John Hunwick

 

Water raises national fervor in Canada, and Canadians are reluctant to share their birthright with a United States that has mismanaged? Indeed, the prospect of losing control of its water under free-trade or other agreements is something Canadians seem to worry about constantly.

Water is having a significant impact on many people’s lives around the world. From droughts to quake lakes, floods to monsoons, people and animals are dealing with water in many ways.

Water reserves have become scarce in many African countries, such as Chad, due mainly to global climate change. As lakes shrink, the local population loses its means of survival, sowing the seeds for violence between communities.  This is a matter of survival for alrge numbers of people in sub-saharan africa where thei lack of water has led to the inability of populations to systain even the most basic agrculture.  Cattle, which need large quantities of water, often die.  Goats strip the remaining sparse vegetation and even keeping chickens is becoming dfficult across large areas. 

Water consumption is doubling every 20 years and yet at the same time, water sources are rapidly being polluted, depleted, diverted and exploited by corporate interests ranging from industrial agriculture and manufacturing to electricity production and mining.

The World Bank predicts that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will suffer from lack of clean and safe drinking water.

Water molecules are naturally attracted and stick to each other because of this polarity, forming a hydrogen bond . This hydrogen bond is the reason behind many of water’s special properties, such as the fact that it’s denser in its liquid state than in its solid state (ice floats on water).

Water use doesn’t just include what you drink from the bottle or what you use to wash your clothes. It also includes the water used to grow the things we eat and wear. Water, of course, is essential to human health. Drinking enough water to replace whatever is lost through bodily functions is important. Water can be liquid, solid, or gas. It can evaporate into vapor or freeze into ice.

Water makes up more than half of your body weight and a person can’t survive for more than a few days without it. Your body has lots of important jobs and it needs water to do many of them. Water quality can be compromised by the presence of infectious agents, toxic chemicals, and radiological hazards. Water stress results from an imbalance between water use and water resources. The water stress indicator in this map measures the proportion of water withdrawal with respect to total renewable resources.

Clean water is vital to life and its supply is limited, so it must be utilized carefully to be sure it is protected for future generations. API and our members work to ensure the continued availability of high quality water. Clean water can be easy to take for granted. Flowing in and out of our homes and businesses through underground pipes, clean water for sanitation keeps our communities livable, our lifestyles possible, and our industries viable.

 

Technorati Tags: sub saharan africa, water shortages

Tags: sub saharan africa, water shortages

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 5:09 pm and is filed under West African and Sahara Studies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.