Sign Into Environment 911Is Our Supply of Fresh Water Running Out?
It already seems like we don't have an abundant supply of fresh water, but it appears like an even smaller quantity when we break it down further. Seventy percent of the fresh water is trapped in frozen ice at both poles. Much of the rest is tied up in ground moisture or trapped in underground bodies of water that we can't easily access with current technology.
Out of the earth's massive amount of water, less than .007% is fresh water that is readily available for human consumption. Picture it as a few drops in the bottom of a water glass. When you think of it that way, it makes something that we typically consider limitless seem much more precious.
Are we running out of fresh water? Studies say that Asia, an area that historically has had an abundant water supply, has seen it's fresh water supply per person diminish by somewhere between 40% and 60% between the years of 1955 and 1990. According to the Human Development Report of 2006, over 1.4 billion people live in areas where they are using more water than their local rivers can supply. In Europe, about 60% of the larger cities are using groundwater faster than it can be replaced naturally reports the World Council for Sustainable Development. The BBC reports that one person out of five globally does not have access to fresh water today. Many notable sources point out facts that support the theory that our fresh water supply is in fact running low.
How does this happen? One way is that demand on water is increasing. The world's population continues to increase. Not only does this mean more people are drinking the fresh water, but more is also needed to grow crops and to manufacture the goods that we all want to consume.
This leads to the second way that our supply of fresh water is affected; supply is decreasing. A lot of factories in developing countries don't have the means and/or the desire to recycle the water they use, and dump it untreated into the local water sources. We like to think that factories in more developed nations are following all the rules, but even when every regulation is followed to the letter of the law, they can't always clean the water completely and accidents will happen.
A third way that our fresh water is diminishing is through waste. Whether it's inefficient farming methods or forgetting to turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth, the world wastes an incredible amount of fresh water on a regular basis.
We all need fresh water to live. The human body is made up of about 70% water. If we suddenly had no petroleum products (without renewable replacements), it would be very inconvenient. You'd most likely find yourself walking a lot. However, without fresh water we would soon literally die of thirst.
Without fresh water, sanitation becomes nearly impossible. It becomes hard to remove human waste and other germ carrying matter. Disease will soon flourish without a good water supply as illustrated in many of the recent natural disasters.
In addition to drinking our water, we also eat our water. Fresh water is critical to food supplies. Our agricultural system would die, just as our lawn does in the middle of summer, without an adequate fresh water supply. In short, without water, nothing survives.
Some say that a global water shortage could lead to conflicts and even war. Most of the world's river basins are controlled by more than country. It's easy to see how if one country built a large dam or used another method to supply their people, while preventing the next country downstream from receiving their share of water, there would be some desperate people before long.
We can't afford to wait for the next generation, or even the next year, to conserve and protect the world's fresh water supply. The time to act is now.
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