The challenge we face to feed the planet is known not to be an issue of quantity, but of distribution. There is enough space on the planet to provide nutritive, affordable food to everybody, however governments and corporations controlling the distribution of food as well as land use practices contribute to the more than 800 million people who go hungry on a daily basis. Although a lot of once fertile land has become paved, mined, or desertified, there still remains enough land to produce enough food, in conjunction with a change in societal behaviours and agricultural practices.
Is Water a Renewable Resource?
Can the same be said for clean water? With the amount of freshwater lost due to pollution, poor irrigation methods, and intensive groundwater extraction, a shortage of water is a present day crisis, going hand in hand with climate change. However, these shortages are often localized, and large reservoirs of fresh water still exist on the planet; it might just be a matter of getting the water to where it is needed.
China faces one of the largest water crises in the world. With about one fifth of the world’s population, yet only 6% of the world’s freshwater supply, many of China’s largest cities face water shortages. Harmful agricultural practices are one of the most common causes of water loss, and Chinese water supplies are plagued by the runoff of fertilizers and the resulting consequences, such as blue-green algae blooms. Policy changes and infrastructure investments are the strategies implemented by the Chinese government, but it is going to take a long time and big changes for significant progress to be made.
A result of poor agricultural practices, large amounts of bacteria have collected in Lake Taihu in Eastern China.
Many northern and alpine communities around the world rely on the runoff from nearby glaciers as water sources. Water was always seen as a renewable resource but glacial retreat caused by climate change is threatening these supplies, as is happening in the Pamir mountains in Central Asia and in the Peruvian Andes, where 70 per cent of the world’s tropical glaciers are found. With a lack of water comes a depletion of food, as they can’t maintain their crops and their livestock. These communities do not always have many options for alternate water supplies and will eventually have to retreat to more water secure areas.
An abandoned ship and salt are all that remain where the Aral Sea once existed.
Central Asia’s Aral Sea is one of the most extreme examples of an anthropogenic water catastrophe. Devastating irrigation practices (which included canals on the surface of the land, allowing water to simply evaporate and runoff) to transport water to the desert to grow cotton cash crops for the Soviet government essentially drained what was once one of the world’s largest lakes. It is now less than 10% of its original size and the water that is left has extremely high levels of salinity and pollution, making it inhospitable for fish and unusable for humans. The now-exposed land that was once covered in water is now a desert – ripe for research, but useless as land.
It is not only the people who directly feel the impact of water scarcity who are the victims. The global population becomes a victim as agricultural lands which were once fertile dry up and are abandoned. In turn, more forests (which as carbon sinks for the world) are cleared and converted to produce crops and raise livestock. People abandoning their rural lives as a result of unstable water supplies contribute to the rapid urbanization seen around the world and all its associated problems.
Water is commonly thought of as a secure, renewable resource in developed countries, but it could potentially be the cause of serious conflict in the not too distant future. The Great Lakes contain one fifth of the world’s freshwater supply and transporting the water to more arid areas remains controversial. But if a country is desperate enough for water, will they be willing to fight for it?
We are often left with the idea that we have to rely on world leaders to solve all of the problems we are faced with, when in most cases, it is political inaction which is largely responsible for creating them. There has been no international agreement on securing water resources, as many hoped there would be during the 2009 COP 15 in Copenhagen. Even if global cooperation were to take place, it would be almost impossible to develop common and general water management policies and practices that could apply at a local level. Situations should be evaluated regionally, with a common set of principles to guide the process.
The impact of water crises are broad and far-reaching. Water depletion can destroy entire ecosystems, while “fierce national competition over water resources has prompted fears that water issues contain the seeds of violent conflict,” as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan put it. There are no simple solutions, but one thing is clear, that water is a necessity and humans will have to ensure its availability for our survival.
