Global Water Scarcity: What can you do?

"There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water so badly that billions of people - and the environment - suffer badly." - World Water Vision Report

As we all know, Earth is composed of 70% water and only a shocking 1% part of that is safe to drink.

In fact, more than 2 billion people are still living without a source of safe water. Of those, 844 million people do not have access to any potable drinking water at all, and around 4 billion people are suffering from severe water scarcity for at least one month a year - alarming numbers indeed!

The question we usually ask ourselves is: WHY?

You see, the real challenge that we’re facing right now is the fact that global water scarcity might not get better in the future due to a growing global issues and consequences of human actions. In fact, this challenge could even become worse in the next few decades due to a lot of factors such as:

Overpopulation

An undesirable condition where the number of existing human population exceeds the carrying capacity of Earth. Hence, reducing the supply of water and contributes to the imbalance of the ecosystem.

Water pollution

A result of human activities contaminating the water because of sewage, garbage and liquid waste of households, agricultural lands and factory wastes are discharged into lakes and rivers. These wastes contain harmful chemicals and toxins which make the water poisonous for aquatic animals and plants, and even for humans.

Climate change

Climate change also contributes to global scarcity. As the climate warms, it changes the nature of global rainfall, evaporation, snow, stream flow and other factors that affect water supply and quality. Specific impacts include: Warmer water temperatures affect water quality and accelerate water pollution.

Environmental degradation

We hear a lot of speculation as to why global water scarcity is happening. We see a lot of people pointing fingers as to who are the one’s to blame. We even see a lot of people fighting because of it. But really, the only person you can point your finger to is yourself.

Unless there is a real change in human mentality and immediate global action, the future of clean water supply, especially to developing countries, may become uncertain.