Chapter 4- Water

For my second chapter blog post, I decided to use the chapter about water. Since I spend a lot of my time in the spring, summer, and fall on or in the water, it is a very important element to me and many others.

In the intro, they say that water is a sacred symbol. It is symbolic of healing and creation in the Judaism, Christianity, and Islamic cultures. An issue that some of the world is facing is water scarcity. The physical water scarcity is when the world is in a higher demand for water than the resources provide. One of the main reasons for this occurrence is that the rain falls in certain places and not in others. This is dangerous for geographic reasons because it causes droughts in large gaps.

On the other hand, when land undergoes deforestation, the land is removed, and the water is free to flow all over the land, flooding the soil and contaminating the products such as food. A fear that the scientists have with the climate change is that it will cause more unpredictable rain occurrences and it will be harder to judge the rain patterns. They predict that the rain will fall heavily in places that were previously dry and vice versa and have negative long term effects.

People in Africa especially have a hard time finding water. Most of the water the find are not safe sources. People have gone to deep depths to find water resources. One of these includes digging for water (like using a well). The land sources are called aquifers. Some of these aquifers have fossil water from the last Ice Age.

Today’s need for water is growing rapidly. As our world’s population increases, so does the need for water. The water consumption has raised over the years so the book laid out all of the statistics.

We use 80% of fresh water for irrigation, 22% for industry, and 8% for domestic use. Bali now uses a form of irrigation system for an ecologically sustainable method (see picture on pg 67).

Quote: “Despite water’s challenging nature, it is necessary for human survival. Many early societies have benefitted from water management strategies like irrigation” (64).

My input:

I think that we would all benefit if we focused on a better irrigation system. It is crazy to think how easy it is for us to use tap water for drinking and how hard it is for people in Africa to walk miles to use a basket to transport water on their head. It is crazy to think of how fortunate we are by living in America.