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Water Home
Water Scarcity Nearly 40% of the world's population experience serious water shortages. With growing populations, water scarcity is projected to grow dramatically in the next decades. Nearly half the readily available water in the world's rivers is now withdrawn for human consumption. Many major rivers no longer reach the ocean during the dry season. Water conservation and water recycling can ameliorate water scarcity, but the combination of more people and more prosperity will cause water requirements to grow geometrically. Water scarcity could be the most serious of all environmental issues in the next few decades. Water Pollution Water quality has degraded throughout regions with intensive agriculture and large urban or industrial areas. Common water pollutants are petroleum products, pesticides and herbicides, heavy metals, hazardous chemical wastes, fertilizers and sediments. Waterborne diseases from fecal contamination of surface waters are a major cause of sickness and death in the developing world. Destruction of Aquatic Ecosystems Silt from poor soil management (clearcutting, monocropping), runoff from chemical intensive agriculture, urban and industrial pollution are all wreaking catastrophic damage on fresh water and coastal ecosystems. Destruction of river ecosystems is also caused by dams, which have now spanned nearly every major river on earth. Not only do dams destroy the natural flow of silt into deltas which compensates for tidal erosion, but they block the progress of migratory fish swimming upstream and downstream, they alter the water temperature behind the dam, and the water diversions for irrigation reduce many rivers to a trickle by the time they approach the ocean. Over Fishing & Trawling Demand for fish has created a commercial fishing industry that is harming the world's coastlines. Fleets are 40% greater than oceans can handle. The situation is most grim in Southeast Asia. The U.S. is not immune to overfishing as Cod stocks in the North Atlantic are decreasing. The practice of trawling, scraping nets along the ocean bottom to catch fish, has destroyed large amounts of sea floor. |