2. WATER SCARCITY
The lack of sufficient available water
resources to meet the demands of
water usage within a region. It
already affects every continent and
around 2.8 billion people around the
world at least one month out of every
year. More than 1.2 billion people
lack access to clean drinking water.
Water shortages may be caused by
climate change, such as altered
weather patterns including droughts
or floods, increased pollution, and
increased human demand and
overuse of water. A water crisis is a
situation where the available
potable, unpolluted water within a
region is less than that region's
demand. Water scarcity is being
driven by two converging
phenomena: growing freshwater use
and depletion of usable freshwater
resources.
3. Water scarcity already
affects every continent.
Around 1.2 billion
people, or almost one-
fifth of the world's
population, live in areas
of physical scarcity, and
500 million people are
approaching this
situation. Another 1.6
billion people, or almost
one quarter of the
world's population, face
economic water
shortage. Water scarcity
is both a natural and a
human-made
phenomenon. There is
enough freshwater on the
planet for seven billion
people but it is
distributed unevenly and
too much of it is wasted,
polluted and
unsustainably managed
4. Access to water for domestic and productive uses (agriculture, industry,
and other economic activities) has a direct impact on poverty and food
security.
Incidence of catastrophic but often recurrent events, such as droughts,
interrupts educational attainment.
Access to water, in particular in conditions of scarce resources, has
important gender related implications, which affects the social and
economic capital of women in terms of leadership, earnings and
networking opportunities.
Equitable, reliable water resources management programmes reduce
poor people's vulnerability to shocks, which in turn gives them more
secure and fruitful livelihoods to draw upon in caring for their children.
Access to water, and improved water and wastewater management in
human settlements, reduce transmission risks of mosquito-borne
illnesses, such as malaria and dengue fever.
Adequate treatment of wastewater contributes to less pressure on
freshwater resources, helping to protect human and environmental
health.
Water scarcity increasingly calls for strengthened international
cooperation in the fields of technologies for enhanced water
productivity, financing opportunities, and an improved environment to
share the benefits of scarce water management
5. Water scarcity involves
water stress, water
shortage or deficits, and
water crisis. This may be
due to both natural and
human factors. But, many
reports suggest that the
scarcity is more due to the
human factor than anything
- such as industrialization,
irrigation, domestic use.
The acute water shortage
prevailing in the forest
areas of Tamil Nadu's
districts of Madurai and
Dindigul has led the Indian
gaurs found in the forest of
the region, to death as they
come in search of water
and end up dead by falling
into the wells.
6. One of the world's leading problems
affecting more than 1.1 billion people
globally, meaning that one in every six
people lacks access to safe drinking
water. The Joint Monitoring Programme
for Water Supply and Sanitation set up
by the World Health Organization
(WHO) and United Nations Children’s
Fund (UNICEF) defines safe drinking
water as "water with microbial,
chemical and physical characteristics
that meets WHO guidelines or national
standards on drinking water quality."
Hydrologists generally assess water
scarcity by looking at a population-to-
water equation that treats 1,700 cubic
meters per person as the national
threshold for meeting water
requirements for agricultural and
industrial production, energy, and the
environment. Availability below the
threshold of 1,000 cubic meters
represents a state of "water scarcity",
while anything below 500 cubic meters
represents a state of "absolute scarcity"
7. Australia is a major food exporting
country. Recent droughts reduced
dryland farming production and the
volume of water allocated to irrigated
agriculture, with a resulting decline in
aggregate agricultural production and
exports. This paper analyses the possible
impact of increased water scarcity on
Australian agricultural production and the
magnitude of subsequent impacts on
global food security. Using the Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data on land
and water use coupled with a hydro-
economic stochastic modelling approach,
the impacts of reduced agricultural
production in the southern Murray-
Darling Basin, and more generally for
Australia, are analysed. Changes in
agricultural activity, reduction in
agricultural exports and altered
composition of products exported
attributed to the severe 2000-2009
drought are also analysed to highlight the
implications for global food security. The
impact of climate change on food
production is examined.
8. Nigeria's water infrastructure
is also suffering from severe
neglect. Rural areas in
particular face a decline in
services and in urban areas
people are forced to buy
water from private vendors,
which most cannot afford.
Local governments often do
not have the funds to make
necessary improvements
and can instead be forced to
use short-term solutions
which cannot be maintained
by the communities who
need them. WaterAid works
with the people that are most
in need.
9. Nepal is a landlocked nation with the
current population of over 27 million
people. Some of these significant
challenges are related to water pollution
and water scarcity. Water is one of the
basic human necessities but a large
proportion of the Nepalese population is
devoid of access to safe and adequate
drinking water. According to the
Department of Water Supply and
Sewerage in Nepal, even though an
estimated 80% of the total population has
access to drinking water, it is not safe.
Those belonging to poor and excluded
groups in rural areas have limited to no
access. Many in remote areas have to rely
on small brooks running from the
mountains and spend hours traveling to
get water. Still the drinking water available
is not always safe as supplied water is
often polluted. One of the reasons for this
is due to the fact that the surface and
ground water in the Kathmandu Valley is
deteriorating by natural and anthropogenic
contaminations.
10. World Water Day 2007 was
dedicated to the theme "Coping
with water scarcity". It
highlighted the increasing
significance of water scarcity
worldwide and the need for
increased integration and
cooperation to ensure
sustainable, efficient and
equitable management of scarce
water resources, both at
international and local levels.
World Day to Combat
Desertification 2013
The theme of the 2013 World Day
to Combat Desertification is
drought and water scarcity. This
year's slogan, "Don't let our
future dry up", calls for everyone
to take action to promote
preparedness and resilience to
water scarcity, desertification
and drought. The slogan
embodies the message that we
are all responsible for water and
land conservation and sustainable
use, and that there are solutions
to these serious natural resource
challenges.
