Veolia Water Technologies by GineersNow Engineering Magazine GineersNow Engineering Magazine September 2016 | Page 80

THE MOST
WATER-STRESSED
COUNTRIES BY
2040
by By Alice Hernandez
The world is already in deep trouble.
Whatever news channel you go to,
whatever newspaper you read, there
are things everyone should be aware
of. This includes being environmental
problems the world is facing because of
climate change. We all know how it has
dramatically changed the landscapes of
different places but did you know that
decades from now, the world will be living
in a planet that may not be able to
sustain human life anymore?
One of the alarming environmental issues
we must be aware of is the high demand
of water now. Given this demand, there
is low supply of water consumable for
people in each country. Adding climate
change to the issue, water levels have
changed in different regions - affecting
not only the environmental situations of
different countries, but also the political
and economic sectors. With some areas
becoming drier and others having more
water than expected, we’re not entirely
sure where to get the water we need to
sustain the lives of people from different
nations.
In a study conducted by the World
Resources Institute (WRI), they have
identified the places that will likely have
trouble getting enough supply of water.
Their study includes a ranking of the
future water stress by each country in
the year 2040. Water stress is based on
the ration of withdrawals to the supply of
water available in each country.
Water stress are categorized from low
to extremely high, which depend on the
given scores. 0 be-ing the lowest and
5 being the highest. 33 countries were
ranked in the category of being the most
water stressed countries where 14 of
them will be coming from the Middle
East. 9 out of 14 got a score of 5.0! This
may be expected since geographically
speaking, these countries have the least
supply of water. These countries rely
on groundwater and desalinated sea
water for their supply. These countries
are: Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates, Qatar, Palestine, Kuwait, Isra-el,
Oman and Bahrain.
The challenges these countries face
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SEPTEMBER 2016
Clean Water Technologies
have affected the livelihoods of different
nations. For exam-ple,Saudi Arabia normally
plants their own supply of grains but due
to the water scarcity the coun-try is facing,
its government announced it will be relying
on grain imports this year. Water has also
played a major factor in different national
and international problems several countries
face in the-se areas.
As for the countries with the largest economies,
United States, India and China also are at
risk with their water supply. While these
countries will see a constant level of water
stress by 2040, there are specific regions for
each country that will have a water stress
level increase by up to 40-70%. These huge
countries have different regional variations
which cause a difference in the actual wa-ter
stress level in each region. One must also take
note that there are countries that manage
their water supply exceptionally well, which
may cause the difference between the actual
and expected water stress level.
For each country, there are different factors
why the water stress level is high. Usually,
it’s a com-bination of these different factors
that worsens the amount of water supply
available. For example, Chile is projected
to have extremely high stress (compared
to a previous medium water stress in
2010) because of rising temperatures and
precipitation patterns. While countries like
Botswana and Namibia have limited water
supplies and more likely at risk from floods
and droughts.
While this study wouldn’t be able to predict
the water conditions in the future, it will
certainly help different organizations, private
institutions and governments in dealing with
whatever possible solu-tions necessary to
improve the situation. Water is very crucial to
human life and the progress of every nation
to obtain such high water stress level can
pose as a threat economic growth and may
lead to more problems in the future. Water
organizations and different governments all
over the world must work hand in hand to
manage these water problems and make
rules that will allow eve-ryone to join in on
the different conservation practices out there.
Again, the world is in danger. Once the water
demand is too low, there’s no telling whether
humans will still have a bright future or not.
Photo by Carbon Neutral
Photo by BBC
Photo by World Resources Institute
Photo by Washington Post