Effects Of Water Scarcity

The world is running out of water, 75% of the planet earth is covered with water out of that 97.5% is the ocean, 2.5% is freshwater but 70% of that is ice, 30% is groundwater and much of that is polluted. Which leaves only 1% safe water and out of that, 70% is used for irrigation, 22% for industry and 0.8% for domestic use that consists of basic tasks like sanitation, drinking etc (Heimbuch,2010). This issue is known as water scarcity it is the lack of sufficient water for daily needs, without water the humankind will die off eventually it is extremely important for survival. According to recent estimates from the International Water Clean “potable water is an essential ingredient of a healthy human life, but 1.2 billion people lack access …show more content…
The consequences that will follow if this becomes reality can extinct not only humankind but every species that exists on the planet. Drinking water is essential for living, it is needed by the body to keep functioning, without it a human can only survive three days to a week at maximum (Spector, 2014). One of the major impact of scarcity is that there will be insufficiency of water which will affect billions of people regardless of developed country or third world country . Water can not be manufactured either, it has two hydrogen atoms attached to one oxygen atom, hypothetically it is possible but extremely hazardous which stopped scientists from making it (Clark,2013). Environmental scientists predict that without water on earth there will be an increased risk of earthquakes due to the fact that the Earth’s crust is becoming lighter. The overly buoyant crust will then start to rise which will release pressure on fault lines, thus triggering the tectonic plate movements that cause earthquakes” (“What Happens If Earth Runs Out Of Water”, 2015). Natural disasters related to water crisis have the power to destroy lands and there will be more casualties, this shows how horrific the outcome can be. Another big impact will be famine which is the extreme scarcity of food,Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) state that “in the world today more than one billion out of 6.5 billion people …show more content…
For centuries agriculture has existed it is method that provides the whole world food in order to grow crops water is extensively use. World Wildlife Fund states that “Agriculture uses 70% of the world’s accessible freshwater, but some 60% of this is wasted due to leaky irrigation systems” (Krchnk, 2014) . In order to stop excessive use agricultural water productivity is required which is the improvement that “aims at producing more food, income, better livelihoods and ecosystem services with less water” (Molden, 2010). There are some ways to use water productivity and few of them include water harvesting that is the method of inducing agriculture surface runoff and supplemental irrigation it is the addition of small amounts of water to enhance rainfed crops, it results in better production with less water use (Molden, 2010). This proves that being efficient with water in farming can produce many crops and also prevent shortage of it. Water is everywhere, 97% of the world is ocean but it is seawater which can not be used, on average, seawater “has a salinity of approximately 3.5%, this means that for every 1 litre (1000 mL) of seawater there are 35 grams of salts (mostly, but not entirely, sodium chloride) dissolved in it”. Seawater is not consumable but scientists have discovered a way to make it usable and that