If you ask any environmentalist in China what the country’s principal issue is, the answer is always: water. China is becoming drier every year—its fresh water reserves declined 13% from 2000 to 2009 (Cho, 2011). It is estimated that every year China has a water supply shortfall of 40 billion cubic meters (Lu and Liao 1, 2011). The question is, why does China have such a serious problem with water?
One of the major causes of water scarcity in China is its climate. If you divide China geographically into north and south by the Yangtze River—which runs roughly from Chongqing to Shanghai—80% of the rainfall falls in the south while 20% of the rainfall falls in the north (Cho, 2011). This could be a major issue because while the rainfalls are distributed unevenly around the country, the populations on both sides are at an even split. On top of that, the two main sectors of water use—industry and agriculture—are both focused on the north China plain. The water availability per capita in China is only one tenth of the UN standard. This is only the beginning.
“Global climate change could further exacerbate existing problems over water security, water supply and farming irrigation” said Chen Lei, the Minister of Water Resources in China (qtd. in Lu and Liao 1, 2011). Climate change speeds up the melting of glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau, which affects the Yangtze, Mekong and Indus Rivers. It also means warming temperatures and changing precipitation patterns, which are directly linked to droughts and increasing desertification. In 2010, the drought in the Southwest of China’s Yunnan Province was described as the worst since the 1950s. The average rainfall fell down 21% from the previous years. According to Yunnan Provincial Meteorologi...
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One reason for China’s water shortage is the climate change. In the past years many parts of China haven’t have enough rainfall and the sun is absorbing the sun (doc A) . Rivers are drying up according to Doc. A1. According to a 2006 report that
Also the shrinking glaciers are causing massive flooding which is followed by a severe-drought which can cause major decrease in China’s Water supply for the public and the industries that need water to succeed with their
“Over the last three decades, China has experienced breakneck growth, changing from a poor, agricultural country to one of the leading industrial powers of the 21st century. Yet water scarcity has the potential to undermine China’s transformation.”, BGE DBQ Online 2017. Water is a very important natural resource that the United States thankfully has access to everyday. In China, however, the economy is being plagued with an extreme growing crisis of water scarcity which has major complications on daily life. Three major factors that impact and make the situation in China worse is the growth in water pollution(document E), global warming and its effect on the water supply(document A), and lastly the way water is used throughout China( Document
Most of water consumed in China is not rationally used. The cause which intensifies the water shortage in China is water inefficient use. For instance, 65%-70% of Chinese water usage is spent on agricultural needs, but more than half of this amount evaporates percolates and loses (Roberts 2009). Besides, majority of another 20%-25% which is occupied by China’s industry is not recycled (Brown 2008a, 16; Roberts 2009). Obviously, improving water distribution technologies and management quality can be one of the options to reduce the water scarcity in China. There are many different methods of improving the water distribution efficiency. Firstly, irrigation technologies should be improved. Farmers in China may use drip and shrink irrigation methods instead of traditional “surface” ones such as furrow and flood irrigation. Drip irrigation method is used mostly in arid and semi-arid zones and it increases the efficiency of irrigation by transporting the water directly to the roots of irrigated plant. The emitters sprinkle the soil under the roots with water which is introduced to the plant by pipes, diminishing water evaporation, deep percolation and leak. In contrast, fur...
Due to industrial waste ,domestic wastes and agriculture wastes entering into water source, Chinese government reporting that nearly 60 percent of China’s groundwater is polluted. It also leads the decrease in water quality. A large amount of water cannot be used and thus foster the water scarcity problem in China.
Climate change has become of the world’s major issue today. The earth’s climate is always changing in a very fast and also in different ways. Climate changes affect our lives psychologically, emotional and also physically. Climate change is defined as a long term change in the earth’s climate, especially a change due to the increase in the average atmospheric temperatures. Due to this change in temperature, a lot of changes has occurred in our environment, these changes include rising sea levels, flooding, melting of polar ice caps, hotter days, colder nights and heat waves. These climate changes plays an important role in shaping our natural ecosystem, our human economics and also the most important, it affects the human race. For
The clock is ticking! Global Co2 emissions have increased exponentially since the industrialization of today’s developed world. Emissions have now passed the absorptive capacity of the earth and are accumulating in the earth’s atmosphere, warming the surface of the earth and inducing localized climatic changes. Climate change is often a localized issue. Many regions of the world will continue to become hotter, while others may experience highly variable weather patterns. Climate change poses a serious threat to ecosystems, economic sectors, and human welfare. Although almost entirely caused by the developed world, climate change will disproportionally affect the world’s poor.
Grillo, I. (2009, April 11). Dry Taps in Mexico City: A Water Crisis Gets Worse. Retrieved January 2014, from Time: http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1890623,00.html
In our generation of new technologies and high civilization it is hard to believe that our World is in Water crisis. This crisis is affecting not only low-developed parts of the world but also it affects high-developed countries, about one third of the humanity suffers from the scarcity of water (Molden 2010). One of the main causes of it is overpopulation. In increasing water demand water sources which we have now are not able to renew themselves. Another factor of water scarcity is not economized water consumption. Nowadays most of countries are beginning to realize that solving the problem of scarcity of water is very crucial. One of them is Mexico where water shortage is the national problem.
Developing our national economy, especially industry, requires a great amount of natural resources, such as land, water, oil, coal, gas and iron. However, the natural resources are limited and decline very quickly when a large population exploits them everyday. Take fresh water as an example, in 1990, 58% of Chinese cities (http://www.cass.net.cn/y_sjr/y_cn_sjr_334.htm) suffered from the insufficiency of water. It not only brings great disadvantages to people's daily life, but also has a passive influence on the economic development. Released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the economic loss caused by the insufficiency of water is 250 billion RMB per year, including 230 billion lost industrial output and 20 billion agricultural losses.
There are a variety problems in the world, ranging from starvation and mental illnesses to taxes and military spending. Climate change, a change in global or regional climate patterns, is just one of the major troubles of the Earth. A portion of those patterns includes the weather, ocean, ice/snow, as well as ecosystem patterns. Climate change provides several damaging effects on society and the earth itself including droughts, loss of vegetation, and an increase in natural disasters. Although it is not realized by many, climate change affects all aspects of human life. If no action is taken to fix or at least help this issue, it will diminish the human population, eventually leading to extinction. In order to reduce the negative impacts of
Many scientific studies also show increases in the intensity, duration, and extent of droughts, higher atmospheric temperatures, warmer sea surface temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, and diminishing glaciers and snowpack. The bottom line is that causes of climate change, such as greenhouse gas emissions, will have to be minimized if people want to do as much as possible to solve the water crisis. Works Cited Water demand management: the case of Zaragoza, Spain Web 25 Nov. 2014. http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/swm_cities_zaragoza_2010/pdf/final_report_swm_cities.pdf.
The problem of water scarcity has increasingly spread throughout the world as of yet, The UN reports that within the next half- century up to 7 billion people in 60 countries which is more than the whole present population will face water scarcity (Sawin “Water Scarcity could Overwhelm the Next Generation”). As well the demand for freshwater has tripled over the past 50 years, and is continuing to rise as a result of population growth and economic development. 70% of this demand derives from agriculture which shows the influence of water on food supply globally as well not just drinking water (Sawin “Water Scarcity could overwhelm the Next Generation”). But increasing water use is not just a matter of the greater number of people needing it to drink and eat; it also comes from pollution and misuse of water supplies, by either dumping or runoff of bacteria or chemicals into water. This also “causes other pollutions as well such as soil and air pollution, accelerating wetland damage and human caused global warming” (Smith and Thomassey 25). According to UN report, recent estimates suggest that climate change will account for about 20 percent of the increase in global water scarcity in coming decades.
This paper examines the factors that led to the climate change and environmental threat particularly air pollution and also identifies the roles of the Chinese government in resolving the environmental crisis. Every single day, globalization is keeping moving forward and makes human unpredictable what will happen in the future include human security. As in the case of climate change, as the same thing occurred to human security threats because they related each other. The rapid in industrialization, the gradually growth of economics and the globalization in China contributing to the factors of environmental crisis and climate change to their society. Consequently, these transformations gave the negative impact on human security which is in economically, domestically, agriculturally and the most important thing is the health of human. Therefore, those issues will be challenges to the policy makers of the Chinese government to identify the suitable policy to implement and also find a way to confront these issues as a responds to the resolving the environmental crisis and climate change.
Cherain, T., Unni, K., and Sophie, L. 2010. China – India water shortage. Bloomberg News. http://www.grailresearch.com/pdf/ContenPodsPdf/Water-The_India_Story.pdf (accessed November 1, 2010).