Paying Attention to the Global Water Shortage Essay

The world’s supply of water is in steep decline as more and more is being used each year by more and more people around the globe. Currently, 800 million people do not have access to a drinking source. At the current rate, 1.8 billion people could be living in areas of absolute water scarcity by 2025.

A fifth of the world’s population (1.2 billion people) lack access to safe water today.

The commodification of water is driven by fears of water scarcity, accessibility and cleanliness. Water is recognized a basic human “the human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses” (UN, 2002). But despite this it estimated approximately a billion people do not have access to clean drinking water.

One of Jon Stewart's recent guests on The Daily Show wasn't laughing. Robert Glennon, a professor of law and public policy at The University of Arizona and the author of Unquenchable, used his moment on national television to stress the severity of the global water crisis. Although it is difficult for many of us living in the United States, Canada, and the UK to imagine fresh water as a finite resource, the water crisis is already a stark reality for people living in developing nations. Did you know that taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day? Currently, more than 3.5 million people die each year from water related diseases and young children account for 88% of these

According to Unicef, “Two out of every ten children do not make it to their fifth birthday due to a water related illness.” This crisis is preventable and 39% of Western and Central African people should not be living like this. Life is difficult for the people that do not have clean water. ¨Women and children walk up to three hours a day to get water,¨(Unicef). “Women spend more time collecting water than anything else,” stated by Water Changes Everything. “Women and children also carry up to 40 pounds of water every trip they make to get water,” states Water and Sanitation. The information is important because they do not have a good chance to get a job or education and therefore they live in poverty with no chance of having a productive life outside of their village. There are many global problems about this crisis. “The woman and children collecting the water do not get an education because they spend all day getting the water” (Water Changes Everything). “They still do not have proper sanitation water to drink or clean water,” states the The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “On an average year 1.5 million children die a year due to a water related disease,” states Water and Sanitation. This problem is solvable, and we can not allow 1.5 million children to die a year and not get an education. Research must continue in order to solve this

In third-world countries, water and sanitation facilities are often scarce or unreliable. Contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to transmission of diseases such as chorea, dirrhoea, hepatitis, typhoid and polio. Each day 2000 children die from diarrhoea caused by contaminated water an inadequate sanitation and hygiene and overall around 842000 people are estimated to die each year. These diseases have the insidious effect of reducing people’s ability to access education and earn income – 272 million school days are lost each year to water-related diseases.

Water is becoming a precious commodity around the world. “Throughout to world, water is recognized as the most fundamental and indispensable of all natural resources and it is clear that neither social and economic development, nor environmental diversity, can be sustained without water” (Ashton 1). Water is becoming scarce throughout the world. “Water scarcity is when an individual does not have access to safe affordable water to satisfy her or his needs for drinking, washing or their livelihoods…”(Rijsberman 1).

Water is one of the most important sources of energy that keep humans from being dehydrated, not only that; it is an abundant resource that supports many life forms on Earth. With only one access to fresh drinking water, metropolitans from the Victorian period involuntarily have to use the water from the Thames River which also the place where their excrements were being released. From this point of view, we can be assured that water is the most important source that humans are in need. Water treatment plants were created to ensure that waters from different sources are safe to consume. Though technologies are invented to prevent future epidemic outbreaks, water supply is still a problem in many developing countries. More than 5,000 children die each year in Africa from consuming contaminated or dehydrated from the lack water. Without access to fresh water supplies, government officials have no choice but to receive aid from friendly countries. Up until today, a countless number of children are suffering from the lacking of

780 million people worldwide lack access to clean water and annually, 2 to 8 million die from health issues relating to this. (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, 2013). UNICEF and WHO estimates that the countries shouldering the greatest burden from this are China, India, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bangladesh, United Republic of Tanzania, Kenya and Pakistan with women and girls disproportionately affected. (UNICEF, 2014)

Have you ever heard that water-related disease will cause a child dies in every 21 seconds? If you do a calculation here, you will find out that there would be 4320 deaths every day, and approximately 1.5 million deaths annually. Isn’t it a consternating statistic for you? 60 to 70% of a human body is made out of one of the vital elements; water. Therefore, we can survive without food for three weeks, but not water. It is an absolutely different story because every single living cell in the human body does need water for functioning. Thus, you can imagine how miserable the situation in the rural area in Africa is. Apart from that, a bottle of the polluted water can be a killer to Africans because it contains many different kinds of virus

One of the most important natural resources we have on this planet is water. Water covers roughly 70 percent of our planet and is the very foundation for every single species on earth. We as humans, rely on water more than any other resource on the planet and we simply can’t live without it. Although water is abundant around the world, clean water for millions of people is inaccessible. Around the world, there are people struggling to get water yet along clean water and it greatly affects our health. Improving clean water supply and sanitation, and better access to clean water resources, can increase countries’ economic development and can contribute greatly to poverty reduction and overall people’s health.

It is an essential resource for sustaining life as well as central to agriculture and rural development, and is intrinsically linked to global challenges of food insecurity and poverty, climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as degradation and depletion of natural resources that affect the livelihoods of millions of people across the world. According to the World Bank, (2010) report, water is a scarce resource with multiple interwoven uses that range from drinking water, energy, irrigation, manufacturing things, transport of people and goods among others. The report further states that, more than one-sixth of the Worlds’ population does not have access to safe drinking water, with 80% living in rural areas thus access to water cannot not be guaranteed globally.

In the world today 650 million people don’t have access to clean and safe water, 2.3 billion people don’t have access to adequate sanitation which is 1 out of 3 of the world’s population, and 315 thousand children under five die every year from diarrheal diseases caused by unclean water and substandard or nonexistent sanitation which is 900 children per day. The world is made up of nearly 70 percent water, but only 2.5 percent of that water is fresh water. Out of that 2.5 percent only about 1 percent of that is easily accessible which is most trapped in glaciers and snowfields. In total, only about 7 one thousandth of a percent of the water is used for the 7.4 billion people now on this earth. Developing countries suffer

Have you ever heard that water-related diseases cause a death of child every 21 seconds? To sum up, you will find out that there would be 4320 deaths every day, and approximately 1.5 million deaths annually (Prois). Isn’t it a consternating statistic for you? 60 to 70% of a human body is made out of one of the vital elements – water. Therefore, we can survive without food for three weeks, but not water. It is an absolutely different story because every single living cell in a human body does need water for functioning. Thus, you can imagine how miserable the situation in the rural area in Africa is. Apart from that, a bottle of the polluted water can kill Africans because it contains many different kinds of viruses and bacteria. In

Water is the most important substance in the universe. Water resources support agriculture, industry, electric power, recreation, navigation, and fisheries. People need it to live and grow food. The availability of water resources and the quality of the water are vital to life and to the world’s economy. Water makes up about 71% of the earth’s surface, but over 97% of all the earth’s water is contained within the oceans as salt water, “only 2.5% of total water supply is fresh water” (Solomon, 96). Of that tiny amount, 2.0% is locked away in ice caps and glaciers, while groundwater adds up just 0.62%, lakes 0.009%, and river a mere 0.0001%” (Holston,105). Finite fresh water supply with rapid population growth will easily cause water scarcity around the world. Recorded on the analytical report from World Health Organization, “there are 1.1 billion of the earth’s inhabitants, or one-six of humanity, lacks access to the bare minimum of safe drinking water, which 2.8 billion, almost half of the world’s population, exists without a minimum level of sanitation” ( Holston, 105). Which is the fact of water shortage today, in twenty century, and will probably getting worse in Twenty one century if the trends in water use are still not being changed.