The Worlds Water Supply - Essay Example

Will human have ample potable drinking water? What will be the effect of changes in water supply in the world food supply? These are some of the concerns this research aims to address together with present the current trends and future prediction of the world’s water supply. World’s water can be divided into two main classifications, namely salt water and fresh water. Majority of the world’s water supply is salt water, which comprises 97.5 percent of the total world’s water. Table 1 illustrates the classifications of water.

Only the freshwater are usable by human and 70% of the fresh water in the glaciers and unusable. Table 2 shows the usage of the fresh water in the world. Evidently, majority of the exploitable water supply is used in agriculture, which includes irrigation and other food production process. However, most studies do not include possible water shortage in their analysis of food shortages (Seckler and Seckler, 1998). This is an alarming concern. Water is needed in the production of food, such as irrigation for the crops and other staple foods.

Without factoring in water shortage to the current projection of food shortage, different scholars are already worried with the results, what more if they include water shortage in the projection. Table 3 gives an idea about the access to potable water and proper sanitation. In addition to this figures, Simonic (2002) and World Health Organization assessed that more or less 1.1 billion individuals in third world countries has no capacity to obtain or cannot have healthy drinkable water. While 2.

4 billion of the world population is does not have ample water for sanitation (WHO, 2002). Moreover, 1.8 million individuals, of whom 90% are children below five years of age, die each year due to water-related cases. Another alarming concern is pointed out by the study of Jenerette and Larsen (2006) which argues that guaranteeing enough water supplies to more than 50 percent of the