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Essay on The Global Water Shortage

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Water is vital necessity of human life. Nowadays, the world is incurring a serious problem like shortage of water. Britain's chief scientist John Beddington (2010) claimed that if in the coming decade the rate of population growth climbs, the scarcity of drinkable water will become the urgent problem for all humanity. Unfortunately, lack of potable water has bad influence on people’s health and may lead to international conflicts. Because of the shortage of water people use water from unsafe sources. It also means that people can not properly wash, clean their clothes and houses. It is obvious that poor quality of water and violation of sanitary standards can cause serious diseases. Furthermore, today there is competition for water between …show more content…

If agriculture and industry decreased waste of water, it is clear that it would help to conserve potable water. So, it would be a good decision to use recycled water in these spheres because they do not require fresh water. Moreover, the price of recycled water is cheaper than imported water and desalination. Contorer (2010) believes that when the cost of potable water rises, the price of recycled water will go up more slowly than both imported water and desalinated water in spite of external factors. Also modern technology makes it possible to get safe drinking water satisfying all sanitary requirements as a result of disinfection with ultraviolet light. These two advantages related to safety and availability make recycling of water effective to use. Today Singapore has five treatment plants, which produce ultra-clean, high-grade Newater and able to meet 30 percent of total national demand. (Government of Singapore 2010)

Actually, freshwater is a small amount of the world’s water. Furthermore, all resources of drinkable water are not available to use.
Therefore, it would be an advisable solution to desalinate seawater in areas of drought. This method is widely used only in countries which are situated on islands or having access to seawater. For instance, the largest desalination plant in the world is in the United Arab Emirates. Jebel Ali is capable of desalinating 300 million cubic meters of water per year. ( Desalination n.d)

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