Water is the essence of life for people, plants,
animals, and ecosystems, yet more than 1 billion people lack adequate and safe water supplies. Contaminated water causes more than 80% of the diseases in the
developing world and the death of 4 to 5 million children a year from diarrhea.
Consider the following:
- Over pumping of rivers and groundwater along with pollution from agriculture, industry and human wastes have caused a major drop in water quality
- The overuse of irrigation depletes groundwater faster than it can be replenished, causing water tables to drop
- Over pumping for agricultural and personal use has emptied some rivers like the Colorado, USA and Huang He in China before they reach the ocean
- Damming of rivers prevents essential nutrients from reaching the ocean, depriving fisheries of food for the ocean's food chain
- Irrigation of land with water from these coastal rivers and aquifers leaves salts in the soil further reducing farm productivity
Some of the most severe land subsidence in history has occurred in the San  Joaquin
Valley, California, USA near Mendota, where the land surface has dropped nearly thirty feet due to overdraft of the underground aquifer.
Note the 1925 date at the top of the telephone pole indicating where the level of land was in 1925 in this part of the valley. Regional fresh water supplies are dangerously low: 97% of the world's water is sea water. Of the remaining three percent, two percent is
locked up in the polar caps, leaving just one percent for use by 6 billion of us. Rivers are drying up. Many lakes are at their lowest levels in history.
- To the right, a well in Somalia has been progressively excavated as the water table has dropped
- In Arabia, groundwater use is three times greater than the recharge rate. (Arabia irrigates wheat with underground water)
- In Libya, North Africa, groundwater use exceeds recharge by nearly 3.8 billion cubic meters per year
- In North China, the water table around Beijing dropped 120 feet over last four decades
- In India, water tables in the Punjab, India's breadbasket, are falling 7 inches per year
Message: The Earth's resources are finite From WorldWatch |
