What is water scarcity and what are its main causes

Unlimited access to clean, safe water is taken for granted in many places, but water scarcity is a growing concern worldwide. Overuse, increasing demand, pollution, poor management, lack of infrastructure, and changes in weather patterns due to global warming are key stressors that affect the availability of fresh water. Many major cities across the globe are at risk of a water crisis, and water stress is projected to increase in most countries in the coming decades, threatening regional stability and raising the possibility of forced migrations. In addition, the issue of water availability is not just a human problem—our demands on lakes, rivers, and streams can dramatically harm ecosystems and the natural processes that require water. Learn about the problem of water scarcity and the major threats to our water, and dive deep into some of the diverse solutions that exist to conserve, protect, and equitably manage Earth’s water resources for human and nonhuman life. Water scarcity is a growing concern worldwide. Unsustainable and ever-growing demands on our freshwater resources have taxed aquifers and surface waters in many places, harming ecosystems and threatening future economic growth. A regional water crisis, often triggered by drought, can result in famine, forced migration, and other humanitarian emergencies. Explore the critical problem of water scarcity and some of its associated effects. There are numerous threats to our water resources. Human demands often excee...

The shortage of water, as compared to its demand, is called water scarcity. According to Falken Mark, a Swedish Expert, water scarcity occurs when the water availability is less than 1000 m 3per person per day. Causes of Scarcity : (a)Low rainfall (b)water scarcity occurs in drought-prone areas (c)variation in seasonal rainfall (d)over-exploitation of water (e)excessive use of water (f)unequal access to water (g)Great demand due to growing population.

Water scarcity already affects every continent. Around 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world's population, live in areas of physical scarcity, and 500 million people are approaching this situation. Another 1.6 billion people, or almost one quarter of the world's population, face economic water shortage (where countries lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers). Water scarcity is among the main problems to be faced by many societies and the World in the XXIst century. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and, although there is no global water scarcity as such, an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water. Water scarcity is both a natural and a human-made phenomenon. There is enough freshwater on the planet for seven billion people but it is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted and unsustainably managed. Sources: • Human Development Report 2006. UNDP, 2006 • Coping with water scarcity. Challenge of the twenty-first century. UN-Water, FAO, 2007 Water scarcity and the MDGs The way water scarcity issues are addressed impacts upon the successful achievement of most of the Millennium Development Goals: • MDG 1: Access to water for domestic and productive uses (agriculture, industry, and other economic activities) has a direct impact on poverty and food security. • MDG 2: Incidence of catastrophic but often recurrent events, such as ...

Water and climate change are inextricably linked. Climate change affects the world’s water in complex ways. From unpredictable rainfall patterns to shrinking ice sheets, rising sea levels, floods and droughts – most impacts of climate change come down to water water ( Climate change is exacerbating both water scarcity and water-related hazards (such as floods and droughts), as rising temperatures disrupt precipitation patterns and the entire water cycle ( Get more facts on climate and water below. Water scarcity • About two billion people worldwide don’t have access to safe drinking water today ( • Only 0.5 per cent of water on Earth is useable and available freshwater – and climate change is dangerously affecting that supply. Over the past twenty years, terrestrial water storage – including soil moisture, snow and ice – has dropped at a rate of 1 cm per year, with major ramifications for water security ( • Water supplies stored in glaciers and snow cover are projected to further decline over the course of the century, thus reducing water availability during warm and dry periods in regions supplied by melt water from major mountain ranges, where more than one-sixth of the world’s population currently live ( • Sea-level rise is projected to extend salinization of groundwater, decreasing freshwater availability for humans and ecosystems in coastal areas ( • Limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C would approximately halve the proportion of the world population expec...

English Afrikaans Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Catalan Cebuano Chichewa Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Corsican Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Frisian Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer Korean Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kyrgyz Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Maori Marathi Mongolian Myanmar (Burmese) Nepali Norwegian Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Samoan Scottish Gaelic Serbian Sesotho Shona Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Spanish Sudanese Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Zulu Water can be scarce for many reasons: demand for water may be exceeding supply, water infrastructure may be inadequate, or institutions may be failing to balance everyone’s needs. Water scarcity is an increasing problem on every continent, with poorer communities most badly affected. To build resilience against climate change and to serve a growing population, an integrated and inclusive approach must be taken to managing this finite resource. The issue explained Water scarcity is a relative concept. The amount of water that can be physically accessed varies as supply and demand changes. Water scarc...

Water Scarcity and Its Main Causes Scarcity of water is defined as a situation where there is insufficient water to satisfy normal requirements. Though water is a renewable resource, we humans are using it at a faster rate than it is being replenished. There are various factors contributing to the depletion of the water table. Increasing Population: Growing population has resulted in a growing demand for houses, offices, shops, roads, etc. As a result, open areas like parks and playgrounds are used for construction. This reduces the seepage of water into the ground. Moreover, construction work requires more water for which underground water is used. As the rate of consumption of underground water is more than seepage, it results in a depletion of the water table. Increasing Industries: The rapidly growing population has also resulted in an increase in the number of industries. Water is used in almost every stage of production of things that we use. This has put a heavy load, especially on the freshwater ecosystem. Agricultural activities: India is an agricultural country and farmers have to depend on rain for irrigating their fields. However, erratic monsoons result in excess use of groundwater thereby decreasing the underground water. Deforestation: Trees have the ability to hold water. With deforestation, the number of plants decrease, hence the water keeps flowing towards the sea and the groundwater is not recharged. In India, some causes of water scarcity are: Uncontro...