Water Scarcity

Problem

In the Holy Quran, water is mentioned in it where in translation means “And made from water everything alive”. Water covers 71% of the earth’s surface and from that high percent, only 2.5% of it is fresh water and from that percentage only less than 0.3% is fresh water that can be found in lakes and rivers whereas the rest of it are in ice and underground. In the 20^th century water business came to life as some businessmen and business entities came to realize that water suitable for use is getting lower and lower, in that they sought a business opportunity to invest in a natural resource and made it into a commodity. In another word, fresh water is limited and it will as well as other natural resources run out, solutions must be brainstormed, assessed, chosen and implemented to prevent future catastrophes that might not affect life forms in the meantime but will have severe consciences in the near or late future.

164 words

( http://www.unwater.org/statistics_use.html)

Causes

A lot of people pointed the fingers at bad personal habits when the problem was realized, but that was not the major cause of the problem when at the same time the economy had divided water usage when only 10% was going to the municipality and that only was good to use as drinking water, 20% was going to industry and a whopping 70% to irrigation and that is a really high percentage. Another major cause is the major increase in population and the world’s population has increased by one billion from 1999 to 2011and is still increasing. China is the highest in population and next is India and that has forced China to have the one-child policy or family planning policy where the Chinese government will support you if you only have one child, the government has gone to extreme measures for this policy just to control population. Another issue is the desalination plant that made water into a business which made a lot of businessmen and business entities to go to this business for the huge amount of profit they make.

183 words

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy)

Solution

China took a huge step to control population and it went to the extreme to do it and it worked for them but I don’t think an extreme like that would work around the world, a policy like that should be implemented but not as strong as the policy in China but a less strict policy would put the world in a strategy of population control. Another solution would be dividing the usage of water because a lot of it is in irrigation and that 70% is keeping the world full and not hungry but a solution for it is connected in desalination. The International Desalination Association is an organization that is associated with the desalination business; a global entity should be formed that governments, businessman and women and people of the public can join for an effort to increase its business and the number of desalination plants around the world will increase and that will make profit in billions where it will bringing more people when they see the benefits in it. Using the desalinated water in agriculture should be in a certain percentage to make it efficient and effective as well as less than 70% which is the current usage; making some mandatory changes can have a dramatic effect such as drip irrigating, a system like that will have a huge change in agriculture and it will make the usage go way below 70% if made mandatory around the world. Bad personal habits can be changed but that takes a lot of changes and amendments for the actions to have an effect; one solution is making a certain percentage of water usage for free but the rest will be charged and that will make people a little bit wiser when using water; making some mandatory changes when building a house like installing sensors in the bathroom faucet as well as installing sprinklers in them and that will make the usages lower in one house but if it became worldwide it will have a dramatic effect. A step must be taken by someone and the rest of the world will follow afterwards; this problem might not affect this generation or the next one or the one after but eventually it will have catastrophic effect on a lot of people and nations might even go to war over water.

389 words

(http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/)