Chapter 3
Water
Reading Passage
The Value of a Single Drop
[1] Have you ever thought about just how valuable drinking water is? Even though Earth is sometimes called “the water planet,” only around 0.01 percent of Earth’s water can be accessed and used by humans. In other words, if all of the water on Earth were in a five hundred milliliter bottle, the amount that humans would actually be able to use for drinking and agriculture would be less than a single drop. Fresh water is necessary for human life, but, currently, there is not enough for everyone. Water is, therefore, one of the most important natural resources of our time.
[2] Humans everywhere depend on water, and as the world’s population grows, so does its impact on the environment. Pumping too much water from the ground, for example, can cause wells and rivers to run dry. The Aral Sea, which was once the fourth largest lake in the world, has almost disappeared as a result of water from the rivers that feed it being taken for irrigation. Furthermore, even some of the world’s largest rivers, such as the Nile and the Indus, are in danger of drying up.
[3] A lack of water—called water scarcity—affects people all over the world. Many developing countries do not have effective systems for accessing and cleaning water. People without ready access to water often have to travel very far from their homes every day just to collect it. It is estimated that about one-third of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa must travel at least thirty minutes to the closest water source, often several times a day. This burdenfalls mainly on women and girls. As a result, many women cannot do any other work, and many young girls cannot attend school. Children are also usually the first to get sick or die from drinking dirty water.
[4] People in developed countries like Japan may feel that this problem does not relate to them, but this is not the case. Developed countries contribute to this problem in a major way through their use of virtual water. Virtual water refers to the total amount of water used to make and transport food and products like clothing and electronics. For example, when considering the amount of water it takes to raise, prepare, and transport beef, a single hamburger uses about 2,400 liters! Japan is the second largest virtual water importer in the world and, as such, shares responsibility for the Earth’s water crisis.
[5] Despite the development of new technologies enabling us to extract more water from the environment (such as desalination, which enables us to remove salt from seawater), there is still no simple solution to the water scarcity problem. However, by becoming more conscious of our daily habits, we can reduce our water use by thousands of liters a year. This will be of benefit to both our local environments and the global environment, allowing more people around the world to enjoy fresh, clean water.