Alpha Idiomas: Global Issues: Water Crisis

Water Crisis

“Clean, safe drinking water is scarce. Today, nearly 1 billion people in the developing world don't have access to it. Yet, we take it for granted, we waste it, and we even pay too much to drink it from little plastic bottles.
Water is the foundation of life. And still today, all around the world, far too many people spend their entire day searching for it.” (Continue reading...)

▪ Water Crisis Causes

▪ Pollution: Shanghai, with its fancy cafes, glitzy shopping malls and organic health food shops, is emblematic of improving quality of life for China’s urban middle class. Yet while the city’s veil of smog has lifted slightly in recent years, its water pollution crisis continues unabated – 85% of the water in the city’s major rivers was undrinkable in 2015, according to official standards, and 56.4% was unfit for any purpose.
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▪ Groundwater overdraft: Groundwater overdraft occurs when groundwater use exceeds the amount of recharge into an aquifer, which leads to a decline in groundwater level. This condition is occurring in an increasing number of groundwater basins throughout California, and is affecting the state in many ways.
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▪ Population growth: Water is a key element of life for everyone on Earth. As the world’s population grows, the demand for water mounts and the pressure on finite water resources intensifies. Climate change, which is also closely tied to population growth, will also lead to even greater pressures on the availability of water resources.
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▪ Water privatization: The process of water privatization in Chile, which began in 1981 under General Pinochet, established a model for water management that strengthened private water rights, adopted a market-based allocation system and reduced state oversight. That model became emblematic of neoliberal reforms heavily promoted by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
These reforms fundamentally changed the way water is valued and managed globally. No longer a mere necessity for human survival, water has become an object of international financial speculation and experts predict that “blue gold” will soon become the most important physical commodity worldwide, dwarfing oil and precious metals.
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▪ Bad insfrastructure: Failure to replace and upgrade our country’s water infrastructure poses a severe risk to both the quality and quantity of the country’s water supplies.
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▪ Water misuse and overuse: “The big cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco, consume massive amounts of water daily due to their massive populations concentrated in one area. New York City, for instance, consumed 1007.2 million gallons of water per day in 2009 (NYC Government). This is 125.8 gallons per person per day. To put this amount in comparison, most people living in Africa only use around 5.28 gallons per day (Water for Africa). Therefore, the average American living in NYC is using 25 times more water than the average public who is living in Africa. In no economy is this comparison acceptable.”
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Why Water from charity: water on Vimeo.

▪ Diseases in relation with inadequate water supply: These diseases result from the lack of adequate water supply for human use. The pathogens are passed on faecal-orally from humans to humans or by contact with contaminated surfaces.
▪ List

▪ Ten countries most in need of clean water: The goal of World Water Day is to raise awareness about the water crisis that is happening in our world. We need to educate ourselves on where the crisis is taking place and then we need to do our best to make it so that there will never be a need for another World Water Day.
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▪ Natural insfrastructure could help solving Brazilian water crisis: Serious water crisis have plagued Brazil’s major cities in recent years. Severe pollution in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay is jeopardizing sailing and other water sports at the upcoming Olympic Games.
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