5.7

Question 1

What is water insecurity?

Answer 1

Where a country’s water consumption exceeds 10% of its renewable freshwater supply.

Question 2

What is water scarcity?

Answer 2

When there is less than 1000m of water per person per year in a country

Question 3

What is water stress?

Answer 3

Where there is less than 1700m of water per person per year

Question 4

What can water insecurity lead to?

Answer 4

The need for physical (e.g. dam building) or political and economic solutions (e.g. supply agreements between countries

Question 5

How many people will be living in water stress by 2025?

Answer 5

5.5 billion

Question 6

What areas experience water stress?

Answer 6

• a lot of Africa and Asia
• South Africa
• East Africa
• India
• High density areas, e.g. South East UK

Question 7

Where is water scarcity at the moment?

Answer 7

North Africa, Middle East Asia eg. Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen etc.

Question 8

What are physical factors causing water insecurity?

Answer 8

• Diminishing supply (impact of climate change & deteriorating quality from pollution)
• Rising demands (population growth and economic development)
• Competing demands from users (internal conflicts in a basin & international issues: upstream vs downstream; HEP vs irrigation)

Question 9

What are environmental causes of water insecurity?

Answer 9

• Warming climate - rise in evapotranspiration will lead to less precipitation
• Natural climate variability - different places will have different levels of precipitation
• Variation of number low pressures zones in different areas.
• Steep relief locations have more surface run-off
• Geology - This will affect the rate of surface run-off
• ENSO cycles - creates short term water deficiencies in areas such as the Sahel.
• Melting of the cryosphere leads to a reduction in water storage.

(Additional info: Porous sandstone and permeable chalk can store huge amounts of water, meaning it can reduce water scarcity).

Question 10

What human factors cause water insecurity?

Answer 10

• Over-abstraction from rivers and ground water.
• Agriculture - using up to 90% of the water demand in countries and depleting aquifers, degrading wildlife and habitats and increasing pesticide pollution as it seeps into groundwater.
• Industry - due to industrialisation, water demand will increase by 400% from 2000 to 2050.
• Energy
• Increasing population - population growing by 80 million per year, but water is rising twice as fast, lowering availability for freshwater.
• Increasing demand (living standards) - rising incomes = increase in water consumption e.g. cars, appliances etc.