Essay About United Nations Assessment Of Freshwater Resources And Shared Resource

Global Comon
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Water: Global Common
According to James E. Post, common is a shared resource, such as land, air, or water that a group of people uses collectively. In the article title, Water: Critical shortages ahead?-water is a resource shared globally and its consumption has raised six fold between 1900 and 1995-more than double the rate of population growth. According to a 1997 United Nations assessment of freshwater resources found that one third of the worlds population lives in countries experiencing moderate to high water stress. Moderate to high stress translates to consumption levels that exceed 20 percent of available supply. The article, points out that, “much of the projected increase in water demand will occur in developing countries, where population growth, industrial and agricultural expansion will be greatest”. As a result, the World Resources Institute states that, “agriculture already accounts for about 70 percent of water consumption worldwide and the United Nations projects a 50 to 100 percent increase in irrigation water by 2025”. The article points out that if water demand continues to grow and agriculture continues to dominate the water usage worldwide, water supplies will shrink and groundwater reserves will began to be depleted faster than they can be replenished by precipitation. This will have a negative impact throughout the globe as countries and societies will began to experience water scarcity-especially the low income nations. This will drive the industrialize nations to regulate the consumption of water as well as raise the price of water to discourage waste and abusive. This will greatly affect the low-income nations as they lack the financial and technological capabilities to keep up with the raise demands of water. According to the World Resources institute, “this situation has already caused serious water shortages to develop in some regions, shortchanging