Water supply - Personal Statement Example

Although most people take it for granted, the availability of an abundant water supply has become an increasingly important and contentious issue.This essay will argue that water resources should and will become an increasingly important global issue Drinking water was temporarily privatized in Bolivia, access to water resources affect demands in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, and issues of water sustainability have begun to find themselves inserted into broader discussions dealing with human rights and national security.

This essay will argue that water resources should and will become an increasingly important global issue; more particularly, water issues will assume global significance because life on Earth is water-dependent, because human population growth and industrial growth are leading to water scarcity, and because increasing competition for water cannot ethically be resolved by market forces alone.As an initial matter, all life on Earth is dependent on water. There is no more fundamental resource or need.

In addition to providing basic physiological sustenance, water is also used as a raw material for agricultural production and for many industrial processes. Both population changes and migration rates have been shown to correlate with historical changes in access to water and water availability. Water is, in short, an issue of life and death. Significantly, migration patterns have flattened in recent times and there is less opportunity for groups or for larger communities to simply move to an area with better water resources.

Sri Lanka, to be sure, cannot simply migrate in total to Thailand in times of water crisis. There are immigration constraints and old methods of migration are no longer an answer to water shortages. Whole countries can become trapped inside of their geographical borders and forced to find alternative solutions. Particularly worrisome is that there are no real substitutes for water. This is true both in the context of human population growth and in terms of agriculture and industrial use.

The increasing demand for this increasingly scarce resource forces competition. How this competition manifests itself, either peacefully or violently, ought to be of concern to all nations. We see that old border disputes between Israel and Lebanon are now burdened with additional conflicts regarding access to water. China builds the world's largest dam, and downstream countries, such as Thailand and Laos, protest that their rivers are drying up in critical agricultural seasons. We have seen how aggressively that countries will fight for oil; simply imagine how aggressive countries might become in a conflict over water.

The potential for serious conflict is real. In the final analysis, there are ways to address these water scarcity issues. First, there needs to be a global consensus that issues of water scarcity are of fundamental importance. These issues should be declared a priority because water for human consumption ought to be an enforced human right, because the use of water for agriculture and industrial processes is a commercial necessity, and because the potential for conflict is great. An old saying suggests that "blood is thicker than water"; in this context, however, I would suggest rather confidently that water is more necessary than oil.

As a result, scarcity issues ought to be addressed and resolved at a global level. In ten years, I am of the firm opinion that my chosen field of study will be far more interdisciplinary. By this, I mean to suggest that traditional engineering programs will be far more diverse and require far more critical thinking; the ability to synthesize and apply theories from traditionally separate fields, such as mechanical engineering and medicine, will be encouraged and required. This essay will present the emerging field of biomedical engineering as an example of the future of engineering programs.

To begin, it must be acknowledged that many advances in medical science