Planning And Management Of Water Resources

According to the International Water Management Institute environmental research organisation global water stress is increasing, and a third of all people face some sort of water scarcity. Where demand exceeds supply and no effective management operates, there will be conflicts between the various players involved.

This essay is a review of the article “Growing More Food with Less Water”, written by Sandra Postel. According the article, our global freshwater sources, including underground aquifers and rivers are stressed beyond their ability to provide freshwater. Agriculture redesign is necessary with the two primary goals being to cut water demands of mainstream agriculture and bring low cost irrigation to poor farmers. Typical irrigation, crop furrow flooding is a main cause of wasted and polluted water. This article discusses alternatives to typical irrigation. These alternatives have been tested onsite by farers and surveyed.

Across the world, how one gets water is different depending on the environment and the climate someone lives in. The “intensive use of groundwater” and desalination potential and limitation, has been brought to the attention of people by Elena Lopez-Gunn and Manuel Ramón Llamas. When looking at arid or semi-arid regions, the use of groundwater can make a huge difference. This is explained through a serious tone that is supported by an abundance of facts to prove that this statistic is actually a possibility for countries around the world. “Groundwater systems globally provide 25 to 40% of the world’s drinking water and more than half of the world’s population relies on groundwater for its drinking water supply” (Lopez-Gunn and Llamas). Even though cultures are different around the world, this one type of water system is shared by many

During the 90’s, Africa is one of the worst affected from water shortages. The rainfall in Africa comes in bursts; this means the water may not be collected because of how dry the land is. Therefore, Africa has had droughts that have affected the rainfall recently. As an outcome, Africa’s water supply is near scarcity, considering the facts stated.

Due to the difficulty of receiving fresh water and the growing population; this leads to water becoming scarce in specific regions. The authors write, “While natural factors such as intermittent droughts and limited freshwater reserves can cause scarcity...” (Roudi-Fahimi, Creel, and Souza). Certain parts of Northern Africa and Southwestern Asia rain falls

Water scarcity is a problem and will be a larger problem in the future . As the earth warms , regions currently receive an adequate supply of rain . The change

“Arid and semi-arid environments, which represent a substantial portion of Earth's surface, have remained poorly studied. Yet water scarcity and salt content, changes in rainfall, flash floods, high rates of aquifer exploitation and growth of desert regions are all signs that suggest climate change and human activities are also affecting these arid and semi-arid zones” (Buis).

A surge in the global population in the past century has brought about an immense strain on the commons. It is estimated that 35% of the global population suffers from “severe water stress” (Wada et al., 2010). Only 3% of the world’s supply of water is freshwater, with 68.7% being locked away in the glaciers, 30.1% in ground water, and 0.9% in surface water bodies (Shiklomanov, 1993). This makes groundwater the most abundant fresh water source readily available for human consumption. Estimates for global groundwater withdrawal are between 750 and 800 cubic kilometers per year (Konikow et al., 2005). Severe land subsidence and depletion of the groundwater table is occurring in both developing and developed nations. This has made

In recent years overconsumption of water has drained the earth’s river basins faster than rain can replenish them. An average person’s daily water footprint i.e. the total amount of water consumed to support their lifestyle is 3,800 liters. Most of this consumption relates to the crops that are farmed to provide us with food and clothing. Irrigation consumes an enormous amount of water, and the effects of this are seen at every stage in the food chain. For example 98 percent of the water footprint created by raising beef cattle comes from growing the grain that feeds the cows during their lifetimes. For each kilogram of steak produced, we consume 15,415 liters of water. That’s enough drinking water to last one person nearly 17 years. Growing water footprint is partly a result of our increasing population; but it is also compounded by the fact that irrigation systems, especially in the developing world, are often extremely inefficient. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization states that even a good irrigation scheme is only 50-60 percent efficient. Poor irrigation systems can result in the vast majority of the water being lost to evaporation, seepage and other problems before it reaches the fields. Moreover, once it gets there, if farmers choose to irrigate at the wrong time for example, just before it rains, the water will be wasted and the crops may even be damaged.

Farmers over-irrigate and under irrigate their produce causing famines and severe soil erosion. As the nation and the world have sunk into a global water crisis, every drop counts. Day by day, the evaporation rate increases. Farmers can’t tell the maximum and minimum amounts of water in their land. That’s where our innovation comes into play.

water scarcity is the biggest threat to our food security. agriculture uses about 70 percent of all our freshwater from rivers every single year from around the world. river water is used to irrigate farms and feed billions of people around the world. the level of threat to the ongoing supply of fresh water available depends on the place. river systems and the water that the farmers capture store and distribute are the most threatened natural environments on earth. an increasing demand for water is by far the most common threat to food security around the world. with so much water being used it is easy to run out of the water what makes the crops die of dehydration.

A major problem for human populations in semi-arid environments is the lack of water for domestic consumption. On average a person needs 200 liters of water (Heller and Padua, 2006) per day to meet their basic needs (food and drink). This volume of water per person is very difficult to be obtained in environments where the average annual rainfall is low, less than 800 mm, a value which characterizes the semi-arid environment (MI, 2005). This difficulty is even more important when considering that the rivers that exist in these environments are not permanent, but go through periods without flow and occurrence of a dry period is greater than probability of 60% (MI, 2005) .

Water is the main source of life on the Earth. It is vital for normal existence and functioning of organisms. Earth is sometimes called “water planet.” But, in fact, the number of freshwater is limited. “Only about 2 percent of the planet's water is fresh.” (How much water is there on Earth?) This water is not enough even to meet daily needs of mankind. According to World Health Organization, “a lack of water to meet daily needs is a reality today for one in three people around the world.” (2009) In the Middle East the situation is especially hard. This region is thought to be one of the droughtiest places in the world, most of it’s territory is deserted. Freshwater accounts to 1 percent of the world’s supplies, while the population comes

As the world continues to grow the need for fresh water continues to rising. The current demand for water is ever increasing. In the many places in the world clean drinking water is taken for granted. In other arid places in the world water is a scarce resource.

Diversion of surface waters for irrigation in the internally draining basins of arid regions results in increased evaporation and a net loss of continental water. As in the case of aquifer mining, net loss of water from such lakes leads to a net decrease in continental water storage and enhancement of the land to atmosphere flux.