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Recommended: Global water scarcity
The Pollution and Misuse of Water
I have chosen to write my paper on the effects that we have on our most important resource, water. The article I chose to go along with my paper was out of The Detroit News 5-24-00. The article discussed the problems that Metro Detroit has had with their outbreaks of e. coli in many of the area beaches. After reading the article I thought that it would be a great idea to look further into the problems our country faces with water and the way we use it.
In the past fifty years nations have gone to war over oil. In the next fifty years we are going to go to war over water (Simon 18).
The current world population of approximately 5.9 Billion will double in the next forty -ninety years. To further compound the water shortages, human consumption of water is rising twice as fast as the population. The exponential population growth has a severe effect on the amount of water being used and the amount of pollutants that go back into it. Take for example the problems that people in California are having with water and trying to get it. California's current water use is unsustainable. In many areas, ground water is being used at a rate that exceeds the rate of natural replenishment. Fish and wildlife species are being destroyed by withdrawal of water, as well as by development. Official projections are that water demand will exceed available supplies in the year 2020 (Simon 18).
California is the nations most populated state with over 1,400 reservoirs and the most sophisticated water supply system in the world (Rosenbaum 167). However it appears from studies that they will be experiencing some severe water shortages in the years to come. Many things have led to the shortages in California especially over population and desiccation. Towards the beginning of the century, Los Angeles understood that they would have problems, so they purchased Owens Lake the third largest body of water in the state. Today it is called Owens Dry Lake because it was sucked dry by Los Angeles. Today The U.S. Environment Protection Agency considers it the most polluted area in the nation (Simon 22). On dry days the wind blows particulate matter from the dry lake as far as fifty miles making the air twenty times as high as the maximum safety standards for air pollution.
Water is the foundational basis of life on Earth. Ecosystems, society and humans are completely dependent on it, and as the world population continues to grow, there will be more mouths to feed, and those people will need water to continue their daily lives. However, shortages and poor management leads to the destruction of natural habitats and human suffering. Desertification of land in China is ever-increasing, turning green, lush land into desert. However, this is due mainly in part, because of human activity, and global warming (Wang, Yang, Dong, & Zhang, 2009). The United States could experience a crisis similarly to China’s, but for now they have averted such a catastrophe, because of heavy regulation of water. Though there are water shortages in many parts of the world, it is unwise to export water from the Great Lakes to those regions. Two major reasons why diverting the Great Lakes is a terrible idea, one: it allows for waters wars to start on the basis of who is allowed to access it and for commodification purposes. Two, diverting water on such large scales could have cataclysmic effects on the local residents as well as the environment.
Introduction on Water It covers 70% of our planet, makes up 75% of our body, it is necessary for survival and it is declining at a rapid rate (http://www.sscwd.org). It is water. Unfortunately, clean water is rare, almost 1 billion people in developing countries do not have access to water everyday. “Yet, we take it for granted, we waste it, and we even pay too much to drink it from little plastic bottles” (The Water Project). Use of earth’s natural resources should be seen as prosperity, although it is taken for granted, every aspect of daily life revolves around the environment, forcing water conservation to be necessary for future on this planet.
Whether we want to believe it or not water pollution is one of the world’s l...
...es the Yosemite Falls and the sequoia trees. One of the state’s problems is the appetite for water. The once fertile Owens valley is now dry and its waters tapped by Los Angeles. In the Imperial Valley, the eradication of water is controlled by the All-American Canal which gets its water from the Colorado River. In Central Valley the poor distribution is the water problem that is an imbalance lessened by the vast Central Valley project. California had cutbacks in federally funded water in the 1970sand 80s which led to California cities buying water from areas that had a surplus of water. But California failed to make a long-term to plan and the federal government stopped the funding of water to the state in 2003. But with all this being said and done, California remains to be a unique state with a lot of entertainment, history, agriculture and a productive economy.
Imagine a world where all of our fresh water was polluted to the point where we couldn’t drink it. That is exactly where we are heading if we do not fix this epidemic that is hitting, not only America, but Iowa in particular. It is apparent that Iowa’s water is posing health concerns such as polluting the water, creating dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico, and affecting the population’s drinking water.
Creative Conclusion Thought: Benjamin Franklin once said, “When the well is dry, we know the worth of the water.” Let’s all do our part to make sure that well is never dry.
Clean and safe drinking water resources are becoming scarce as the population grows. The world is facing many problems, but the most important thing needed to survive, is water. Water is getting low in many countries, therefore residents 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 Pollution in Bhutan 1. What are the sources of water in Bhutan? 2. What activities in Bhutan cause water pollution? 3.
...cts us and everything around us, and what it takes to get clean drinking water. In addition I have also given examples of organizations that raise money to help people obtain clean water. We can’t take clean water for granted, because everything around us including us, needs clean water in order to survive and to work. I have talked about how if we are able to end the clean water crisis, we are able to focus on other global problems such as world hunger and economic problems. Once we are able to focus on other things we may be able to work on technology that will allow us to make more water in to clean drinking water to accumulate to our increasingly growing population. In conclusion clean drinking water and clean water in general is a very vital part of our lives and our world. We would not be here if it wasn’t for water, and we need to keep our water clean.
There are many types of pollution. The main types of pollution are water, air, soil, thermal, radioactive, noise, and light. The topic for this experiment is Water Pollution. Water Pollution became a problem in the 1900’s when water started being treated like sewage. Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson on April 22, 1970 because of 1900’s pollution. Water Pollution also affects humans and animals. There was a Cholera outbreak in 1854, before water pollution became a problem, and a Typhoid outbreak in New York from 1900 to 1915. There are multiple possible causes to Water Pollution. Humans let out chemicals into the environment, and when some of those chemicals
Freshwater in the world makes up only a small portion of the water on the planet. While the percentage of water in the world is nearly 70%, only 2.5% is consumable. Even further, only 1% is easily accessible to basic human needs. According to National Geographic, “by 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas plagued by water scarcity, with two-thirds of the world's population living in water-stressed regions as a result of use, growth, and climate change.” With this current trend, water will become more immersed in environmental, economic, political, and social changes.
Freshwater is quite scarce, but it is even scarcer than one might think: about seventy percent of all freshwater is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland and is unavailable to humans. Most of the remainder is present as soil moisture or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater. It is not economically feasible to extract this waster for use as drinking water. This leaves less than one percent of the world’s fresh water that is available to humans. It includes the water found in lakes, reservoirs, groundwater that is shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. These freshwater sources are the only sources that are frequently replenished by rain and snowfall, and therefore are renewable. At the current rates of consumption, however, this supply of fresh water will not last. Pollution and contamination of freshwater sources exacerbate the problem, further reducing the amount of freshwater available for human consumption. Something must be done if humans want to even survive in the near future: the lack of clean drinking water is already the number one cause of disease in the world today. The first step is worldwide awareness of the water crisis: governments and the citizens they govern worldwide need to know about this problem and be actively involved in solving this problem.
Water is the most priceless resource on our planet. Billions of gallons flow through our rivers and lakes. Millions of gallons are consumed by humans each day. Our world’s surface is seventy percent water. With so much water around us, how can 1.1 billion people still lack access to clean water (Cooper, Water Shortages)? People are already using fifty four percent of all the freshwater available on this planet (Cooper, Water Shortages). We cannot afford to neglect something so essential to our very survival. We must defend our most important natural resource—water.
Safe water and sanitation as a basic human right, household water treatment, rainwater harvesting ... and reports from Kyoto, Madagascar, Uzbekistan, Guinea and other countries around the world.
The problem of water scarcity has increasingly spread throughout the world as of yet, The UN reports that within the next half- century up to 7 billion people in 60 countries which is more than the whole present population will face water scarcity (Sawin “Water Scarcity could Overwhelm the Next Generation”). As well the demand for freshwater has tripled over the past 50 years, and is continuing to rise as a result of population growth and economic development. 70% of this demand derives from agriculture which shows the influence of water on food supply globally as well not just drinking water (Sawin “Water Scarcity could overwhelm the Next Generation”). But increasing water use is not just a matter of the greater number of people needing it to drink and eat; it also comes from pollution and misuse of water supplies, by either dumping or runoff of bacteria or chemicals into water. This also “causes other pollutions as well such as soil and air pollution, accelerating wetland damage and human caused global warming” (Smith and Thomassey 25). According to UN report, recent estimates suggest that climate change will account for about 20 percent of the increase in global water scarcity in coming decades.