Water shortage has become a worldwide problem, which affects physical areas where 1.2 billion people reside, as well as 500 million others who are approaching the crisis. Australia, India and South Africa are currently facing water scarcity, which the effects and general causes of it will be discussed in this essay.
There are several effects of such dire water crisis across the three countries. Perth is known to be Australia’s driest city. Its water shortage problem has been affecting industries such as food production. Australia has been a major food exporting country. It is further mentioned by Green Planet Plumbing (2019) that agriculture occupies 70% of the country’s freshwater use averagely. Water scarcity has reduced dryland farming production and the volume of water allocated to irrigate agriculture, resulting in a decline in aggregate agricultural production and exports. On the other hand, India’s sixth-largest city, Chennai, forced schools to close, while hospitals delayed non-emergency operations as an act to conserve water.
Thirumurthy (2019) stated that there were several school reports declaring leave for certain classes. Funds and accessibility of water have put a huge strain on educational institutions that need to provide water supply for at least eight hours per day. Cape Town, the capital city of South Africa, was affected by water scarcity, specifically its economy. According to Juneja (n.d.), about 15% of the taxes that Cape Town earns come from their water supply. Without water supply, the amount of tax collected became affected. Being the two biggest professions in South Africa, tourism and agriculture were affected. They each added to about 11% to the GDP of the country. Juneja (n.d.) also stated that the wine industry has also been one of the major consumers of water. However, with this crisis, wine production has been massively cut down, affecting the employment rate. Overall, water shortage across these three nations has led to negative impacts on the lives of the people in the community, ranging from domestic use, education, agriculture, to the economy.
Water shortage is caused by many factors, which some are similar across countries worldwide. The city of Perth, for example, is caused by high usage of freshwater as well as climate change. Perth has an average annual rainfall of 733mm, with very limited freshwater sources. Despite that, Australians use the most water per capita worldwide, using 100,000 litres of freshwater per person every year. Other than that, climate change has been drastically affecting water levels, with the available freshwater expecting to drop significantly as rainfall patterns change, as there has been a steep decline in rainfall and catchment runoff into the dams in Perth. Water storage levels in Perth in 2017 was 40.4% – the lowest among other Australian cities, such as Melbourne and Hobart. In the year 2016, it was an alarming 28.5%. Wright (2017) found out that the long-term volume of water flowing into Perth has dropped drastically from an average of 338 GL/year (1911 to 1974) to less than 50 GL/year (2010 to 2016).
Chennai’s water shortage, however, was primarily caused by poor water management and an expanding urban population. The city’s watershed areas have been neglected. It is also known that many of the rainwater harvesting structures in buildings are either unmaintained or poorly designed. In fact, Chennai doesn’t have a decentralised system that stores and supplies water. The government has been over-reliant on insufficient reservoirs to supply water to a growing, water-starved city. Lastly, Cape Town’s water scarcity was caused by severe drought between the years 2015 and 2017, which led to lower rainfall. If rainfall was average, the city would have had full dams by the end of the monsoon season annually. The extreme drought was not expected by the people, since it was a rare phenomenon. Hence, the city had no water resources that would be resilient to such drought. With the causes mentioned above, it is evident that water scarcity among the three countries is mainly caused by global climate change, increasing population, and increased usage of water. This shows that the causes are man-made. Water scarcity would have been avoided if humans controlled human activities that potentially harm the planet.
Water shortage is a global issue that has yet to be solved, and it is unlikely to be solved within a short time. It has affected millions across the world, in the aspect of agriculture, education, tourism, healthcare, which overall have affected the economy. Such negative impacts could have been prevented if humans reduced human activities that led to world climatic changes. The increasing population and high usage of water are also causes that are controllable with the combined efforts of the people. Australia, India and South Africa are real-life consequences of our treatment towards the planet. Stern actions should be taken before it becomes too late.