{"id":5761,"date":"2017-08-18T16:05:50","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T11:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/?p=5761"},"modified":"2017-08-18T16:05:50","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T11:05:50","slug":"a-world-of-water-woes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cawater-info.net\/all_about_water\/en\/?p=5761","title":{"rendered":"A World of Water Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Middle East to the Caribbean to Australia, people around the world are dealing with water scarcity.<\/em><\/p>\n

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It’s easy to look at a portrait of Earth and think of our home as a water planet. After all,\u00a075 percent\u00a0of the surface is covered with water. But the\u00a0thin skin of liquid that surrounds our rocky home\u00a0is misleading\u2014if you took all the water on the planet and bunched it into a ball, that ball would be less than half the diameter of the Moon. That’s not a huge amount of water.<\/p>\n

Plus, the proportion of water that humans can use for daily use is actually pretty small. Most of the world’s water is saltwater in the oceans. Only about three percent of the water is fresh. Half of that is locked in glaciers, the polar ice caps and snow.<\/p>\n

Almost all of the rest flows through the world’s lakes, streams, rivers, soils and groundwater. A tiny percentage is water vapor in the atmosphere, driving our\u00a0weather and climate. That doesn’t leave much for the 7 billion people on the planet, and even less for some populations because all that water isn’t evenly distributed.<\/p>\n

Today is the\u00a0U.N.’s World Water Day,\u00a0a chance for us to pause and reflect on this uneven distribution. Here’s a look at some of the most\u00a0water-stressed places\u00a0on the Blue Planet along with some of the actions these regions take to worsen or manage their water woes:<\/p>\n

It’s not exactly a surprise that desert countries would have problems with water scarcity, but poor water management is exacerbating the situation on the Arabian Peninsula. In the Untied Arab Emirates, for example, per capita water usage is\u00a0twice the world average.<\/p>\n

Some nations have tried\u00a0to feed\u00a0their water-hungry populations with energy-intensive\u00a0desalination plants\u00a0that turn saltwater into fresh. But those plants and their super-salty byproduct can\u00a0damage\u00a0local ecosystems. People on the peninsula have also been drawing from a huge aquifer that lies beneath the parched Saudi desert. Forty years ago that aquifer held enough water\u00a0to fill Lake Erie, but a growing population and decades of\u00a0intense farming\u00a0have drained four-fifths of the underground stores.<\/p>\n

Caribbean Islands<\/strong><\/p>\n

The vast blue water that surrounds these islands lures tourists\u00a0by the millions, but that’s not the kind of water that a population can rely on for much besides delicious seafood and transportation. Rainwater capture has been\u00a0employed in the region for centuries. But most islands have to draw from groundwater stores for freshwater for agriculture, tourism and household use.<\/p>\n

There’s\u00a0growing concern, though, that climate change may lessen rainfall in the area, which would limit the ability of the already-vulnerable underground water sources to recharge. Where there is money to do so, desalination plants are being built. But some island nations are realizing that there is a need to adapt to a water-scarce existence. Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad ordered water rationing in 2013, and Barbados also began to recycle some of the water the country uses.<\/p>\n

Mediterranean<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the verdant Nile running through its desert, Egypt is one of the few Mediterranean nations that isn’t experiencing a high or extremely high level of water stress (defined by the World Resources Institute\u00a0as a ratio of total withdrawal to total renewable supply of 40 percent or more). The Mediterranean\u00a0is a region of the world that receives little rainfall but has a large population, resulting in the\u00a0lowest per capita water availability\u00a0in the world\u20142,691 cubic meters per year compared with a global average of 7,176 cubic meters per year.<\/p>\n

That water scarcity has contributed to “water wars” in Spain,\u00a0riots\u00a0in Algeria and conflicts in places such\u00a0Israel, Jordan and Syria, which have competing claims to water from the Jordan River.<\/p>\n

Central Asia<\/strong><\/p>\n

From Iran and Pakistan along the coast of the Indian Ocean north to the southern border of Russia, the nations of Central Asia all qualify as having\u00a0extremely high water stress, meaning that they draw 80 percent or more of their renewable water supply in a year, and it’s contributing to already unstable situations.<\/p>\n

In Iran, for instance, home of the world’s\u00a0most water-stressed river basin, there have already been angry protests about government water diversions and there is worry that water could be a\u00a0major source of instability\u00a0in the country. Pakistan’s water scarcity is now considered\u00a0as big a threat as terrorism. In Afghanistan, 43 percent of local conflicts are over water,\u00a0according to Oxfam.<\/p>\n

The potential impacts of such water problems extend beyond these nation’s borders, according to a 2011 report [pdf] from the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations:<\/p>\n

In Central and South Asia, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the impacts of water scarcity are fueling dangerous tensions that will have repercussions for regional stability and U.S. foreign policy objectives. The national security implications of this looming water shortage\u2014directly caused or aggravated by agriculture demands, hydroelectric power generation, and climate instability\u2014will be felt all over the world.<\/p>\n

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Australia has had to deal with water stress for a long time: The country sits on the world’s\u00a0driest inhabited continent\u00a0(Antarctica is drier) and average rainfall has\u00a0dropped by a third\u00a0since 1980. The\u00a0government\u00a0built dams to capture and store water, installed systems for recycling wastewater and collecting rainwater and built\u00a0desalination plants\u00a0to supply the country’s large cities.<\/p>\n

The nation also made policy changes to the legal system of water allocation, finding the delicate balance between the needs of agriculture, industry and growing cities and towns. The changes, though difficult to implement, are credited with helping Australia\u00a0survive a historic drought\u00a0and has now made the country a\u00a0model\u00a0for the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

Mexico and the Southwest United States<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Colorado\u00a0and Bravo\/Rio Grande river systems rank among the\u00a0world’s most stressed. Agriculture, growing populations and industry all compete to take water out of these two river basins, and\u00a0climate change\u00a0is working to put less water in. But there’s some good news for the Colorado: Water will soon flow into the river’s delta for the first time in decades.<\/p>\n

On March 23, operators of a dam along the U.S.\/Mexico border will\u00a0open the gates\u00a0and let water once again flow into the delta area for a few weeks. It’s just a small experiment meant to mimic a spring flood, but scientists hope that it might be a good sign for the future of a once lush and diverse delta ecosystem.<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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