Water scarcity

70% of the Earth- home of all known living creatures- is covered with water, yet only 3% of it is available for use. Funnily enough this 3% is said to be sufficient for 7 billion people, but it is distributed unevenly or otherwise wasted, polluted and unsustainably managed. The result is that 40% of the entire population has little or no access to clean water, therefore the right for an adequate life.

There are several causes of water scarcity, including global warming, human conflicts and corruption, pollution, inadequate infrastructure development and overpopulation. In developing countries women and girls are primarily responsible for collecting water, which eventuates in muscle damage as they have to carry heavy bowls of water on long distances. What is more, females are usually alone during collecting, making them an easy target for sexual abuse and causing unwanted pregnancy.

Teenage pregnancy is the number 1 reason for school dropouts, which contributes to overpopulation, as girls won’t get the necessary knowledge of the world, family issues and protection. Overpopulation and water scarcity are among the primary reasons for migration which heavily affects today’s world.

Recently, in April 2018 an unbelievable thing happened in Cape Town, South Africa. The dam levels were so low that the taps were turned off in the town, sending its people to communal water collection points – they ran out of water. There were many attempts solving this huge problem, including bringing an ice berg from the South Pole, and the final solution was restricting water usage. Each household could use 50l of water/day, which is crazy if you think about it- with a 90 second shower, they were allowed to take, around 18 l of water is used.

Placards like this were spreading across Cape Town, encouraging people to use water wisely.

Water shortage encourages people to store water in homes, which increases the risk of water contamination, water-borne diseases, may lead to cholera, typhoid fever, plague and serves as a breeding ground for mosquitoes, carrying malaria. People threatened by dehydration are willing to drink water from any source.

Water scarcity also affects the environment. The loss of floodplains and wetlands, also concerns the loss of biodiversity, growing crops and protection from storms and flooding. In agriculture farmers will have to learn to cope with drought, they will have to increase productivity with using less water to meet the growing demands for food, which is a result of overpopulation.

There are many techniques designed to solve this problem, including the desalination of salt water, rainwater harvesting, fog catcher, water seer and irrigation at night for agriculture. To solve this problem cities and companies will have to learn how to use water sustainably. Another key point is education and raising awareness, to reduce water usage.

Written by: Oláh Rebeka