Water scarcity prevails in most countries in the world and half a billion people face severe water shortage all year round.

What is the root cause of the crisis?  What can be done to alleviate the problem?

The last few decades have witnessed an upward trend in the number of people who do not have access to enough water supplies in order to meet their daily needs. The water stress being experienced by the earth is fueled not only by injudicious consumption patterns but also by outdated farming methods. This essay will discuss two underlying causes plus some pragmatic approaches to redress the worrying situation.

To begin with, the critical issue seems to be deeply rooted in unsustainable water consumption habits which have heavily taken their toll on water supplies all around the globe, especially in sprawling capitals where people are blessed with a steady supply of clean water; nonetheless, they often take the privilege for granted. For example, most household consumers keep water running when washing fruits or while taking a shower although they may know that a running tap uses about 16 liters of water per minute. Moreover, farms and their wasteful systems could be considered major contributors to water scarcity all over the globe. To put it simply, in developing and underdeveloped regions agriculture irrigation techniques are pretty inefficient, resulting in large quantities of precious water to be wasted. Take Iran as a case in point in which some 37 million residents are living in water-stressed areas because 92% of the country’s water resources are used up by unsustainable farming practices, which should have been changed long ago.

Turning to solutions, raising people’s awareness of their imprudent water consumption patterns could play a key role in this regard as it can warn them should water consumption habits not change, many parts of the world will turn into barren desert and entire towns and villages will become uninhabitable. Furthermore, installing water desalination units that is tapping into seawater to provide people with potable water is a sensible approach to sustain a steady supply of water rather than deplete the already dwindling underground water resources. Close to 9 billion cubic meters of the Persian Gulf water is desalinated per year, of which 5 bcm are consumed by Saudi Arabia and the rest is used by Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar and Iran.

To sum up, water crisis has never before threatened people so cruelly and the growing menace will continue doing irreparable harm unless appropriate measures are taken sooner rather than later.

Mollazadeh

Time: 60′

Word count: 400