Human Causes Of Water Scarcity

Water and change report

Water scarcity is the deficiency of available water resources to meet the demands of water use within a specific region.

The water scarcity apparently affects around 2.8 billion people, which means that more than 1/3 of entire human population live under water-stress condition. However, by 2025 2/3 of the world population will be living under water-stressed conditions.

Locations of Water Scarcity

From the map above it can be seen that the water scarcity can be divided in two parts, physical water scarcity (red) and economic water scarcity (yellow). However, some regions have little or no water scarcity (blue) or approaching physical water scarcity (orange). It can be seen that the water scarcity affects around

Regions with high pressure:

• High-pressure areas are arid regions, therefore they have low amount of participation, which leads to water scarcity.

Human causes of water scarcity

1.Population growth:

• In the last 50 years the human population has doubled, this caused the water ecosystem to a massive loss of biodiversity.

• The population growth leads to urbanization, which

• Population growth increases the pressure on water by increasing the demand for building urban areas, production of energy and food.

2.Agriculture (Economic water scarcity):

• Agriculture uses 70% of the world’s accessible fresh water, but 60% of it is wasted.

3.Pollution (Economic water scarcity):

• Water, air and land pollution are contributes to the reduction of water quality.

• The usage of pesticides and fertilizers during farming pollute water, which leads to water scarcity because people are unable to drink polluted water.

• The chemicals and toxic waste are merge to the water, making it undrinkable

• The use of fossil fuels and toxic emission pollute air, which leads to acid rains, which harms water

New Delhi alone produces about 3.5 million cubic meters of sewage every day. However, less than half of the waste is effectively treated due to limited management.

• Unclear laws, government corruption.

• Industrial and human waste is the origin of water supply difficulties and affected the water.

• India doesn’t monitor water usage.

• New Delhi literally cannot escape from the sewage it produces, because 45% of the population is disjoined to the public sewage system.

Impacts:

• A mixture of sewage disposal, industrial effluents, and chemicals from farm runoffs, arsenic and fluoride made the Indian’s rivers unsuitable for drinking, irrigation or industrial objectives.

• More than 21% of contagious diseases in India are linked to unsafe water.

• Millions of poor people are affected by preventable diseases, which are originated from insufficient water supply and sanitation.

• Each river in India is polluted. They are saturated with toxic metals, fluoride, and nitrates.

How to overcome it:

• It is essential for the Indian government to balance competing demands between urban and rural areas, wealthy and poor, the economy and the