Water Conflicts and the Future Flashcards
What is water conflict?
Water conflict is a term describing a conflict between countries, states, or groups over an access to water resources. The United Nations recognises that water disputes result from opposing interests of water users, public or private.
What three main physical factors are global water supplies linked to?
Climate
River systems
Geology
How does climate affect water supply?
Regions near the equator receive high levels of annual precipitation while some tropical areas suffer recurring drought.
Rainfall may also vary seasonally.
High mountains with snowpack hold vast reserves of water.
How do river systems affect water supply?
The world’s major rivers store large quantities of water and transfer it across continents.
How does geology affect water supply?
Where the rocks underlying a river basin are impermeable, water will remain on surface as runoff creating a high drainage density.
Permeable soils and rocks may allow water to pass into underground drainage systems.
Aquifers can store vast quantities of water underground.
What is an issue with water usage.
Water stress- its a finite resource that is being pressured by the growing population.
What are three major uses of water?
Agriculture- particularly as we struggle to increase food supplies for a growing global population.
Industry- future rapid global rise driven by large scale industrialisation of India and China.
Domestic- smallest category of consumption however varies enormously from country to country.
Essentially, what two sources does our water supply come from?
Surface water and underground aquifers.
What is surface water?
Rivers, lakes and reservoirs provide large amounts of surface water for a wide variety of uses.
“Mega dams”
Define water stress.
The term used when the annual supply of water per person falls below 1,700 m3. When this figure drops below 1,000 m3, the term used is water scarcity.
What are the two types of water scarcity?
Physical and economic scarcity.
What is physical scarcity?
Occurs when more than 75% of a country or region’s river flows are being used. A quarter of the world’s population lives in such areas which include parts of the USA and Australia.
What is economic scarcity?
Occurs when the development of blue water flow sources is limited by human and financial capacities.
More than 1 billion people, in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa use less than 25% of the river resources available.
What are some human impacts on water availability?
Sewage disposal in developing countries is expected to cause 135 million deaths by 2020 because of water borne diseases.
Chemical fertilisers used by farmers contaminate ground water/rivers.
Industrial waste disposal.
Big dams trap sediment- reduces floodplain fertility.
Problems with abstraction…
Worldwide, water is being extracted from aquifers faster than it is being replaced.
The removal of freshwater from aquifers in coastal locations can upset the natural balance of saline and fresh groundwater and lead to salt water incursion and salinisation of wells, boreholes and wetlands.
