Water Scarcity: Overview

A brief discussion of how water is collected and used in Australia, and future water security.

This article considers the spatial and material implications of drinking water regulation in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. Responding to water contamination and scarcity events in remote NT communities, the article outlines the available legislative protections for drinking water supply in the NT, which include minimum quality standards, water allocation mechanisms, testing regimes, and so on.

The article discusses the status of the fresh water supply of the earth in 2010 and reports on the impact that global warming is having on it. A discussion of the impact that continued global warming may have on the future of the earth and the earth's fresh water supply is presented. Water consumption changes that have been implemented across the globe to help conserve the fresh water supply are discussed.

This study examined how members of 2 water user associations in high-elevation ecosystems in Colombia and Venezuela perceive water scarcity as well as the relationship between their perception of and adaptation to it. Adaptation was guided not only by the perception of climate change (disturbance of the seasons, decrease in precipitation, and more extreme temperatures) but also by the perception of the socioeconomic causes of water scarcity (increase in cultivated area and population, aging irrigation infrastructure, system management problems). New and more efficient irrigation technologies were adopted, restoring degraded infrastructure and undertaking various actions to preserve and conserve wetlands.

The article discusses the struggles that women in several countries in arid regions across the globe, including Kenya and Ethiopia, face several times each day as they seek out and carry supplies of drinking water from dwindling water sources. A discussion of health problems such as diarrhea that are seen in many families in arid regions that are forced to drink unhealthy and untreated water face is presented. International efforts to bring clean water to the countries are examined.

The article reports on water conservation methods that are being developed and utilized across the globe in homes and industries such as agriculture and the carbonated beverage industry to help offset a shrinking global water supply. A discussion of the impact that poverty, a lack of technology and an inadequate amount of political cooperation is having on the development of water conservation methods is presented.