Topic 5 - EQ3 Flashcards
What is the issue when improving access to water?
Improving access to water and sanitation underpinned many of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. However in 2015, 15% of people still didn’t have reliable access to safe water, and around 25% still lacked clean sanitation.
How much of the world’s volume of water is available for human usage?
Only 2.5% is available as freshwater for humans to use, and then only 1% is actually accessible surface water for humans.
Why should water not, in theory, be an issue?
According to the UN, our basic needs can be met by 1000 m^3 per year. In 2010 it was estimated that nearly 60% of this is accessible fresh water was being used and 40% wasn’t.
However, combinations of rising demand and diminishing availability of supplies could create the ‘perfect storm’ of resource shortage when combined with food and energy, for which water is needed for their production.
What is ‘peak water’?
This is a phase being increasingly used to describe the state of growing constraints on quantity and quality of accessible water.
What is the fundamental issue surrounding water supply?
There is unequal water around the world, as opposed to the generally satisfactory global situation. There are three facets to this state of affairs: physical distribution, the gap between rising demand and diminishing supplies, and the water availability gap.
What is the physical distribution of water like?
There is a mismatch between where water demand and supply is. Water supplies are spread very unevenly, 60% of the worlds supplies are in just 10 countries. Factors involved in physical distribution include location of precipitation belts/temperature as well as level of development. 66% of the worlds population live in areas that receive only 25% of the world’s annual rainfall. Clearly, there are areas of supply shortage such as most of the Middle East where there are potential sources of conflict over shared basin usage/dams and pollution.
What is the rising demand of water caused by?
-Population growth: possibly fuelled by an additional 3billion people in 2030.
-Standards of living are also rapidly increasing across the world, increasing domestic use of water (cleaning), meat-rich diets, and more energy using products e.g toilets and cars which also increase usage.
-Economic growth increases demand for water in all economic sectors (agriculture, energy, industry and services). Mining and fracking need huge amounts of water.
-Increasing amounts of irrigation farming, causing countries like Australia to even experience droughts as a result. In countries like Kazakhstan (one of the highest water usages per capita), 99% of it is used for irrigated crops.
What is fracking?
Hydraulic fracking or oil/gas well stimulation is a technique in which rock is fractured by a pressurised liquid.
How are water supplies dwindling?
The most serious manifestation of dwindling supplies concerns the diminishing supplies available from ground water aquifers. The main reason is for irrigation, which is a voracious consumer of water. Comparatively cheap pumping technology, minimal legislation to regulate its use and threats from climate change induced drought have combined to put pressure on supplies, leading to a falling water table as the groundwater supplies are being extracted faster than they can be replenished. Excessive withdrawals can cause subsidence (like in Mexico City) and intrusion of salt water in coastal districts (e.g coastal North Africa).
Groundwater can no longer be regarded as an unlimited supplement to surface water supplies, which are themselves being diminished by overuse.
What is the result of the imbalance between demand and supply?
This has resulted in a number of pressure points where nationally, regionally or locally, water supplies are under threat.
Why is water supply diminishing?
-Impact of climate change
-Deteriorating quality from pollution
-Impact of competing users
Why is water demand rising?
-Population growth
-Economic development
What is the water availability gap?
The underlying concept is that of a water availability gap between the ‘have-nots’, largely in developing nations, and the ‘haves’, largely in developed nations.There is also an imbalance of usage, with wealthier countries using a lot more water than less developed nations, up to 10x more per head. These countries also include large percentages of embedded water (also known as virtual water).
What is virtual water?
These are hidden flows of water when food or other commodities are traded.
What counties experience water stress?
Water stress is under 1700m^3 per person per year. It is experienced in Western Asia (e.g Pakistan), as well as South Africa and Ethiopia. Also in recent years, California in the USA. Due to climate change and desertification of ecosystems, an estimated 4billion could experience water stress by 2050.
What is estimated to happen to 1/2 the worlds population by 2025?
Will be water vulnerable (under 2500m^3 per year). A state of vulnerability means that there is insufficient water and risks to supplies, especially when unusually hot or dry conditions result from short-term climate change. The list of vulnerable countries includes India, Ghana, Nigeria and most parts of China.
When are water supplies deemed to be sufficient?
If there is around 3000m^3 per person available. This included virtually the whole of America, Russia, and Scandinavia. Also, surprisingly, Australia despite being a very drought-prone area.
What physical factors affect water supply at a macro-scale?
At a macro-scale, climate determines the global distribution of water supply by means of annual and seasonal distribution of precipitation. Precipitation varies globally as a result of atmospheric pressure systems, with low pressure systems having the highest total rainfalls, and high pressure systems having the lowest total rainfall. Seasonality of rainfall distribution is also important, as well as its reliability and availability for use as a water supply. A study of the Sahel shows that lower annual totals of rainfall often have greater variation and therefore poorer reliability of supply. Short-term climate change (e.g ENSO) also exacerbates the water security situation.
What is physical water scarcity?
More than 75% of a country or regions blue water flows are being used, this currently applies to around 25% of the world’s population. Some countries in the Middle East are using up to 4% more than their water supply and therefore have to rely on desalination.
What is economic water scarcity?
This occurs when the development of blue water sources is limited by a lack of capital, technology and good governance. Around 1 billion people currently have satisfactory physical availability but can only access 25% of the water supplies because of the high levels of poverty prevalent in these developing countries. Solutions may be reliant on privatisation.
What physical factors affect water supply on a regional scale?
Topography as well as distance from the sea have significant impacts. High relief promotes increased precipitation and rapid run off, but at the same time it may provide greater opportunities for surface water storage in natural lakes and artificial reservoirs, especially when it is combined with impermeable geology. Snowfall and glaciers can also be extremely important locally, as in the Andes where climate warming has led to widespread melting, diminishing the cryosphere storage and threatening water supplies for La Paz-El Alto.
What affect does the worlds major river systems have on water supply?
Major river systems store large quantities of water and also transfer it across continents. The Amazon, for example, has an average discharge of 175,000m^3/s from its catchment shared by Brazil and six other South American countries. Recent droughts in 2005 and 2010, with a dry period in between them, covered an area twice the size of California, and hugely impacted Brazil’s water supply. Main channel flows were at an all time low, many tributaries were completely dry, and record sea temperatures off the north-eastern coast of Brazil.
What effect does geology have on the water supply?
Geology controls the distribution of aquifers that provide the groundwater storage. Permeable chalk and porous sandstones can store vast quantities of water underground, which is valuable because it isn’t subject to evaporation loss. The supply comes from springs but can also be accessed by wells. They give an even supply throughout the year, despite the uneven distribution and variability of rainfall - provided that they’re not overused by demand rising at a faster rate than they can be replenished at. Currently, there is an issue with over-digging wells to reach aquifers, causing the water table to fall.
How do human factors influence the security of water supplies?
Human activities can lead both to diminishing supply and rising demands. Humans can also impact on both the quantity of available water and its quality.
Where is water pollution felt most?
Developing countries. 1 billion people are without safe water and 2,3 billion lack adequate sanitation. The difference of impact is related to the ability of developed countries to do something about it, either by prevention or remediation of supplies.
How do humans cause the pollution of surface water?
In China, 300 million people use contaminated water daily, and 190million suffer from water-related illnesses annually. In China 1/3 of all rivers, 75% of major lakes and 25% of coastal zones are currently classified as highly polluted. In the long-term, 2 million Chinese people may suffer from water diseases, including a town where digestive cancers we’re responsible for 80% of recent deaths. Contaminants usually enter the waterway through run-off or untreated sewage.
How do humans contaminate groundwater supplies?
Groundwater contamination is potentially even more serious is important aquifers are irreversibly damaged. Nearly 20% of all tube wells in Bangladesh were found to be unsafe because of a high concentration of arsenic. This causes major health issues, which then correlates to social impacts, as the victims developed arsenicosis with skin lesions. Worldwide, 137 million people in over 70 countries have some signs of arsenic poisoning from drinking water,
What are some common ways water is polluted?
-Untreated sewage disposal, especially in developing countries where sanitation is poorer. This causes water-borne diseases such as typhoid, cholera, and hepatitis. As many people are forced to use unsafe water, it is estimated by WHO 135million could die unnecessarily by 2020 from water borne diseases. In India, only 20% of sewage is treated before returning to water.
-Chemical fertilisers: used increasingly by farmers and they contaminate groundwater as well as rivers. This causes eutrophication in lakes and rivers. This leads to hypoxia and the formation of dead zones in coastal waters. Many of the pesticides are banned in developed countries due to the health hazards.
-Industrial waste is dumped in to rivers and then travels into oceans. Heavy metals and chemical waste is particularly toxic. The Ganges is a useful example to study; many toxic industries, such as tanneries, discharge their waste directly into the holy river.
-As over 60% of the worlds major rivers are impeded by large dams, this has a major impact on sediment movement, which can then impact on river ecology.
How can humans affect the quantity of water?
Humans can over-abstract from both rivers and lakes, as well as groundwater stores for domestic uses, agriculture, and industrial usage. By 2025, total projected water withdrawals will reach over 5000km^3 per year, of which agriculture will make up 2/3 of. Regionally and locally, a combination of a number of drivers (population growth, migration, urbanisation, rising living standards, industrialisation) will have increased water demand to unsustainable levels.
-Removal of fresh water from aquifers on coastal locations can upset the natural balance of saline and freshwater, which can lead to salt water intrusion and salinisation of wells, boreholes and wetlands.
Coastal storm surges and rising sea levels compound the problem.
How is global water usage used?
Until recently, agriculture absorbed over 70% of extractions globally, but industrial usage in rising p, especially in developed countries and emerging economies where the proportion can rise up to 60%, especially in paper and metal industries.
The energy industry also requires increasing amounts of water for new energy developments such as biofuels and fracking. A number of technological developments are available to cut water usage in all sectors of the economy but, with a finite source, the damage has been done.
How does access to water cause water shortages?
Water insecurity means not having access to sufficient safe/clean water. Despite the global efforts to improve water supply and sanitation, around 1 billion people are still without access to clean water. Manu of these people live in 30 or so developing countries where the root cause is poverty. The others live in areas of physical scarcity where only technology and capital investment can overcome the shortage or unreliability of supply.
What 3 factors is water insecurity related to?
Availability: having not only a water supply but a water distribution network.
Access: freedom to use, or income to buy, water ina particular location.
Usage - Entitlement to, and understanding of, water and health issues.
How does physical scarcity cause water shortages?
Physical scarcity is largely determined by climate with concentrations, in general terms, in high-pressure latitudinal bands between 23.5°N and S and 35°N and S. However, factors such as continentality and topography are significant regionally.
A number of factors may be significant at a more local scale, such as geology. The situation isn’t static, as temperature areas such as South Africa or California can be affected by drought-related climate change. Climate change can lead to physical scarcity.
How does economic scarcity cause water shortages?
Economic scarcity has a very different global distribution. Above all it is associated with developing countries that lack capital and technology and good governance to fully exploit their often adequate supplies of blue water, sub-Saharan Africa stands out as the key concentration of countries experiencing economic water scarcity, although there are one or two other countries, such as Haiti (the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere), and Laos in South East Asia.
What is the water poverty index?
In 2002, the centre for ecology and hydrology published the first WPI. It is an assessment of the degree of water shortage and the subsequent water insecurity problems. Scores can generally be correlated with GNP per capita, with Canada having the highest score (78) and Ethiopia one of the lowest (48).
What 5 parameters does the index use?
-Resources: the quantity of surface and groundwater per person and its quality.
-Access: the time and distance involved in obtaining sufficient safe water.
-Capacity: how well the community manages its water
-Use: how ecologically water is used in the home and by agriculture and industry
-Environment: ecological sustainability (green water).
The scores are out of 20 to give a maximum possible score of 100.
What are some factors which affect the price of water?
-The physical costs of obtaining the supply. In some cities, the water has to be piped for many kilometres from mountain reservoirs (e.g Los Angeles gets it water from Colorado.
-The degree of demand for the water. If water is scarce, as in the 2015 Californian drought, the price increases to manage demand. Even in cities in developed countries, such as New York, there are considerable numbers of poor people without direct supply to their homes.
-Insufficient infrastructure (such as Accra in Ghana). People live in slum districts and have to rely on water tankers and bottled water. Costs of clean water can often be nearly double standard tap connection price.
-The final factor is the supplier of the water. In many areas in developing countries water is free, but often not treated in anyway and therefore, not clean. People can have to spend hours walking to get supplies of water. In urban areas, it is supplied by companies at market price, meaning once again poor people lose out. Some countries such as Cuba have subsidised prices to ensure it is affordable to all.
What is the controversy surrounding the sales of water?
If people are to have taps, safe drinking supplies and flushing toilets, there has to be an industry to manage and supply the infrastructure., meaning the water and costs have to be paid by someone. However it is hard to know what to charge different consumers (farmers, industrialists, rich people, slum dwellers) and who (if anyone) should benefit from selling the basic human need.
Why is water in the 21st century seen as a commodity?
In the late 20th century, politicians, financiers and other decision makers promoted the neo-liberal view in favour of privatisation of public utilities such as water, they did this on the assumption that market mechanisms would simultaneously conserve water, improve efficiency and increase service quality. Subsides would end, so all consumers would be charged for water at the cost of supplying it. However, it can also be seen as a way to make profit, possibly pushing price even further.
What are structural adjustment programmes?
Neo-liberal policies promoted by the World Bank and IMF to help developing countries overcome their debt problems. These are now superseded by poverty reduction strategy papers as for many countries SAP resulted in unacceptable hardship and little progress with solutions to debts.
Why was privatisation of utilities such as water seen as essential?
Existing systems were inefficient, corrupt and failed to provide water to poorer citizens.
Why did the provision of contracts for companies to provide water for an area prove a disaster in some cases?
It was a disaster not only for developing countries and their citizens, but for the water companies as well, who planned to make huge profits from the opportunity. The cost of producing water (often under difficult circumstances) meant huge price increases, which the poor couldn’t pay.
What happened in Bolivia 1999-2000?
A local company was given a monopoly to collect water charges and actually took over water co-operatives run by the householders and tried to make them pay very high prices. Months of protests occupied the city square by 80,000 people. Eventually, the company fled.
What do Paris want to do about their water privatisation?
They want to take back their water into public ownership in order to do this.
How does water supply affect economic development?
Water plays a central role in all economic productivity, either directly as an input or as part of the context in which economic activity takes place (e.g recreational tourism).
Currently, agriculture still takes up 2/3 of global water usage, but industrial usage in China and India (for economic development) also takes huge masses of water, as does the energy industry. There are major concerns over the environmental impacts of these activities, from the destruction of ecosystems to uncontrolled discharge of polluted effluents.
What is the agricultural use of water?
Around 1/5 of the worlds land is under full irrigation. In water-short and monsoon areas, traditional practices such as basin irrigation have always been used. Industrial scale irrigation, which began in the 1960s using high-yield variety seeds combined with fertilisers and pest control, has greatly increased the pressure.
A further source of pressure on water supplies for agriculture is the dietary revolution in countries such as China, where there has been a huge rise in the consumption of dairy products and meat. It takes just under 3000litres of water to produces 1kg of rice, but 6x more to produce 1kg of beef.
