Desalination is the process of removing dissolved salts from water, producing fresh water from seawater. It is often
expensive but does also produce the by product of salt which can be sold for
profit. It is not often done as the costs out weight other alternatives such as
hydropower. In arid countries such as Australia desalination can be useful.
They usually rely on methods such as rainwater harvesting or dams. The
international desalination association released the statistic that in June 2011
12,988 desalination plants were open in the world. They produce 66.5 million
cubic meters per day for 300 million people. As mentioned in figure 1 the Jebel
Ali plant in the united Arab emirate is the largest desalination plant
producing 640,000m3 per day. The largest amount of desalinated water is used in
Israel which also produces 40% of its domestic water use from desalination.
The
option of desalination would contribute towards solving the global water
crisis. Although desalination is not the most cost effective method it makes
sense as oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface and contain 97 percent of the Earth's water.
Less than 1 percent of
the Earth's water is fresh water, and 2-3 percent is contained in glaciers and
ice caps. As our world has such a finite resource of fresh water desalination
is the obvious thing to do. The global water crisis is a pending issue and
desalination would improve conditions, but also come at a cost. The fact that
many desalination plants are fossil fuel powered means that they are not
environmentally sustainable. A method such as community water projects is
sustainable as does not use natural resources in a way that damages the
environment.
Option 2
consists of water privatisation.
This would entail of a Government owned water supply and distribution companies
are sold to private companies and possibly TNCs. A strength of this solution is
that TNCs could invest in infrastructure and possibly supply water to people
who have poor access to water. This would solve issues such as dehydration and
deaths in LEDCs such as Africa. But the controversial point is who would decide
how water was distributed? Also how would third world countries confirm that
they get a fair share of water even though they have less economic development?
A limitation of this strategy is that profits would be prioritized for stock
holders and executives, possibly over the needs of the communities that they
serve. I think that Government owned water would be fair and democratic, but
private companies and TNCs do not involve people in their decisions and this
could make it unfair. I think that a privatisation of a basic commodity could
result in an unfair share of a natural resource that no one should ‘’own.’’
Social organisations such as Oxfam define water as a public good that should be
managed by national Governments. If water is managed by private companies the
access gap may widen and water quality may also suffer.
A
positive point about water privatisation could be that by charging for water,
it decreases waste, and people begin to use water sparingly and only when
needed, reducing worldwide consumption in MEDCs. It may also result in excess
water previously wasted by MEDCs being used where needed in LEDCs. In 2012 7%
of the world gets their water from private companies but this could be
increased as a solution to the global water crisis. It is predicted that this
figure could rise to 17% by 2015.It has also been suggested that water could
become like oil; being something that makes a country rich and is an incredibly
valuable and tradable commodity. The World Bank now encourages LEDCs to sell
their water systems in return for debt relief. For example the IMF claims that
private investment of $50 billion each year can guarantee supplies of fresh
water for Latin American countries such as Bolivia.
Due to
global warming and wide spread drought water is a basic human right and a
valued commodity. Making this owned by TNCs could result in the rich getting
richer and gaining a profit from something that was previously free, and the
poor struggling and being unable to afford water may cause more deaths in LEDCs.
The Millennium development goals aimed to ‘’halve by 2015 the proportion of
people without sustainable access to safe drinking water’’. In conclusion I
think that this is not sustainable solution and it may result in further
issues.
The third solution is community
water projects, funded by non-government organisations who only intend to
help people in less developed areas. Charities such as water aid work with
local people in rural villages to help get clean drinking water and basic sanitation.
Many methods are used in a way that mean local people get jobs making them,
learn about them, and then can fix them in they get broken. By trading goods in
return for a water pump, local people then feel personally invested and want to
take care of their solution. Solutions
include pipelines to irrigate crops, hand dug wells, boreholes and hand pumps,
rainwater harvesting, gravity flow systems, fog collection and many more such a
latrines. All of these solutions create
employment; they also save a lot of time where women previously had to walk
miles for water. These solutions also stop water Bourne diseases such as
malaria, typhoid and cholera. These solutions are also good as they are made to
last and they will continue helping people in the future generations to come.
Once developing third world countries get access to clean water they can then
go on to develop other areas such as education. This will get people out of the
cycle of poverty and reduce deaths.
I think that community water projects would greatly contribute to the
global water crisis in a sustainable way, that is bottom up and helps the
people really in need first, which then works up to the more developed areas.
This is the best solution for solving the global water crisis as it helps
people in need, it is fair, and it also ensures better conditions for people in
LEDCs.
In
conclusion I think that the worst solution is privatization of water, I believe
that this will not benefit the majority of people and it is not sustainable. Desalination is in the middle as a solution to our
water crisis. It has many benefits and limitations but it works for the benefit
of people. Community water projects are the best solution as they help the
people who are truly in need and they will also last into the future.
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