Water is the key of life. Without water, there will be no life in this planet. However, even though water is a vital resources for all of us, there are still many people that don’t have the access to water. Sometimes, when they finally have the access to water, the quality of the water is very poor. And because of this problem, instead of giving us life, water took our life. According to “Causes, Effects and Solutions of Water Scarcity”, 70% of the earth is made of water, but only about 3% of them are makes up of fresh water that is fit for human consumption. WWF reported that around 1.1 billion people worldwide are lack access to water. Water played a very important role in supporting our life and because of that, it is also very important for us to understand why our water supply is lacking. If every single person know how important and crucial water is, we would be able to fix this kind of problem in a short period amount of time.
Water Supplies
In this planet, there are four sources of fresh water. Rain, groundwater, ice and rivers (including lakes, streams, and natural springs), are the four main sources of fresh water in this planet. Rainwater is created from the evaporation of all the water from the Earth to the Earth’s atmosphere. During the process of the evaporation, the water becomes fresh water. When rain starts to fall, the rain spreads the water to various parts of the earth and provides water for crops. This situation also makes the water suitable for drinking. In rural areas, collecting water from the rain is a common thing. Another resource for the fresh water is groundwater. However, Even though groundwater is one the source of fresh water, most of the water that is collected from the groundwater cannot be consumed by human or even animals. Salty sea water is one of the examples of groundwater that cannot be consumed by human and the animals. But even though those water cannot be consumed by human and animals because it contains salt, a small percentage of those water can be desalinated and refined which make the water enabled the water to be consumed. The third main source of fresh water is ice. An interesting fact about ice as one of the source of fresh water is that ice is the second largest source of fresh water because ice covers around 2% of the Earth’s water. Most of the fresh water are stored inside the icecaps of Antartica that are thousand years of ages. Even though it is pretty difficult to access the fresh water inside the ice, it is still possible for us to attain those fresh water which is trapped inside the ice. Rivers, lakes, streams, and natural springs are also the source of fresh water. These sources are the surface waters of the earth and surprisingly, they only cover 0.0014% of the Earth’s water. However, even though these sources are the easiest place where we can get fresh water, only a small percentage of those water that can be taken and consumed by human. Many people consume fresh water from natural springs, fresh water rivers, and streams. Although only a small percentage of them that can be taken to fulfill our needs, surface water is and will always be one of our most important fresh water source in this planet. (Moreschi)
Water Shortages
Water shortage is the lack of an adequate amount of water to meet the need of water usage within the region. Many factors are contributed to the water shortage and these following examples are the most common factors that contributed to the water shortage. The first common factor is the overuse of water. The overuse of water has become one of the biggest issue in the world right now. People are the most likely to be blamed on for this kind of issue. As what William Ashworth once said, “Children of a culture born in a water-rich environment, we have never really learned how important water is to us. We understand it but, we do not respect it.”. Another factor that caused water shortage is water pollution. According to Environmental Pollution Centers, Water pollution is defined as the presence in groundwater of toxic chemicals and biological agents that exceed what is naturally found in the water and could threat human’s health or the environment. Because of those dangerous and harmful chemical toxics, it makes the water cannot be consumed and used by the people. Conflict can also be one out of many factors that affect the water shortage. A conflict that happened between two areas will block the access to the source of the water. This kind of issue will can caused a water shortage. The fourth one would be distance. People that lives in areas like desserts or somewhere that is secluded may face water shortage, because of distance. They are not close to any source of water, which makes it hard for them to access water when they need it. The fifth one would be drought. Drought is when an area lacks rainfall and this is very common around the world. There are areas that have droughts every now and then, but there are places that commonly has drought. Unfortunately, there is very little things that can be done about drought. The last factor would be governmental access. Usually in countries that has a dictatorial regime face the problem of water shortage. This is so, because the government may have control over water and people that live there may not get access to the water they need. These are just a few out of many factors that can cause water shortage around the world. (“Causes, Effects and Solutions of Water Scarcity”)