Amarbir Singh

English 113B
Professor Santosh Khadka
26 April 26, 2016
Water is the New Oil
Water is a basic human need. Humans cannot survive without water for more than three
days. On the Earth, we have an infinite amount of water, and we can never run out of water
because it cannot be destroyed. But from all the available water, humans can use only 3% of the
water because rest 97% is in the oceans. We can run out of this 3% of water in near future
because of our increasing consumption. Already more than 1.1 billion people all over the world
are experiencing water shortage or lack of safe drinking water according to The Water Project, a
non-profit organization. Levels of ground water are getting lower because of the human use and
global warming, and sea water levels are getting higher, which humans cannot use. The global
crisis of water is real, we are facing it right now, and it is vastly rising. People around the world
who have easy access to water should feel it their responsibility to waste as little water as they
can, and officials should make strict rules and regulation regarding water pollution and water
wastage, so the number of people experiencing water scarcity will not increase further.
From the 3% of the drinkable water, two-thirds of it is stored in the glaciers or otherwise
not available to use. According to WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature), 2.7 billion people find
water scarce for at least one month in the year. Inadequate sanitation is also a big problem for
about 2.4 billion people, and they are exposed to water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid

fever and much more. Two million inhabitants, which are mostly children, die every year from
diarrheal diseases (WWF).
Many of the water systems which keep ecosystems running and feed a growing
population have become stressed because of overuse. Lakes, rivers, and aquifers are drying up or
becoming too much polluted to use. According to WWF, at the current consumption rate by
humans, this situation will only get worse with time. By 2025, two-thirds of the worlds
population may face water shortages, and ecosystems around the world will suffer even more
(WWF).
Water scarcity could be a natural process to a small extent, but the deficit we are facing
right now is a mainly man-made. Climate change, pollution, agriculture and growing population
are some of the main reasons we are facing water scarcity. Humans are sending more and more
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which are changing weather patterns, causing excessive
rain at some places and no rain at all in other locations. Excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers
are polluting water and making it not safe for drinking. Agriculture uses around 70% of the total
available freshwater, but almost 60% of it is wasted because of old and leaky irrigation system.
The wasteful use of water is affecting lakes, rivers, and underground water. The rapid growth of
population has also increased the use of freshwater. More population needs more food, which is
stressing water sources even more.
United Nations had made it clear that how tense the global water crisis is right now and
how much we will suffer in the future. According to UN, with the current climate change rate,
almost half of the world will be living in high water stress by 2030. Even though we are not
experiencing water scarcity at a high incidence in the US, it is the biggest problem of many
nations. World Water development report number four by World Water Assessment

Programme(WWAP), UN, March 2012 gives precise data of all the places around the world with
intense water shortage. Sub-Saharan Africa and Middle India have the worst condition as you
can see in the

picture. Three of the main areas with water

scarcity are southern

California (US), Maharashtra (India),

and a country

in sub-Saharan Africa,

Kenya.
Even if people

in

the United States are not

experiencing any

severe water shortage,

Southern California is

in the middle of its worst

drought in the history.

One of the areas in the

Figure 1 World Water Development Report 4. World Water Assessment

Programme (WWAP), March 2012.

California hit by worst

drought is Brentwood East Bay, Westside of Los Angeles. Rocio Hernandez-Zarate, a resident of
Brentwood, explains in his blog titled How some homeowners are prevented from conserving
water, the severe condition of water shortage in the city. In the city, people are forced not to
water their lawns and so their gardens are dying. The city is asking its residents to decrease the
water usage by 35% than the last year, which shows how much water shortage people are
experiencing even in California. The City is offering rebates for homeowners who are replacing
their lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping. The state of California has passed a Bill in
January that says homeowners associations cant prevent residents from modifying their gardens
to make room for drought-tolerant plants.
The reason for the drought in California is killing of Colorado River. We are overusing its
water, lack of rain and snowfall has decreased its water supply. Californias agriculture industry

has faced $2.7 billion loss in the year 2015 alone because of drought. The drought is not only
affecting agriculture and humans, but it is also threatening the population of many species of
animals like geese, ducks and plants like Joshua trees and also helping in spreading the diseases
like the West Nile virus. And again it is all happening because of overuse of water in agriculture
and bursting population in California. This water shortage is causing higher food costs in all
across the America as California is one of the top food producers.

Even after a massive shortage of water, people in America still have enough water for
daily needs, and there is no big problem for safe drinking water in the United States. But some
countries in sub-Saharan Africa are not even able to provide drinking water for all their citizens.
The water project is a public non-profit organization which helps people in Africa providing
water resources.
They interviewed
a kid named
Florence Okomo,
from a school in
Nigeria. Florence
Okomo was president of Figure 2 People getting water from a polluted water pond
his school and he explains, When they come in the morning, they come with water from their
homes. The water is not enough for them (Florence). Kids in schools in Nigeria dont even have
enough water to drink. They have to walk miles to get water from some nearby river or stream.
And often they get sick from lack of water or walking miles. There are only limited sources of
water to provide clean water for the entire population of Africa. The sources are highly polluted,
and the government cant afford to build infrastructure for safe drinking water for the total
population. People are living in a very miserable condition that we Americans cant even
imagine. A lot of non-profit organizations are contributing help for people residing in Africa, but
it is not enough for all the population suffering from water shortage in Africa. Non-Sanitized
water is also the main reason for spreading of a lot of dangerous diseases like HIV and Zika
Virus in Africa.

The condition of some places in India is even worse for the drinking water. The state of
Maharashtra is experiencing a severe drought for
many years. About nine hundred thousand
farmers are hit by the drought this year in
Maharashtra, as it is a farming based state. The
government of the state declared that almost 60%
of the villages were experiencing water shortage.
In a state with more than 115 million people,
dozens are dying every day with lack of drinking water or
because of not enough food grown in the fields.
People are forced to leave their homes and
migrate to bigger cities from villages, where they
can at least get enough water for drinking. This

Figure 3 Women walking miles to get drinking

water with heavy load on their heads

year the state is also experiencing water-riots, in which people are fighting with each other to get
drinking water. The government is supplying water in trains from other states, but it is not
enough for a huge population. Women have to walk miles to get water from far places and men
are committing suicide because of loss in farming. All this is happening right now when people
here are America can just open the tap and drink clean water.
These conditions are explained for only 3 of many other places all around the world,
where water is getting rarer and rarer. And there is no guarantee that water crisis will not further
expand to other areas where water is easily available right now. So it is pretty much clear that
future of water is in danger, and if we don't take any serious actions, then we will experience
severe water shortage shortly. According to Iain Stewart, a famous Geologist, and broadcaster for

BBC, nearly 2 million people die from the lack of safe drinking water every year. And in only 15
more years, about half of the world will be living in areas where water is not enough (Stewart).
He argues that there is no way we can decrease our water usage, so to avoid water shortage, we
have to provide more water with different ways, which we will discuss in a moment.
As we have explored that for the water crisis, humans are mostly responsible. And this is
our responsibility to help reduce water crisis in the future, to provide enough water for our next
generations. There are many different ways we can contribute to avoiding severe water shortage
in the future. Some of these are directly related to causes we discussed earlier. The first primary
solution is increasing agricultural water productivity and using efficient techniques for irrigation.
So if we are producing more food with the same amount of water usage, then water needs will
not increase in future, and we will also meet the demands of growing population. This can be
done by growing new hybrid crops that need less water and using new techniques of irrigation
like sprinkling system so that we waste as little water as possible in the agricultural field.
One of the main reasons for increasing water demands is vastly growing population. So if
we can control the extreme population growth we can manage to limit the demand for the water.
So if we want to have enough water for everyone till 2015, we have to keep our population
below 8.5 billion. Controlling the population by family planning and tax incentives will help
maintain the population lower benefitting many other crises like global warming and pollution
too. There is a lot of waste of water in the industrial use. So if we can increase the amount of
recycling water usage in industrial purposes and limit the amount of fresh water industries can
use, then we can save a significant amount of water.
Even though the next solution is not possible for every region, but increasing the water
storage in rainy seasons will help reduce water crisis. Upgrading essential infrastructures like

making reservoirs larger can contribute to coping with high water demand in non-rainy seasons.
There are many areas in India, where they have a lot of rain in the monsoon season but totally no
rain in the summer, so if we have water stored from the monsoon season rather than wasting all
the water from rain, it can be highly beneficial in some areas.
The sea water is mostly non-usable, but there are many fields where we can use seawater, like showering or cleaning floors. So in the areas where sea water is easily available, we
should use it where it can be utilized. Another way to use the sea-water is Desalination of
seawater. Investing in Desalination plants can be expensive, but it will save a lot of fresh-water.
Most of the solutions explained above need expensive investment from governments all around
the world. Some of them cant even afford these investments. But if governments limit the
spending on other sectors like the military and invest that money in saving water, then we might
not end up finishing all the water on the earth and leave some for our next generations.
There are many areas where we are saving water already, and it is helping us a lot. Data
provided by LADWP says that since 2013, water consumption is reduced by 22%, which means
we have saved 55,000,000 gallons per year. By the end of 2016, the goal of LADWP is to save
16% more water consumption. So governments have already started saving water at their level,
the next is our turn. Every individual should understand it as a responsibility to save more and
more water at the individual level. We should try not to waste water during showering, cleaning,
and washing dishes, etc. Many non-profit organizations are working to provide drinking water in
highly water-shortage areas, so we should donate to these organizations if we can. We should try
to replace our lawn with green artificial grass, and try to dry clean our cars rather than washing.
The Water is a natural resource, and every human, animal, or plant has an equal right to
use water. But it is also limited, and it will not last forever, unless with precise and wise use it

can last long enough that we wont experience severe water shortage in near future. It is
everyones responsibility to spare enough water so that we wont end up using all of the water for
ourselves and our next generations will live in extreme water shortage. Water is the new oil for
us and we should treat it like oil, not like water anymore. Everybody from all around the world
needs to make some effort to avoid Water-wars displayed in movie Mad-Max, which might start
without any further delay if we kept wasting water with the same sense.

Work Cited
Deepak, K.R. "Water Woes." The Hindu. The Hindu, 11 Oct. 2010. Web. 16 May 2016.
"Global Water Shortage: Water Scarcity & The Importance of Water." The Water Project. N.p.
N.d. Web. 16 May 2016.
Kakodkar, Priyanka. "Drought Hits 90 Lakh Farmers in Maharashtra." Ruralindiaonline. N.p., 23
Apr. 2015. Web. 16 May 2016.
Krchnak, Karin. "Water Scarcity." WWF. World Wild Life Fund, 15 May 2014. Web. 16 May
2016.
LADWP. Water Conservation. Earth Fair. 2015. Raw data. Los Angeles, n.p.
Schiller, Ben. "6 Ways The World Can Cope With Water Shortages." Co.Exist. FASTCOEXIST,
15 Sept. 2014. Web. 16 May 2016.
Stewart, Iain, Professor. "How Can Our Blue Planet Be Running out of Fresh Water?" IWonder.
BBC, n.d. Web. 15 May 2016.
TheWaterProject. "Meet Florence Okomo." YouTube. TheWaterProject, 18 Mar. 2015. Web. 16
May 2016.
"United Nations World Water Development Report 4. Volume 1: Managing Water under
Uncertainty and Risk." Water Library. United Nations, Mar. 2012. Web. 16 May 2016.
Zarate, Rocio Hernandez. "How Some Homeowners Are Prevented from Conserving Water CAdrought.com." CAdroughtcom. N.p., 06 July 2015. Web. 16 May 2016.