Causes, Implications, and Intervention Strategies: Water Scarcity

Water Scarcity

The World Water Council estimates that approximately 1.1 billion people, which translates to one-sixth of the world population, lacks access to safe drinking water. Another 2.6 billion lack access to proper sanitation facilities (World Water Council, n.d.). It is estimated that by 2025, almost 3 billion people will be finding it almost impossible to meet their basic water needs (Concern Worldwide, 2012). This text discusses the potential causes of the current water scarcity problem, its implications on the environment, and the various strategies that could be used to ease or eliminate the problem.

Population growth, industrialization, and inefficient agricultural/food supply systems are the main causes of water scarcity in the world today. Population increases that are not matched with concurrent increases in the available resources put a strain on the existing resource base and increase the risk of faster depletion. Forests are cleared to create more room for settlement and the quantity of food required to cater for the population's needs increases. More rainwater thus flows into the seas and oceans instead of being trapped in the soil, and more of the little that is trapped is channeled towards food production at the expense of other basic needs. The second factor, industrialization, causes water scarcity mainly through the greenhouse effect -- as more and more greenhouse emissions are produced through industrialization activities, the effects of climate change, which include shrinking ponds and lakes, reduced river flow and receding glaciers, become more prominent, making less water available in the natural reservoir system. Inefficient food production mechanisms such as overreliance on what the WWF refers to as 'Thirsty Crops', which include wheat, sugarcane, rice, and cotton, has also contributed to water scarcity (Toledo & Harvey, 2015). It is estimated that together, these four crops account for approximately 58% of agricultural water usage, and their growing production and supply continues to hurt the available water resources (Toledo & Harvey, 2015).

Water scarcity affects the natural environment in a number of ways. First water overuse resulting from increased population and food production increases the salinity of fresh water sources, making it difficult for marine life to survive. When this salinity spreads to manmade reservoirs such as ponds, it inhibits agricultural activities, putting food security in jeopardy. Further water scarcity affects the natural environment through subsidence, the process by which landforms sink due to the continued usage of underground water, increasing the possibility of floods and landslides.

I strongly believe that the water resources we have can sustain all of us if managed properly. It is possible for everyone to have access to clean drinking water, but only if we make it a personal decision to conserve our water resources just so someone else would not go without water. It has been proposed that price increases be adopted as a way of reducing people's demand for water. Well, this may work in the short-term, but it may not be a sustainable strategy in the long-term because as the population rises and the demand for water goes up, the price will rise and more and more poor people will not be able to afford clean water. More sustainable strategies would include desalination, water recycling, rainwater harvesting, underground well-construction, and treatment of gray water. Many people may not feel comfortable using treated water, but I, personally, believe that gray water can be a good source of water for laundry, agriculture, and other domestic purposes other than cooking as long as it is properly-treated. My personal water-conservation strategy is to use drip irrigation, which takes up far lower amounts of water, in all my subsistence farming processes.