Water Scarcity

Water is our past. Water is our future. Without it, we cannot survive, and there are no alternatives. Many people have likened the issue of water scarcity to our current economic struggle over petroleum. Without petroleum, we can’t drive our cars, and maybe we have to walk to school or work. This is not the case for water, as we are not dealing with simple inconveniences (as grandiose as they may be), we are dealing with the issue of sustaining life itself. The global lack of abundance of usable water is an issue that presents a dangerous problem to our future. Ironically, only a small portion of our planet's water is actually usable. Ninety-seven percent of the world's water is too salty for consumption or agricultural use. Furthermore, much of the rest is held in ice caps or other unattainable sources. This leaves approximately one percent of the global water as liquid and fresh; ninety-eight percent of which is groundwater (Bouwer, 2). To put things into perspective, adequate living standards in western and industrialized countries require a renewable water supply of at least 2,000 cubic meters per person per year, whereas 1,000 – 2,000 cubic meters per person per year designates water stressed, and less than 500 cubic meters per person per year denotes water scarce (Bouwer, 2). Currently there is approximately 7,000 cubic meters of renewable water supply per person per year, providing seemingly ample water for a population size three times the current size. However, this statistic fails to incorporate skewed distribution as well as attainability issues. The issue of distribution has been probed from nearly every angle, yet an economically feasible solution has yet to be found. Current technology allows for the desalination of ocean water, however, the technique is only viable for wealthy coastline regions. The cost of converting saltwater into consumable water is often higher than alternate brute force methods: the transportation of clean water in