
People don’t appreciated the many advantages that comes with having clean potable water to use, taking it for granted. A lot of clean useful water is wasted by humans all the time that people don’t care about saving water because they have easy access to it. Clean and safe drinkable water resources are getting scarce as the population grows. The world is facing many problems, but the most important needed to survive, is water. Water is getting low in many countries, therefore habitants are suffering the misfortune of not having the reliable source of clean water. Today many countries are having water shortages; meaning rivers, lakes, streams and groundwater are not enough to rely on for supplying water demands. For example, California is facing a drastic water shortage, the natural water resources are not enough to fulfill their water demands. Water shortage affects the agricultural sector, so as a consequence the price for production
One main causes of water scarcity is water mismanagement worldwide. Water mismanagement has become a crisis of governance that will impact heavily ...
Specifically, Bangalore and Mumbai, two of India’s largest cities, are faced with a crisis. The slums that people are living in are both inhumane and often dangerous. There is a lack of support whether it is access to clean drinking water or medical help, the inhabitants of these slums face perilous conditions. The route of the problems associated with slums lies in the infrastructure and lack thereof. Without proper public transportation, proper medical care, sanitary conditions, clean drinking water, the slums will not be able to evolve. The solution lies not only in the hands of the government but as well as with NGO’s and the private sector. It is only thru the combined efforts of these parties that a true, permanent, solution can be achieved.
Water is an integral part of not only human beings but all other creatures in the world. We use it every day for different purposes such as domestic, agricultural and industrial. Water has always been a prestigious resource. However, the majority of people do not appraise water’s worth since they do not face water scarcity; whereas, in third world countries it is one of the most serious problems. Nearly 2.4 billion people have a lack of water resources in the world, shows the investigation done by the Pacific Institute, an Oakland, California-based non-profit scientific research group. Moreover, every year this number is growing gradually and more people are suffering (Bloomberg News, 2010). There are certain causes which deteriorate current situation. The most influential reasons are global warming, pollution by human-beings and overpopulation. It is known that India is one of the countries which face water scarcity so this essay will consider the possible ways of solutions of water shortage in India.