Educating the world about water scarcity is the critical key to solving this crisis. It is only once everybody is educated, can we implement the other solutions. One such solution would be the introduction of sustainable water management
Water’s the most precious and replenishable resource known to mankind. Planet earth contains 70% water but out of this only 2.5% is fresh water. However, that’s not all, it gets worse only 1%of this fresh water is what mankind has. In the 21st century the topic of water scarcity has grown. Many countries along the equator suffer from this, for example many parts of the African continent, Sri lanka and India.
What is water scarcity? It is the lack of having adequate water, its result being unable to keep up with the demand in certain regions. What fuels water scarcity and what solutions do we have?
There are four main causes of water scarcity, and they are:
1. pollution
2. climate change
3. increase in demand
4. overuse
The main cause, is pollution. there are two types of pollution physical pollution and invisible pollution. What is physical pollution? This term literally means the physical waste seen in water pollution such as people dumping garbage into rivers.The result of physical pollution is mostly making the water unhygienic to consume without treatment.
Then what do we mean by invisible pollution? This means the harmful waste which is not visibleto the human eye but can be seen in drasticchange to marine life or observed changes to the waters PH level or salinity. A common example of this is, fertilisers and pesticides from farmlands which get washed into streams and rivers,or chemical dumping from factories which make the water contaminated.
Climate change, is another major cause to water scarcity, as the climate changes we experience more adverse weather suchas persistent droughts as well as floods which could contaminate clean water. However, adverse weather is not all, you must add the heat waves as well, which evaporate insane quantities of water, leaving lands dry.
Another cause which can increase water scarcity is the overuse of water. Inadequate water resource management is the main reason for overuse. The misuse of water can be from agriculture or even filling your bathtub to have a bubble bath. The fact that we are using 70% of the worlds fresh water, for industrial and domestic use is causing a lot of wasted water thus putting a big stress on the water supply. We are using water and wasting water, as never before. Increased demand, the reason for overuse. In the past 50 years the population has doubled and more the population is expected to double again in the near decades. The increase in world population means the increase in water is needed to cook, drink and meet other needs.
The solutions
Four of the most effective and reliable methods would be education and awareness, pollution control and sewage treatment, sustainable water management and reclaimed water. Education and awarenessare the key to preventing further water scarcity. imagine if everyone was educated on why we should be saving water, then eventually the other solutions would not need to be seriously implemented.
Educating the world about water scarcity is the critical key to solving this crisis. Once everybody is educated, we can implement the other solutions. A good solution would be the introduction of sustainable water management. Improving water conservation and water efficiency can only help us make sustainable water management work. What do we mean by sustainable water management, it means clean technology for water efficiency in water management, here are some examples, smart irrigation systems solar desalinisation the use of smart systems can reduce the water wastage in the field of agriculture. As agriculture is the biggest consumer in water.
Another solution to water scarcity is water reclamation. The harvesting of rainwater and the recycling of water can reduce the stress on ground water and other natural water bodies. Also adding to this if water treatment and sewage management is a key aspect in water reclamation. The collected water or recycled water is not treated it can hold many germs and bacteria which could cause the consumer to get sick. And sewage management can help the process of recyclingand building better sewage systems can really reduce water scarcity by a lot.
Let’s all forget about the four main solutions because if we act now, we can forget about the main causes and eventually they will be a thing of the past. Keep in mind there is only one source of water. So lets use this water source wisely. remember the key to solving water scarcity is awareness and education, so spread the word, make yourself useful, be the change.