Views: Pros and Cons Topic Map Slideshow

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Category: Society & Politics
Tags: water shortage, drought, global warming, water supply
Background information: http://en.wikipedia.org
 -16.21%

  Support:
 -16.21%
Points:
The world's water shortage is not only a resource problem, but also a political and economic problem that could be solved by economic & administrative measures  
  • but: 1/3 of the world's population lives in water-stressed countries now, and by 2025, this is expected to rise to 2/3 (news.bbc.co.uk) +83.33%

  • because: (co) global warming is more of a political, economic problem than a spontaneous process of the natural world  +66.67%

  • but: with the problem of overpopulation, water becomes a scarcity  +66.67%

  • but: Groundwater, which is limited, is overdrafted in many places in the world where such resource is vital for their water supply  +65.84%

    • because: By the mid 1990s developing countries on the whole were in a state of overdraft (World Bank (2006) ) +90%

      • because: on the North China Plain, overdrafting reduced the depth to groundwater by 50 meters in a span of 35 years, whilst in India a net overdraft 56% had taken place  (Wikipedia (2019)) +96.67%

  • but: Industrial developmentalong coastal areas has increased the risk of pollution of coastal environmental resources, reducing the available water (Peirce (1997) ) +63.33%

  • because: a changing of the culture of agriculture can help to solve the water shortage power effectively  +57.92%

    • because: e.g. in China, water use efficiency is very low in irrigation: up to 60% of irrigation water is wasted through the traditional methods of flooding irrigation (www.iiasa.ac.at) +80%

    • because: (co) agriculture uses 70 times more water to produce food than is used in drinking and other domestic purposes (www.scenta.co.uk) +66.67%

    • because: technologies like genetic engineering can be done to improve the cost-effectiveness of crops production with regard to water consumption  +50%

    • because: incentives should not be provided to grow crops in places where the resources to do so are scarce, in order for them to be grown elsewhere at a lower cost  +33.33%

  • but: water is over-used and people are affected by environmental consequences from falling groundwater levels to dying rivers that no longer reach the sea (www.scenta.co.uk) +55%

  • but: many parts in the world rely on the spring snowmelt as an important source of fresh water  +54.31%

  • because: it is global warming that brings forth shortage of water supply in the world (Gore (2006) ) +44.73%

    • because: rising global temperatures cause more precipitation to take the form of rain rather than snow (www.becker-posner-blog.com) +63.33%

    • because: (co) rain is much harder to collect and distribute than the spring runoff from melting snow (www.becker-posner-blog.com) +46.67%

    • because: higher global temperatures increase the demand for water  +33.33%

  • because: better city planning and infrastructure development can in fact help to alleviate water crisis in many places in the world  +36.25%

    • because: as shown in California and Persian Gulf states, a well developed water supply infrastructure (often including long-distance water pipelines) is very useful (www.iiasa.ac.at) +55%

    • because: water shortage in a country is always caused by the fact that the distribution of people and arable land does not match the distribution of water resources  +23.34%

      • because: e.g. in China, 44% of the population and some 58% of the cultivated land are in the North, only 14.4% of the total water resources can be found in those region (www.iiasa.ac.at) +46.67%

  • but: many places in the world are naturally dry, for example, desert  +34.58%

    • because: one quarter of the world's population live in river basins where water is physically scarce (www.scenta.co.uk) +63.33%

    • but: water is available in rivers and aquifers, but the infrastructure is lacking to make this water available to people  +41.67%

  • because: water shortage is a matter of market failure, and will be solved in an self-regulated manner following the law of demand and supply  +22.97%

    • because: when price of water rises quickly, demand reduces and thus equilibrium reestablished--so no more shortage (www.becker-posner-blog.com) +21.67%

    • because: in long run, high prices of water leads to increased supply: greater desalination will be used to convert sea water into fresh water (www.becker-posner-blog.com) +3.54%

      • but: sea water should not be mistaken for available water resource  +39.59%

        • because: desalination constitutes serious environmental problem to marine lives  +58.34%

          • because: lethal byproduct of saline brine is drained back at high temperature to the ocean (Lattemann (2003) ) +66.67%

        • because: desaliantion is not cost-effective: the amount of energy needed to convert saline water to potable water is prohibitive today (International Energy Agency (2005) ) +33.34%

          • but: Nuclear-powered desalination is economical on a large scale (www.uic.com.au) 

            • but: the cost to built the plant and of technology is high, also it is impractical to pipe massive amounts of desalinated seawater throughout the whole country (Chapman (1973) ) +66.67%


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