The Impact of Globalization on Water Resources

Can you imagine living in a world where the most abundant and needed resource water was not available to you? This is the reality many people around the world are facing right now. Globalization has brought people of different cultures together and developed a new era in economic prosperity. However, globalization has some areas of concern, such as water scarcity, climate change, water pollution, and deforestation. Economic growth, population shifts, and climate change will contribute to severe shortage and degradation of global water supplies. Water is critical for many businesses because all goods require water in their production. As one of the world’s largest agricultural countries.

China is faced with serious water scarcity due to the high population growth every year, while some regions of the world see danger through extensive droughts or water diseases. Also, the inability of public people has brought a rise in water-services privatization contracts between foreign investors and states. As an agricultural country, China needs more water resources to meet its local needs of growing domestic consumption. Currently, China is facing a shortage of water due to climate and rapid development. It’s a water shortage country as the per capita use of water resources of China is only 2,300 cubic meters, which is one of the world’s 13 most water-poor countries. The agricultural land use was reduced in 11 regions, of which four were absolute water scarcity regions, two water scarcity regions, and ?ve water relative rich regions. We can end that the seven important crop planting regions including Henan, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Sichuan, Anhui, Hebei, and Jiangsu were water resource relative scarcity regions in the year 2007. (Zhang 18(6): 2103–2111,2014).

Water resources aren’t managed sustainably in many parts of the world, lower groundwater table lead to desertification, problem of diffuse water pollution from agriculture. According to the World Water Council, 1.1 billion people in the world do not have appropriate drinking water and sanitation facilities, while 2.6 billion are without improved sanitation facilities (WHO and UNICEF 2005), and over 5000 people die each day from water-related diseases, according to World Water Assessment Programme 2003. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico are getting depleted and Yemen could run of water in the next few years. “Taking a shorter shower is not the answer” to the global problem, said Hoekstra, a Dutch American Politician as one to four percent of person water footprint is in home while twenty-five percent person water footprint is through meat consumption. It takes fifteen thousand liters of water to make 1kg of beef. (Damian,2016).

Citations

1. Damian Carrington.2016 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/12/four-billion-people-face-severe-water-scarcity-new-research-finds
2. Academic Journal references Zhang, L. J., X. A. Yin, Y. Zhi, and Z. F. Yang. 2014. Determination of virtual water content of rice and spatial characteristics analysis in China.
3. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 18(6): 2103–2111
4. http://water.columbia.edu/files/2011/11/Siegfried2008ThirstyForChange.pdf
5. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=54e0b63b-ef62-4324-a53c-3ad58a668851%40sessionmgr4009