Water is emerging as the major resource issue of the twenty-first century. Demand for clean water skyrockets as people move out of poverty. A huge increase in water consumption occurs with the modernization of the production of foods, the manufacture of goods, the creation of energy, and the development of services (like cleaning or even entertainment). Modernization also inevitably creates water pollution. With clean, fresh water becoming scarce in so many parts of the world, water disputes are proliferating. This is especially true where rivers cross international borders and upstream users use more than their perceived fair share or pollute water for downstream users. Controversy also surrounds the sale of clean water. When water becomes a commodity rather than a free good, as it was before modern times, water prices can increase so much that the poor lose access, which then affects health and sanitation.

Humans require an average of 5 to 13 gallons (20 to 50 liters) of clean water per day for basic domestic needs: drinking, cooking, and bathing/cleaning. Per capita domestic water consumption tends to increase as incomes rise; the average person in a wealthy country consumes as much as 20 times the amount of water, per capita, as the average person in a very poor country. However, domestic water consumption is only a fraction of a person’s actual water consumption. Virtual water is the volume of water required to produce, process, and deliver a good or service that a person consumes. To grow an apple and ship it from the orchard to the consumer, for instance, requires many liters of water. When we add an individual’s domestic water consumption to her virtual water consumption, we have that person’s total water footprint. The more one consumes, the larger one’s virtual water footprint. Table 1.1 shows the amounts of water used to produce some commonly consumed products. (As you look at Table 1.1 and read further, note that there are 1000 liters, or 263 gallons, in a cubic meter (m³).)

^*Virtual water is the volume of water used to produce a product.

^†To see the virtual water content of additional products, go to www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/productgallery. [Source consulted: Arjen Y. Hoekstra and Ashok K. Chapagain, Globalization of Water—Sharing the Planet’s Freshwater Resources (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008), p. 15, Table 2.2]

Like domestic consumption, personal water footprints vary widely according to physical geography, standards of living, and rates of consumption (Figure 1.16). Moreover, the amount of virtual water used to produce 1 ton of a specific product varies widely from country to country because of climate conditions as well as agricultural and industrial technology and efficiency. For example, to produce 1 ton of corn in the United States requires 489 m³ of virtual water, on average, whereas in India the same amount of corn requires 1935 m³ of virtual water; in Mexico, 1744 m³; and in the Netherlands, just 408 m³. In the case of corn, water can be lost to evapotranspiration in the field, to the evaporation of standing irrigation water, and to evaporation as water flows to and from the field. An additional component of virtual water is that the water that becomes polluted in the production process is also lost to further use.

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There are several Web sites designed to help people calculate their individual water footprint. Try Water Footprint’s http://www.waterfootprint.org/?pag#61;=cal/waterfootprintcalculator_indv or National Geographic’s at http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/change-the-course/water-footprint-calculator/.

Though many people consider water a human right that should not cost anything to access, water has become the third most valuable commodity after oil and electricity. Water in wells and running in streams and rivers is increasingly being privatized. This means that its ownership is being transferred from governments—which can be held accountable for protecting the rights of all citizens to access water—to individuals, corporations, and other private entities that manage the water primarily for profit. Governments often privatize water under the rationale that private enterprise will make needed investments that will boost the efficiency of water distribution systems and the overall quality of the water supply. Regardless of whether or not these potential gains are actually realized, privatization usually brings higher water costs to consumers. This can become quite controversial. For example, in 1999 in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, water costs rose beyond what the urban poor could afford following the sale of the city public water agency to a group of multinational corporations led by Bechtel of San Francisco, California. The result was a nationwide series of riots that led finally to the abandonment of privatization.

About one-sixth of the world’s population does not have access to clean drinking water, and dirty water kills more than 6 million people each year. In an average year, more people die this way than in all of the world’s armed conflicts. In the poorer parts of cities in the developing world, many people draw water with a pail from a communal spigot, sometimes from shallow wells, or simply from holes dug in the ground (Figure 1.17). Usually this water should be boiled before use, even for bathing. These water quality and access problems help explain why so many people are chronically ill and why 24,000 children under the age of 5 die every day from waterborne diseases.

In Europe and the United States, demand for higher water quality has resulted in a $100 billion bottled water industry. However, there are few standards of quality for bottled water; and in addition to generating mountains of plastic bottle waste, the bottled water industry often acquires its water from sources (springs, ponds, deep wells) that are publicly owned. Consumers thus pay for the same high-quality water they could consume for free as a public commodity. 245. CLEAN WATER PROJECT IMPROVES LIVES IN SENEGAL

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Urban development patterns dramatically affect the management of water. In most urban slum areas in poor countries, and even in places like the United States and Canada, crucial water management technologies such as sewage treatment systems can be entirely absent. Germ-laden human waste from toilets and kitchens may be deposited in urban gutters that drain into creeks, rivers, and bays. And yet, retrofitting wastewater collection and treatment systems in cities already housing several million inhabitants, is often deemed prohibitively costly, especially in poor countries.

Independent of sewage, water inevitably becomes polluted in cities as parking lots and rooftops replace areas that were once covered with natural vegetation. Rainwater quickly runs off these hard surfaces, collects in low places, and becomes stagnant instead of being absorbed into the ground. In urban slums, flooding can spread polluted water over wide areas, carrying it into homes and into local fresh water sources, as well as to places where children play (see Figure 1.17). Diseases such as malaria and cholera, carried in this water, can spread rapidly as a result. Fortunately, new technologies and urban planning methods are being developed that can help cities avoid these problems, but they are not yet in widespread use.