REFLECTION TASKS
Blue Revolution.
Today, whereas some
parts of the world are experiencing water shortages, some are having it in
abundant. The areas having enough rainfall throughout the year sometimes lack
water for basic activities like drinking, irrigation and animal watering. This
means that communities in these areas have to move from one place to another to
facilitate animal watering. Several activities at home require water. Example,
cooking, watering animals, irrigation, bathing and drinking among others.
Therefore water needs to be conserved to assist in these activities. In
general, water resources need to be managed to ensure enough water to the
population. This process of managing water resources to provide water security is
called blue revolution.
Cynthia
Barnette, (2011) argues that blue revolution is
important in many ways. It promotes the clean production of drinking water to
the populations’ thus reducing the occurrences of water diseases. Example,
diseases like cholera, typhoid arise through contaminated water thus by
conserving and managing and maintaining the water resources, we are assured of
clean water. Industrialization,
urbanization and population increase pose a serious demand on water supply.
These aspects use a lot of water and to be able to facilitate and maintain
them, water resources must be maintained. Example, tree plant and forest conservation
increases surface cover, attracts rainfall and promotes habitats for many
organisms. Through the planting of the trees, the carbon levels in the
atmosphere will decrease; through photosynthesis thus promote clean air.
Rain water harvesting
In most rural homes, it
is possible to find rain water being collected from the roof during rain
seasons and stored for future use. The water can be used for washing,
irrigation, and when treated it can be used for drinking. This process,
involving collecting rain water from the surfaces on which the water fall,
storing and managing it for future use is called rain or roof water harvesting.
This can be done by directing water into an underground reservoir or using an
external tank. Water harvesting is important as is ensures water supply during
periods of high demand and low supply. (Chen, Xuefei 2007).
These periods include drought periods when water catchment areas dry up thus
affecting both crops and animals. Rain water contains no chemicals used during
water treatment and thus safe and secure for drinking. It is also safe and
economical way of getting water compared to the piped water or from water
bodies which poses a risk of damaging water sources and habitats for many
aquatic organisms.
Economically, rain
water harvesting requires few resources like the tank to facilitate the
harvesting thus reduces the expenditure on water. By directing water into the
external or underground tanks, there is a reduced risk of water runoff that may
cause soil erosion. The accumulation and stagnation of rain water promotes
mosquito breeding and promote malaria thus by harvesting the water one reduces
the risk of having malaria. Example, digging holes and cementing them near
farms for the purpose of guiding water and storage promotes both animal and
crop farming
Water demand and supply
relationship
Water is a vital
resource for supporting our health and lives. Clean water has become a scarce
resource due to wasteful use, pollution and climate change among others
therefore hard to find a balance between human and environmental needs. In our
day to day activities, we are in constant use of water in various areas like
cooking, drinking and farm activities. Water demand is therefore the total
amount of water required within the ecosystem for life sustenance. Many sectors require water for facilitation.
They include navigation, fishing, farming, environment, domestic, industries
and involve both processes that consume water like drinking and those that do
not consume like fish farming.
There are different sources of water available
for supply. They are categorized into three broad sources namely; natural,
ground and surface water sources. The natural water supply involves the rain,
hail stone that fall from the skies and can be considered the purest. The
surface source of water gets water through run off rain water that passes areas
that do not infiltrate the water. This then enters the rivers and streams. The
availability of surface water source depend presence and absence of rainfall.
Example, rivers, lakes. Sometimes the precipitated water infiltrates into the
soil and may finally reach deep areas in the ground. This water can become a
source by digging up bore hole or sometimes the water may flow out by itself
thus a spring. There are times when the
supply of water is low compared to the general demand. This means that sources
of water are few compared to the number of processes that require the water. To
manage the demand one can recycle and reuse the water to reduce wastages.
Example the water used for washing can be reserved for animal drinking. The
available water can also be conserved and used sparingly.
Water Market
Water market refers to
the common places that provide water to the people in demand. This involves
water trading where there is buying and selling of water rights. In this case
the seller has surplus water to his demand while the buyer faces scarcity of
water. The water market helps in the allocation of water to the required users
thus avoids the concept of water wastage. Scarborough,
B. (2010) noted that the establishment of a water market may offer a
solution to the scarcity of the commodity in relation to the social, political
backgrounds of the region. The water market can be controlled by issuance of
rights schemes to help in fewer people or organizations offering the same
service. These schemes also help in determining the price of water for the user.
The water market
schemes in Colorado involve issuance of water rights to the people by the court
that also settles water disputes through the Colorado Division of Water
Resources. The most affected water source is the surface water source where by
for one to get aright to divert water
for beneficial use one must apply to the courts giving your intent to divert
water and if no opposition is sited then a right is given is centralizing the
process to a regional corporation that distributes water in a given region
using the national policies (Bunn, S. E.&
Arthington, A. H. 2002). In this policy, the end users are assured of
the water supply and the prices are controlled by the state laws.
Hydro politics
Water is a critical resource in the world and
its scarcity brings forth many problems within the ecosystem. In 2001, the then
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan noted that the access to safe water
is a fundamental human need and, therefore, a basic human right. Also,
contaminated water jeopardizes both the physical and social health of all
people. It is an affront to human dignity. Today, the availability of drinking
water depends on both quality and quantity factors including population
pressures, industrial demands, human mass use and misuse, environmental
degradation, water pollution and climate change. Water resources sometimes may be found within
the boundaries of two or more countries and for these case issues arise on how
the water should be managed; the systematic analysis of the interstate conflict
and cooperation regarding water resources is called hydro politics. (Rasler, Karen A. & W. R. Thompson, 2006).
In several countries,
there have been issues relating to water especially if the water source passes
through the boundaries of more than one nation. Consider the Ganges River that
brought conflict between India and Bangladesh. The river was beneficial to both the people in
India and those in Bangladesh. Now, India decided to control the flow of the
water downstream to Bangladesh through the construction of the Farraka Barrage
to help divert water to Calcutta to avoid it from drying during a dry season.
For this action the water demand of the Bangladesh people especially farmers
lacked enough water for agriculture and other domestic use (Serageldin, I.
2009). The Indians acted selfishly to the Bangladesh instead they ought to have
agreed first before taking that action. Such actions prompt conflicts but thy
can be resolved majorly through democratic means. The two nations decided to
share water equally after signing an agreement.
Environmental flow
Environmental flow
refers to the water within a river, wetland to maintain the organism and their
environment. Within the ecosystem, there seems to be a natural way in which
each aspect of nature should move (Pearce, Fred 2006). For example, rivers are
to flow through their original areas and not diverted. Today the world rivers
flow is being modified through construction of dams, diversion to urban supply;
agriculture and maintenance of flow for navigation among others. The
interventions have generally caused an alteration on the total flow of the
water. The natural flow of rivers has several advantages including provision of
water to the organism and the environment thus conserving nature. There are
diverse organisms that depend on the water and maintain that natural flow means
maintaining their lives.
In the United States,
The Bill William’s River was diverted into the Alamo dam thus disrupting the
ecosystem down stream. Rivers like many other water bodies harbor diverse
organisms ranging form fish, microbes and plants among others meaning that
these organisms died and thus disruption of the biodiversity. The farmers along
the river banks lacked water for farming and other domestic uses affecting
their daily lives. Consider a case where a production industry diverts a river
for the purposes of enough water supplies to the industry. The industry will
release chemicals in the river that when they accumulate down stream, can cause
eutrophication. This has an environmental effect of killing the aquatic organisms
and consequently causing pollution. (Arthington, A,
2006)
Efforts have been put
in place to control such activities so that the natural biodiversity is
maintained. The general concern of the public will send the scientists to make
a thorough research on the effects of the diversion and put in place measures
to secure the environment.
References
Arthington,
A. H., Bunn, S. E., Poff, N. L., and Naiman, R. J. 2006. The challenge of
providing environmental flow rules to
sustain river ecosystems. Ecological Applications 16(4):1311-1318.
Brookshire,
D. S., B. Colby, M. Ewers P.T. Ganderton. 2004. Market Prices for Water in the Semi-AridWest of the United States.
Water Resources Research 40, W09S04, doi:10.1029/2003WR002846.
Bunn,
S. E., and Arthington, A. H. 2002. Basic principles and ecological consequences
of altered flow regimes for aquatic
biodiversity. Environmental Management 30:492-507.
Howe,
Charles and Goemans, Christopher. 2003. Water Transfers and their Impacts: Lessons from
Three Colorado Water Markets. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 39 (5) 1055 1065.
Pearce, Fred When
the Rivers Run Dry: Water—the Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century Beacon Press,
2006, ISBN
0-8070-8572-3 ISBN
978-0-8070-8572-1
Rasler,
Karen A. and W. R. Thompson. "Contested
Territory, Strategic Rivalries, and Conflict Escalation."International
Studies Quarterly. 50. 1. (2006): 145-168.
Scarborough,
B.( 2010). Environmental water markets: Restoring streams through trade. PERC Policy Series
No. 46.
Serageldin, I. ‘Water:
conflicts set to arise within as well as between states’,
Nature, Vol. 459, p.163. 2009.
Tharme,
R. E. 2003. A global perspective on
environmental flow assessment: emerging trends in the development and application of environmental flow
methodologies for rivers. River Research
and Applications 19:397-441.
Cynthia Barnette, 2011: Blue
Revolution: Unmaking America's Water
Crisis
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