Custom essays Water is the source of life on the Earth

Quantitative factor

“Water covers approximately 70 percent of our world’s surface. Yet only 2.5 percent of the Earth’s water is fresh and thus suitable for consumption. However, 2.5 percent, more than two-thirds is locked away in glaciers and not particularly able to help meet the growing demands of the society”(Ward, 2003). The remaining fresh water is contained in rivers, lakes, underground and atmosphere.
Unfortunately, the surface waters of rivers and lakes are unevenly distributed on the planet. In some countries water is abundant, in others – it is virtually absent. For example, there are 36 percent of the world reserves of river water in Asia, but in this region 60 percent of the whole population of the Earth is concentrated, while the Amazon contains only 15 percent of all river water and the number of people who use that water is minimal (Shiklomanov, 1999).
The problem of water supply is based on the past historical development of individual countries and entire regions. About half of the world’s population lives on the banks of the ten largest rivers, which are in critical condition nowadays. These rivers are La Plata, Danube, Rio Grande, Ganges, Murray-Darling, Indus, Nile, Yangtze, Mekong, Euphrates. But 41% of people living in the basins of these rivers, experiencing water shortages. The main reasons are the large-scale construction of dams, excessive water withdrawals, climate change, aggressive settling basin alien plants and animals, over-fishing.
The situation is similar with the half of all world’s rivers, which are overloaded with dams and canals. That leads to degradation of ecological systems. As a result, the issue of water resources in many countries has become a matter of national security.
“Over one-third the world’s population (2.4 billion people), because of the lack of the water, are forced to drink dirty water that annually causes the death of 2.2 million people. In 2025 about 5,5 billion on earth will suffer from water shortages” (Shiklomanov, 1999).

Growth of the population and the acceleration of technological progress makes the water a strategic resource № 1. Water crisis grows very fast especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia countries. North China and Africa, some parts of the Middle East, India, Mexico and North America are already on the verge of the water famine.custom essay
“The minimum amount of water one human needs to remain alive and healthy is 100 to 200 liters per day, or 36 to 72 cubic meters per year. But this represents only a fraction of total need: agriculture, industry, and energy production all require additional quantities of water for a variety of critical processes. Together, these uses bring the minimum human water requirement to approximately 1,000 cubic meters (265,000 gallons) per person per year” (Klare, 2001)
However, today most people, especially the poor, can afford only a few liters of water per week. But even this water come to them with great difficulty.
The water crisis also become a reason of water apartheid. Sandra Postel in his book “The last oasis: facing water scarcity” well demonstrated the unequal distribution of water resources on the example of 2 towns: Lodwar, Kenya and the western U.S. metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. “A child in Phoenix has ample water for drinking, bathing even swimming in a backyard pool. His family probably uses some 3,000 liters of water on a typical day, enough to fill their bathtub 20 times over. The child living on the outskirt of Lodwar, on the other hand, daily treks several hours to a well or spring to help mother bring home a couple of jugs of water. This family uses barely 5 percent as much water as Phoenix household, just enough to satisfy their most basic needs” (Postel, 1992).
The preservation of existing stock of water resources and searching for the new sources is one of the most urgent tasks in the new century. For this reason, the XXI century was named as the century of water or the century of the water wars, because today a lot of people, especially in developing countries have to struggle for every liter of fresh water.
During the past half century there have been over 500 disputes over the water. Nearly forty countries, which geographically ill-found water – are the countries located in arid zones. As a result, they rely heavily on water that comes from outside. Water resources are becoming increasingly confident international commodity, which value in XXI may exceed the cost of oil and gas. This time could come very soon, and would lead to increase concurrence between the individual States for access and control over water resources.
The hope for the development of water-saving technologies and efficient water use, in addition to economic issues faces the long-term social problems. The slow change in the mentality of a simple water user, mostly rural dweller, for whom the effective utilization of water resources are not a priority, will take time. The governments of the all countries pf the world also must get down to the settlement of the water problem, so as not to give the reason for the emergence of large-scale regional conflict over access to water.