No linked challenges.
Water Shortages
In 50 years half of the humanity will be struggling with water shortages
There are signs of change on the horizon. Even with optimistic eyes it is impossible to avoid seeing the black clouds. One of the most alarming is water shortage that will affect the whole world. According to the United Nations a worldwide water crisis will be formed within 50 years. It has been estimated that over 2 billion people will be living in water scarcity by the middle of this century. At the moment water shortages are affecting 400 million people so the number is going to explode dramatically.
Over 70 % of the Earth’s surface is covered with water but only 2.5 % of that amount is usable for human consumption. Three-quarters of the world’s water is salt-laden, and is not directly drinkable per se. Freshwater is rare, and moreover, it is unevenly distributed. This doesn’t mean that the problem would not touch countries that are blessed with renewable supplies of freshwater.
Agriculture is the single largest freshwater consumer, and it accounts for 85 % of the world’s freshwater consumption. Also industrial demands are raising the water consumption: it takes 300 litres of water to produce 1 kg of paper, and 15,000 tons of water to produce a ton of beef.
When nations like China and India will continue their industrialization, the water consumption will continue to increase.
Approximately 90 % of the severe problems are in developing countries which suggest that the problem really is poverty. It can be seen that 80 % of the illnesses in the developing countries are water-related. Shortages of safe drinking water causes diarrhoeal diseases: from 1990 to 2000 there were more children killed by diarrhoea than the whole amount of killed people in armed conflicts since the Second World War.
One possibility for the future is using the extensive amount of water conserved in the oceans. The most common desalination methods are distillation and membrane filtration, which will purify the water. However, the energy costs of distillation are relatively high – this makes it unaffordable option for many countries. Membrane filtration is cheaper option as it requires less energy. The flip side of the coin is that desalination produces brine, which can be harmful to the environment.
Desalination is still the last resort, and actions like wastewater reclamation are likely to be more effective for increasing water supply.
If we compare water to another important commodity like energy it is visible that water shortages are unlike any other – there is no alternative source of freshwater. From this point of view it is clear why freshwater is called as "the oil of the twenty-first century".
Schumacher, A. Water for all: moving towards access to fresh drinking water and sanitation. UN Chronicle Online edition: http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2005/issue2/0205p20.html
1st United Nations World Water Development Report: Water for People, Water for Life. United Nations. 2003. http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/wwdr1/ex_summary/index.shtml .
2nd United Nations World Water Development Report: Water, a shared responsibility. United Nations. 2006. http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/wwdr/wwdr2/
Opportunity: Big business opprortunity for anyone who solves this problem
Threat: Loss of lives form contaminated water, wars on water between nations
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