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Are Water For Meet Global Demands For Food? 2050? Critically Discuss The Challenges And Suggest Potential Solutions

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Will there be sufficient water to meet global demands for food in 2050? Critically discuss the challenges and suggest potential solutions.
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Water and food security are closely linked together. It is an important resource for the maintenance of food production and agriculture. And with the effects of climate change becoming more apparent the natural recharge of aquifers are being affected thus straining the availability of water supply which turn affects food production process and energy needed to extract and distribute the water. And as global population levels increase past the planets ability to support it there will be food shortages in the future. But that’s only if the same business as usual trend is continued. Agriculture …show more content…

However there are solutions ranging from decentralised forms of water management such as water reuse via rainwater harvesting at a local level (municipalities), using green water sources more efficiently, desalinisation and the transference of water via pipelines to other areas and virtual water trading.

Water supply and population growth rate
The planets population growth rate is increasing beyond its ability to support it and is predicted to reach 9 billion Charles and Goldfray (2010). As a result many areas of the world are experiencing water scarcity. This is due to a notion that “the fast increase in crop productivity worldwide between 1960 and 1990, science policy makers became convinced that the capacity of the Earth to produce food was sufficiently large to meet any future demand” Fereres, Orgaz, and Dugo (2011). As a result this notion has likely led to the underestimation on how fast a population can grow. According to literature developing nations in Africa and Asia are likely to be the worst affected when it comes to water supply (refer to figure 1). According to Mancosu et al (2015) the accumulative amount of fresh water resources for the entire planet lies at around 43,700 km3 year -1. However if we look at percentages in which these resources are distributed around the world there are massive

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