Cultural factors contributing to the global pattern of access to clean water
Population pressure
water scarcity is defined as"lack of sufficient water to meet the demands in a region.
Africa, South America, And parts of Asia are experiencing large rate of population growth.
A growing population places pressure on access to water as there is more demand for water in that area. Since water is finite, this places a lot of pressure on people to get enough water as there is not enough for the large quantity of water.
Countries that are suffering from water stress, are typically the countries that are educating their people on how to reduce water consumption. This included using water-friendly agriculture tool such irrigations system.
The rates for population growth in Africa is more than 2.0% and in South America, it is 1.1-2.0%. Parts of Asia also have the same rate of growth as South America.
Population growth affects Agriculture because water is needed to grow the crops. An increase in population and a decrease in available water means that there is a high demand for food, but not enough resources to be able to feed the large population.
Population can be linked to urbanisation, because as the population grows, the need for cities and technology also increases.
2 billion people are living in water scarce areas
Madagascar located in the African region, has very little clean water. In this country 1.4 million people are starving and this can be linked to water scarcity as there is not enough water for agriculture
In Libya which is located in Northern Africa,there is only 67 cubic metres of water for a person per year. This is not enough to survive on.
30% of farmers in Ghana use these irrigation system.
Urbanisation
There are many regions of the world that have low level of urbanisation and the two main regions are Africa and Asia. This is why the regions that have low level of urbanisation, are the ones we can expect to start to rapidly advance
In Africa, only 25-50% of the countries are Urbanised.Central African countries are the least developed.
some things that have not caught up with urabisation rates in LEDCs is the GDP and the Economic capcity. Another important thing that has not caught up with urbanisation in LEDC is sanitation.
Urbanisation is more of a risk in LEDC countries than In MEDC because urbanisation in LEDC countries might lead to more pollution and it might even lead to less accessible water.
Urbanisation might have a bad effect on natural water supplies because there will be higher demand for water but there will still be a finite amount. Another effect might be water pollution as urbiansiation can lead to decreased water quality.
The citrarum river in Indonesia is filled with human and industrial waste. Even then 30 million people rely on this water .
globally, the rate of people without access to basic sanitation is 114 million.
Question to consider-how might a higher level of economic development help to mitigate the issues associated with urbanisation.
water pollution
countries that experience the highest level of water pollution are Africa, South America and Asia
the most serious causes of water pollution is flooding and storm water flooding.
find out how much of the worlds flood water flows bacl