The Future of Drinking Water - Essay Example

INB 490: Individual paper: The Future of Drinking Water March 4, Ayla Arif Introduction Drinking water continues to be one of the top priorities in the world. In the UK for instance, based on the European standards, the latest figures on water quality are the following: around 99.96% in England and Wales, 99.83% in Scotland, and 99.81% in Northern Ireland (Water UK, 2012). As to the water quality standard, there is no remarkable problem regarding the safety of drinking water in advanced countries. However, in other parts of the world, particularly in impoverished countries like Africa, India or Pakistan, there can be substantial issues about water supply particularly in the primary and secondary sectors. The primary sector comprises the primary production of raw materials or food, while the secondary sector concerns on the processing or refining of the produced goods or raw materials. As to the distribution of the finished products, the whole concern of it lies on the tertiary sector. However, all of these sectors require the availability or abundance of quality drinking water for them to function smoothly as possible. For instance, a quality and abundant drinking water source is necessary to ensure the sustainability of the basic needs in life, and consistency in the achievement of human health, and other related human needs. Furthermore, the availability of quality drinking water is necessary in order to successfully produce food or raw materials for the production of other products in the secondary sector. For example, a quality drinking water is necessary in the livestock industry so that there will be quality produced products that can be readily used in the processing industry. The processing industry on the other hand would require availability of clean and excellent water supply as integral component of the production of high quality standard processed foods. The above illustrations just simply depict the importance of drinking water in the production of raw materials and down to the processing and production of secondary product offerings. This paper concentrates on the future of drinking water, particularly on resource depletion, as an issue in the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in the world. This paper depicts how certain issues that are associated with resource depletion of drinking water could or would create other potential problems. Nature of the problem As the vast majority of countries in the world continue to pursue industrialisation, there are various things that need to be compromised, even to the point of sacrificing them. One important aspect that is highly affected by industrialisation is the potential healthy supply and source of drinking water. In some parts of Southern England for instance, around 80% of the drinking water comes from groundwater reservoir (Environment Agency, 2011). Also, Groundwater provides a third of the drinking water in England and Wales as it also ensures at the same time the consistency of water flow in rivers (Environment Agency, 2011). This would mean the government should strongly protect the aquifer from potential contamination due to industrialisation. Thus, it is a dilemma to continuously protect one of the UK’s potential sources of drinking water as the country continues to move forward to its economic advancement by embracing industrialisation while causing undesirable impacts at the same time. For instance, exported goods were found to pollute surface waters (Foster, 2012). Increase activity for exportation would further mean high level of water pollution. Multan, a soap manufacturing company and known to export its products, is one of the factories in Pakistan that could potentially produce industrial waste to contaminate drinking water supplies (Cavendish, 2006). Industrial wastes are greatly known to pollute the soil and eventually drinking water in Pakistan. In addition, the number of population in the world continues to increase each year (UK National Statistics, 2012). This would mean more households to consume high quality production and availability of supply of drinking water. Based on the estimated annual world water usage in 2004, water consumption had increased from less than 1,000 cubic kilometres in 1900 to almost 4000 cubic kilometres in 2000 (Kirby, 2004). An average European in 2004 was found to have at least 200 to 350 litres water consumption per day and an average American consumes at most 600 litres per day (Kirby, 2004). This means that the world consumes huge volume of water in a year per person. However, while developing countries have at some point managed to meet substantial water supply requirement, the impoverished countries like Africa and India continue to suffer lack of quality water supply. In 2004, the average African had only below 50 litres of water consumption per day (Kirby, 2004). In India, people consume 88.9 litres of water per day (Grailresearch.com, 2009). On the other hand, as agriculture continues to become a potential source of food production in the world, more farm animals and other related line of agri-business activities in producing raw materials should require clean and high quality water supply. In fact, 92% of consumption of clean water goes to agriculture (Foster, 2012). This would mean many farm animals would compete with the humans’ need of clean quality water supply. Based on the national report in 2004, a one kilo of grain-fed beef requires at least 15 cubic meters of water (Kirby, 2004). As population increases per year, livestock production and other related agricultural activities should be expected to increase as well and this would further mean higher demand for sufficient water supply. Furthermore, as climate change continues to cause undesirable impacts on the planet, some places substantially enjoy abundant supply of fresh drinking water while other geographical areas significantly have reduced water production or supply. This would only mean maximisation of water resource. Unfortunately, the value of water and the cost of acquiring it would substantially increase in areas where there are fewer supplies, but high demand for it. In India, from a business perspective, it is calculated that it is much expensive to institute private water supply source than using efficiently managed public system, but the government unfortunately could not subsidize this leading to intermittent water supply on a daily basis (Frerot, 2011). Impacts on the different sectors The primary sector in an advanced society is the agriculture. As already stated, this sector requires enough supply of water in order to become more productive. Thus, the insufficient supply of water could potentially harm this sector and it would hinder it in general to produce the required food supply for a growing population. The primary sector not being able to produce the required level and volume of food production and supply would mean less opportunity for the secondary sector. This would further mean less production of processed foods for the people and low level of supply for food distribution around the world. Thus, many people would experience hunger as the tertiary sector would have less supply of foods to be distributed worldwide. As the primary sector would be shut off or become less productive because of insufficient water supply, the rest of the sectors would eventually become less dynamic and eventually would cease to exist in the end. This is the reason why Bank Groups for instance substantially support for irrigation and drainage for farmers to have improved access to water, as they do not want to stop their business due to inefficient production of the prime mover of the economy, the agricultural sector (The World Bank, 2011). Evolution of the problem It is shown that the lack of water could potentially result to world hunger as the primary sector which is primarily the agriculture could not potentially provide the food demands as growth of human population continues. As many people would experience hunger, crime rates would increase. It is a reality that hunger or poverty is associated with crimes. In fact, one way to reduce crime is to solve the existing problems of the world which are associated with hunger or poverty (Anthony, 2011). Resolving hunger and poverty in India for instance would help reduce crimes related to these social problems. The above issues are just some potential problems that could probably evolve into other bigger troubles when shortage of water or depletion of this resource would afflict the humanity. Conclusion Water at some point is a renewable resource, but it could be depleted in one way or another as the human population continues to increase in number. Furthermore, as industrialisation persists to evolve and recent climate change stays to create significant impacts on the planet, people are left with a choice and that is to continue to live and look for better solutions. However, just prior to achieving solutions to these struggles, other related problems may also potentially exist at the same time, and so on. There could be endless loop of troubles in the end. Hopefully it is not yet too late for everything to address this ominous string of unfortunate events. References Anthony, M. (2011) Same, same but different. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation. Cavendish, M. (2006) World and Its Peoples. New Industrial Road, Singapore: Marshall Cavendish. Chen, J., and Sapsford, D. (2005) Global development and poverty reduction: the challenge for international institutions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Environment Agency (2011) Groundwater source protection zone. [online]. Available from: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/37833.aspx [Accessed 27th February 2012]. Foster, J. M. (2012). Tracking How the World Guzzles Water. [online]. Available from: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/tracking-how-the-world-guzzles-water/?scp=1&sq=US%20groundwater%20depletion&st=cse [Accessed 1st March 2012]. Frerot, A. (2011) Water: Towards a Culture of Responsibility. New Hampshire: UPNE. Grailresearch.com (2009) Water- The India Story.[online]. Available from: http://www.grailresearch.com/pdf/ContenPodsPdf/Water-The_India_Story.pdf [Accessed 1st March 2012]. Kalman, B., and Langille, J. (1998) What are food chains and webs? New York, NY: Crabtree Publishing Company. Kirby, A. (2004) Water scarcity: A looming crisis? [online]. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3747724.stm [Accessed 27th February 2012]. The World Bank (2011) Growth and Productivity in Agriculture and Agribusiness: Evaluative Lessons from World Bank Group Experience. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. UK National Statistics (2012) Theme: Population. [online]. Available from: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/population/index.html [Accessed 27th February 2012]. Water UK (2012) Waterfacts: Drinking Water. [online]. Available from: http://www.water.org.uk/home/resources-and-links/waterfacts/drinkingwater [Accessed 27th February 2012]. Read More