Choose a specific country that struggles with water scarcity and access to clean water. Research the problem:
Combine your answers, and any additional and relevant information, in one well-written paragraph and post it below.
16 Comments
Thor Whi
12/10/2018 01:33:01 pm
Most people have access to water in Australia but most of them are in cities or around the city with 93% of houses connected to a town, 85% outside of cities, and 77% everywhere else. People are moving to or around cities because Australia’s reliance on rainwater is decreasing and they are moving so they can get water easier. Most people living in Australia live near the coast where big cities are with central Australia being practically abandoned because of its rocky geography and hot climate. If does nothing people will starting to move to cities where water is plentiful but later on there will be overpopulation in the cities. Australia’s solution to their water problem is to have water pipe throughout the country so farmers and locals can have a plentiful water source to use. Also allowing environment flows will give farmers in the area freshwater for crops while reducing salinity in the area.
Reply
Mark Outland
12/10/2018 01:35:07 pm
Qatar has one of the highest standard of living in the middle east, currently none of their population struggles to find clean water. The problem is that water is not sustainable in Qatar due to the harsh desert climate. Qatar gets very little rainfall (the average is 82mm with very fast evaporation) because of this Qatar has to get its water from aquifers or through desalinate, which is very expensive. Qatar also has a high growth rate so they have to account for more and more people. Geography has blessed Qatar with a lot of oil and natural gas but very little water. If Qatar was to do nothing in the short term they would be ok. Then in the long term when desalination becomes too expensive for their large population and the aquifers gets low they would have serious problems. Also Qatar’s economy is based largely off oil and natural gas so when those finite materials begin to run out they would be out of money and water. The government of Qatar is fighting back though. Qatar plans to create cost-effective solar desalination plants to provide water for agriculture and reduce reliance on its depleting aquifers. This would be expensive but would be able to meet the country's water needs for a long time to come and would not be reliant on non-renewable resources. The best option for Qatar's environment is the solar panel plants because the desert gets a lot of sun.
Reply
Nick Hutchinson
12/10/2018 01:37:32 pm
Libya suffers one of the worst water shortages in the country. Only 10% of people in Libya have access to clean water. That means that out of the total population of 6.375 million, 5.737 million don’t have access to clean water. Geography is the main cause of the lack of water because most of Libya is desert. The summers get extremely hot and dry. During the winter it might rain a little on the coast but the temperature drops to sub freezing at night so it turns to ice. If the Libyan people do nothing to combat the problem they might be fine in the short term but will most likely die of thirst in the long term.
Reply
Henry Smith
12/10/2018 02:12:15 pm
In Mozambique, over half the population is without clean water and 3 out of 4 people are without a decent toilet. The main reason is that they’re many droughts. Geography plays a bad role because of the loss of habitat and wildlife use. If you do nothing for little bit it will stay the same but for long term people will not be able to live there because harsh conditions. The government has promised to bring in water but nothing has been done. Other countries that are wealthier need to come together and give water to the country of Mozambique.
Reply
ture
12/10/2018 04:19:14 pm
Ethiopia has a bad water problem where 61 million out of the 105 million people are without clean water. in Ethiopia the main problem is serious drought in Africa has heavily effected Ethiopia. geography has gotten Ethiopia because they are a land locked desert that doesn't get a lot of rain. There are no long term effects of doing nothing because people have been doing nothing for hundreds of years and it is still a desert. the short term effects of the drought is more people dyeing of dehydration. the Ethiopian government is installing hundreds of thousands of rainwater catching devices for small scale irrigation of fields. the government is also trying to improve the amount of irrigated land by %45 to lower the chance and severity of a famine. if I was the government I would ask Eritrea a friend of Ethiopia to use their coast line for a desalination plant to pump water to the driest regions. for the average desalination plant it cost 100 million for 300,000 people but with the low usage of water they could stretch it really thin. the total GDP of Ethiopia is 47.5 billion and they could get help from European countries and the usa in form of money or people to help build and design it.
Reply
Savannah Anderson
12/10/2018 04:42:36 pm
Reply
Thomas Oliver
12/10/2018 04:45:07 pm
While there is an active water shortage in Jordan there are no reliable numbers for the Amount of Jordanians without an adequate amount of water, this shortage in water is in part thanks to a lack of renewable water and a great influx of syrian refugees escaping their civil war. Jordan is dead in the Middle of the poor and dry middle East, this geographic element plays into the great influx of migrants and its inability to have reliable and widespread water access to create a situation where more and more migrants are forced into a country without enough water to sustain its residents at any given time. While short term lack of water may lead to further dehydration and possible death of a few residents of Jordan; long term inability to find the needed water to sustain its population will lead to a great death count that will only continue as more and more Africans and Syrians escape war through this connecting country.
Reply
jasmine
12/10/2018 08:38:41 pm
3128300 People in Argentina don't have access to clean water, that is 7% of the population. Deforestation, global warming, and pollution are the main causes, and that they don't have water. The short-term effects of doing nothing to prevent this problem is that farms will not produce as many crops, in long-term people will start to die of dehydration. Geography plays a main role in the lack of clean water because there are very few fresh bodies of water in Argentina. The government is currently adding more pipelines to transport water. The country could start purifying water on their own, they have lots of access to salt water.
Reply
Tate Cunningham
12/11/2018 11:44:33 am
While most people in Jordan cities have access to clean water, it’s an extremely limited supply and everyone is careful of how much they use, as they won’t have enough water extremely quickly if they aren’t careful. In Jordan there are no rivers they can use for freshwater, meaning all their water comes from aquifers. Their water system is also breaking apart, and much of what little water they have is lost to cracks in piping. The situation also wasn’t helped by the 600,000 Syrian refugees that went to Jordan while fleeing, meaning their already small amount of water has to be spread out to an even larger population. Long Term effects are simply that the vast majority of Jordan citizens won’t have enough clean water to survive, in the short term they will be able to survive but their supply will be quickly depleting. The government continues to build wells but it is not a long term solution, it’s only to help for the next few years. They also bring in outside companies in order to try and help them improve their water system, such as Mercy Corps, a non-government human organization that is trying to improve the water system by fixing the piping and upgrading the pumps. The potential solution would simply be to get lucky enough to find a great water source or have outside help with water, however they would need to fix the pipes before that, as even with a new source of water if they are constantly losing the water they will be in the same position.
Reply
Lindsey
12/11/2018 10:12:06 pm
Overall, 48% of Chad's 14.9 million residents do not have clean water. Humanitarian crisis and lack of proper water distribution cause various people to not be able to access safe water, while expensive water prices and contaminated water make up the other half of the issue. Because of contaminated water, there have been 17,000 reported cases of cholera this year alone. Chad is a hot and dry country and is very underdeveloped in some places. Drought also causes issues. If nothing is done to better the water conditions, people will continue to fall ill due to contaminated water or lack of water. Fortunately, the government is taking action. A program called "Le Tchad Que Nous Voulons" (The Chad We Want) launched in 2017 by President Idriss Deby's orders. This program will help better Chad all around, including water accessibility. In this proposition, the water management around Chad will become more integrated and distributed evenly between agriculture and various domestic uses. UNICEF is also building 60+ feet deep wells to help residents get access to clean drinking water.
Reply
Suzanna Long
12/11/2018 10:50:57 pm
Haiti is one a few countries that consume the least amount of water in the world and 44.8% of Haiti’s population lacks access to clean water, which is almost half of the population. Only 24% of Haitians have access to a toilet. The water sources they have access to are contaminated by human waste due to lack of proper sewage systems and water-borne illnesses are everywhere. The mountainous regions make it harder for transportation and discovery of water if there is any in that region at all. Short term effects of not doing anything are that people could die rapidly because they don't have any clean water. Long term effects are that the whole government/country could collapse if they can't sustain themselves. However, today the government has helped establish professional operators and water and sanitation committees in nine communes and provided hands-on training to the operators and committees in chlorination as well as plumbing. To further solve the problems of the illnesses, vaccines could be distributed to stop water-borne illnesses and plumbing could be installed to cut down on waste filled water.
Reply
caroline
12/12/2018 11:27:41 am
In Kenya, 41% of citizens use unrefined water sources like ponds and ditches. That's 18,860,000 people. The main reason is because the water found in many streams has parasitic worms and cholera. There are also very few water basins, and women and children have to travel hours to get water. The government launched a National Water Master Plan to try to fix the problem, but conflict between urban and rural areas resulted in no funds for the plan. Currently there is a group that goes by the name water.org that brought a large-scale water credit initiative to Kenya, which provided 425,000 people with clean water, and they are still working to reach as many people as possible
Reply
Ben OweN
12/12/2018 11:59:38 am
In Yemen, over 16 million people lack access to clean water. Yemen is facing water issues because of the high population growth, misguided agriculture, and a lack of enforcement to regulate water. In Yemen there are a lot of mountains and deserts so it is hard to find water because it is so dry. Yemen’s health system has already collapsed due to war over resources like water. But neighboring countries are starting to help by sending food and water into the country to prevent the collapse of the whole country of Yemen.
Reply
Ronnie Guinan
12/12/2018 09:40:27 pm
In Saudi Arabia water scarcity is a big problem. One of the problem saudi arabia has is the they overuse fossil fuels and cause many environmental issues. Saudi Arabia consists of primarily uninhabited desserts, which are hot and dry which makes the geography hard to inhabitat. The geography affects the situation because it is already a very dry landscape. A short term effect of doing nothing would not impact the citizen much though in the long term more serious problems could develop.The government is not making any plans as of now on how to solve their problem. Potential solution would be to set up more living areas with accessible water sources.
Reply
Maggie Killmon
12/14/2018 12:07:06 pm
4 million peruvians are lacking access to clean water. The cause of this is because of the water pollution. The waters are affected by industrial waste and sewage, oil waste. Another is affect is gracial melt Peru is also very vunerable to climate change. Peru is losing more and more land area and no one is doing anything to fix the toxic water. To stop the glaciers from melting people can use more bikes instead of cars so there won’t be extra heat melting the glaciers and so the oil won’t leak into the water.
Reply
Israel is one the countries that have a severe water scarcity. Over 90% of Israel's population of 8.712 million has been undergoing the water scarcity. These people have problems on the scarcity due to the country's low rainfall and high demand for water. The geography's role shows limited rainfall because no mountain ranges located in a way to aide in the production of it. On these problems, the short term effects depict relatively slow agricultural economic decline and reduced production of basic food supply, while long term ones depicts economic crisis on agricultural, domestic and industrial aspects, and on national crisis, infrastructure erodes, civilians, military, transportation, and banking things must be highly influenced. Also, Israel might have low trade and high debt on international crisis. The government has been currently incoming water from other countries, however, it might have a limit between the countries. To solve the scarcity more potentially, the government has to drill in search of new water wells, improve irrigation systems with new technologies and planning to improve efficiency and conservation, and research and test desalinization methods and technology.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
February 2019
Categories |