Environmental challenge: water crisis

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/the-coming-global-water-crisis/256896/

Alexis C. Madrigal. “The Coming Global Water Crisis ”The Atlantic International Channel (blog). May 9, 2012. Retrieved September 25, 2012

The Coming Global Water Crisis is a blog talks about different issues that lead to global water crisis. There arefurther problems that generated because of lacking fresh water resources. It also make projections for the future of the globe, which is that regions that have water-stressed problems right now, while maintaining the rapid growth of population that increased the demand for water; as well as the rapid meltingrate of the glaciers and snow pack on top of mountains. The water shortages will be much more severe in the future than itis right now. According to the Global Water Security report from U.S. Intelligence Community, the “annual global water requirement” will be 40 percent larger than the sustainable fresh water supply. The U.S. national security might threatenby the absence of proper interventions that regulated by policies related with water shortages. Social and political instabilities and even the failure of states may cause by intensive water shortages.

​There are several causes that linked to the water crisisthat are related with ecohydrology theories in this blog. He mentioned that the declining of the fresh water supply is the main dispatches of the Planet Earth. Rapid depletion of underground aquifers greatly damages the entire water cycle. Since there are enormous amount of water pulled out from theaquifers without proper evaluation about whether the groundwater can get enough recharge; especially in arid regions, people tend to dig deep wells to pull out more water, all of these reckless actions worsen the water shortage situations. This including the water that preserved in the aquifer for long time, which means that there are possibilities that the aquifer may never have the peticular source or any source to recharge of itself. Unregulated exploitation of groundwater greatly changes the ecosystems that depend upon groundwater. Trees that used to get water from their capillary system that is 20 feet below the ground, but now because of there are great amount of water depleted; the water table dropped a lot, trees’ roots cannot suck enough water to support them now.

Another important aspect we need to pay attention to is that the disappearance of the glacier and the snow packs,because majority of the snow pack on top of the mountains are the only source of water supply during dry seasons. Example would be Andes, where huge amounts of glacier disappear in past decades, the water supply severely impacted because of the disappearance of snow pack. The decreasing of water supply in dry season would affect the entire ecosystem as well as human who lived near by regions. With the onlywater supply gone, trees are not able to find water because they cannot move around. Some animals could survive by immigrating to further areas to find available water supply but same problem will happen with those supplies too in the future. Some animals couldn’t make it through and died on their water-hunting journey.

Besides the facts of the water supply decreasing, demand increase is another cause that leads to water crisis. The changing of our dietary preferences is a huge factor that used a lot of our limited fresh water. The middle class will be the major consumer by 2030, which is about 4.9 billionworldwide and most of them will arise from developing countries. People will have more money and they want to live a wealthier life. We will see a dramatic increase of demand for meat products than now, that requires more energy and water to raise livestock. In order to produce meat products, we need to keep animals by feeding them water and grain. The growth of grain requires water as well. We are now using double or even more water to get that slice of ham to consumers. Today, as much as 93% of water supply goes to agriculture sector that coming from varieties of sourcesincluding river, lake and groundwater. There will be great pressure coming from food production that on the water supply, which has already happen in some regions.

Alexis’ way of solving the water crisis is by signing more agreements. “Today, water basin agreements often do not exist or are inadequate.” From my point of view, I do not think that, signing agreements with countries sharing water basins would work in terms of solving global water crisis. Agreements may work with some countries that have violent conflicts by using diplomatic weapon. The reality is that non-state actors, terrorists and extremists may not be bind by agreements. Signing agreements may have some help to save water but it does not have the ability to constraint countries by law or military forces. It depends on conscientious of who signed the agreement. The effects of saving water are verylimited.

In order to save the world from water crisis, we need to develop water efficiency technologies and much more important is that, the spreading of these technologies globally. Education will help people realize the importance of water. By education, we can teach more people know about how to save water during the daily life. This will enhance the acknowledgement of water scarcity of much larger scale. Even though some Americans know about it’s important to save water, but very few of them actually put an effort to do that. Lacking support from the government and it’s too expensive to install new infrastructures that have high waterefficiency may be the obstacles that we encounter right now. From my point, I think proper governmental subsidy will also help to save more water from the national level. We need something bigger steps and actions, rather than minorindividual changes on the margins. We are adults and we know the price that needs to pay by starting with serious actions. When we facing with water crisis, it’s not a simple issue by as simple as taking shorter shower or use toilets that use much less water. Fundamental changes need to be done to save us from future water crisis.