Keoni Buenavista
Date: 05/12/2022
Prompt: Many individuals support a cause such as addressing environmental or social issues. What is a cause that you support and why?
The issue that I support is fighting water scarcity across the world. Ecosystems and world populations have struggled with water scarcity at some level and this has had a large effect on the quality of life of individuals in many countries, in addition to wildlife living in areas affected by water scarcity in the world. Generally, water scarcity in recent years has been due to the disparity between the supply and demand of water. According to information from the International Resource Panel of the United Nations, it states that governments in many regions of the world have had large investments in temporary solutions to water scarcity that have shown to be largely inefficient over time. Current examples of these inefficient investment projects in water relate to dams, aqueducts, canals, water reservoirs, and pipelines. These projects have been heavily utilized by many countries and none of them have shown to be an economically viable option or shown environmental sustainability.
To combat the issue of water scarcity, many suggest that rather than investing in temporary water projects that set aside or transport water for civilian use, is an investment in water management. Having better water management plans that span across all or most countries in the world will be able to carefully analyze the economic use, treatment, distribution, and return of water to the environment.
An issue that arises with attempting to establish better water management programs is the cooperation between countries. From a global perspective, water is insufficiently distributed across the planet, and this has caused certain places or regions to have more water than others. Additionally, multiple countries have issues regarding foreign relations with other countries, and cooperation between them is what is necessary for resolving regional water conflicts. Although it may currently not be a viable solution, in the future, easing foreign relations between countries with tension can help to resolve issues with water scarcity.
Further work that is being done to expand water resources to combat the water scarcity issue is through water treatment (desalination) and reclaimed water. Water recycling (or reclamation), is the process of converting wastewater from industrial or municipal areas into usable water through filtering. The process filters out the waste, bacteria, and other hazardous material from the water and separates it from the water itself. In terms of desalination, it is the process of taking water from large unfiltered sources of water such as saltwater from seas and oceans. The issue that arises from both of these methods of water cleaning is that it takes up a lot of energy, it produces waste through by-products, and it is costly. If further research is done to make these processes more efficient and cost-effective, then saltwater and wastewater recycling for human use would be a much more viable option, especially in areas of a high population.
The last option that I believe should be more emphasized and that has others putting effort towards solving the issue of water scarcity is water conservation. Efforts through water conservation have gone at the policy level among lawmakers, encouragement to conserve water through advertising, and products that have been made to use water efficiently (such as faucets, showerheads, etc.).
In Conclusion, I support the efforts made toward the water scarcity issue. Many areas of the world have the issue of not having enough freshwater to serve their general populations or ecosystem, which suffer as a result. I believe that through the investment in research to make water treatment facilities more efficient and cost-effective as well as conserving water and better managing water, the problem of water scarcity will become less prevalent across the world.