Clean Water FAQs

Increasing demand on fresh water rivers, lakes and streams, compounded by changing global weather patterns, surging population growth and economic development around the globe, is leaving us in a world where many people are struggling to find enough fresh water to survive. 

Clean, safe drinking water is a resource that is becoming more precious than gold, according to various headlines from around the world.

A four-person CNN team recent report noted areas around the globe where that’s happening, like in Iran, where a vast network of dams sustains an agricultural sector that drinks up about 90% of the water the country uses. 

Charles Iceland told CNN:

“Both declining rainfall and increasing demand in these countries are causing many rivers, lakes, and wetlands to dry up.”

“The consequences of water becoming scarcer are dire: Areas could become uninhabitable; tensions over how to share and manage water resources like rivers and lakes could worsen; more political violence could erupt.”

The situation threatens wealthier countries, too. The New York Times reported larger future cuts in water consumption are likely for 40 million people in the West who rely on rivers. 

For the first time ever, last August, the U.S. federal government declared a water shortage at Nevada’s Lake Mead, a main reservoir for the Colorado River. Initially, that will mostly affect farmers in Arizona. In addition to seven U.S. states, two in Mexico draw water from the Colorado. Besides providing drinking water, it irrigates desert crops and generates hydroelectric power. Scientists say the only way to alleviate the problem is to reduce demand.

Jennifer Pitt, director of the Colorado River program at the National Audubon Society said:

“As this inexorable-seeming decline in the supply continues, the shortages that we’re beginning to see implemented are only going to increase. Once we’re on that train, it’s not clear where it stops.”

Here are other FAQs about the clean water crisis facing the world:

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