Concepts of Water Use on a Global Scale
Introduction
The use of water can be
separated into three basic areas: physical supply, legal availability
and multiple uses. Physical supply is the amount of fresh water provided
physically in the form of rainfall, and snow pack (precipitation), and
as such is available for use in the rivers and lakes. One recent
estimate from the World Resources Institute (WRI) is that the total
amount of precipitation falling on the land surface is approximately 45
billion gallons, 140,000 Acre Feet (af), per year. Legal availability is
that amount of water that an entity is legally entitled to take out of
the existing physical supply, or the amount used. Multiple Use is the
concept of using water for many and often conflicting uses such as
drinking, bathing, cooking, agriculture, recreation, commercial and
industrial.
Water Use on a Global Scale
These three concepts apply on a
global basis. Water must be available to support life, and water can be
denied to the end user based on the lack of physical supply, lack of
legal right to use, or having too many conflicting uses for the existing
resource. Conflict over water involves at least one, but often more, of
these three areas.
Rivers provide the majority of
the world’s constant water supply. Two or more countries share river
systems that drain slightly less than one-half of the world’s land area.
At least ten major rivers flow through six or more countries.
One example, the Euphrates River
flowing from Turkey into Syria and Iraq is an area of conflict in
several ways. Turkey has built major dams upstream, which withhold water
from flowing into Syria and Iraq. Both countries are deprived of
otherwise available water in the river (physical supply). The legal
compacts negotiated by the countries are in constant dispute (legal
availability). Each of the three countries needs ever increasing water
supplies for drinking, and growing food (multiple use) because of
increasing populations.
On the other side of the world,
the Colorado River serves seven states and one foreign country (Republic
of Mexico). This river is governed by a series of federal and state
agreements and one international treaty between the two nations. This
one river system currently provides water to over 17 million people and
one million acres of farmland. Uses include recreation, industrial,
agriculture and municipal water supply. There is demand for more and
more water annually because of population growth and increasing use.
Even in wet regions, where water
is seemingly not an issue, disputes arise. In the United States,
Georgia, Alabama and Florida are disputing the flows in the Apalachicola
River. One issue is the amount of water needed for the Apalachicola Bay
oyster beds. Growth in Georgia and Alabama caused more and more water to
be removed from the river (diverted) for municipal and agricultural use,
leaving less for the ecosystem downstream. This impacted both the
ecology of the bay and the livelihood of the fishing industry using the
bay.
In local regions, water disputes
are often complex. In Florida, the majority of fresh water comes from
groundwater (wells). Pumping from groundwater for an increasing
municipal use may be responsible for the decline in surface water and
wetlands, affecting ecosystems and recreation. Once wetlands in Florida
comprised 54% of the state’s surface area, now they comprise only 30%.
News stories about sinkholes affecting roads and buildings are becoming
more and more common. Sinkholes are caused by the erosion and collapse
of the limestone, dolomite or gypsum formations by underground water
movement. Pumping moves the water both downward and horizontally.
The majority of the water on
Earth’s surface is saline and unusable for human consumption or for
agriculture. Some is not in a usable form (i.e. trapped in the pores of
solid rock). Conflicts arise because only about one percent of Earth’s
total water supply is fresh water and the fresh water supply is not
increasing, but the population is. Even more important neither the water
supply nor the population is evenly distributed, and often they are not
located in the same place.
The World Bank estimates that
eighty nations have water shortages severe enough to retard agricultural
production.
Much of the world still lacks
water for basic needs such as drinking and sanitation, however in many
cases this is due to poor water management or lack of infrastructure
resources. A recent WRI estimate of the percent of people world wide
with chronic water scarcity (lack of water for basic needs) is as
follows.
Estimated Percent of World
Population with Chronic Water Scarcity
2000…..3.7%
2025…..8.6%
2050…..17.8%
Water Quality Magazine noted the
following in a recent article, “Shortages in nations everywhere are
frequently combined with pollution problems.” A 1997 United Nations (UN)
report entitled Comprehensive Assessment of the Fresh Water Resources
of the World concluded that “increasing water stress” is largely a
result of “poor water allocation, wasteful use of the resource, and lack
of adequate management action.”
Water use per person per day in
1995 was estimated (USGS) to be 260 gallons globally. The United States
in 1995 used an estimated 1,250 gallons per person per day.
This article is part of the
Introduction to my book titled Understanding Water Rights and
Conflicts, Second Edition.
H. Court Young
© 2007, H. Court Young
is the author of Understanding Water and Terrorism
and Understanding Water Rights and Conflicts, Second
Edition.
He is a writer, author and publisher writing about
water, security and terrorism issues. He is also an
eBook publisher with eBooks about meteorites, and World
War II. For more information visit
http://www.tmcco.com
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