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Water - Facts we should know!

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kbsyed61 - 3 February, 2011

"The world is not "running out water", but it is not always available when and where people need it."

"Every minute during the next 20 years, 30 Indians will leave rural India for urban areas. India will need some 500 new cities. If there were ever a time to focus on the smart growth of our urban areas, that time is now"

These are some words of wisdom that I found in an interesting publication brought out by World Business Council for Sustainable Development titled " Water - Facts and Trends"

This publication brings out some very interesting basic facts about Water. Before I write about these fascinating and interesting facts, I would like to point here that, many political pundits and commentators are saying that next wars if fought, will be on claiming rights to water resources. Such is the importance of WATER in the contemporary era.

According to this publication "Water -Facts and Trends",

Global Scene

  1. Less than 3% of world water is fresh. Rest is seawater and undrinkable.
  2. Of this 3%, over 2.5% is frozen, locked up in Antarctica, Arctic, glaciers and not available to man.
  3. Humanity relies on this, 0.5% for all of man's and ecosystem's freshwater needs

Sources of Freshwater

  1. 10,000,000 cubic kilometer (km3) is stored in underground aquifiers (50% for Drinking, 40% for Industry, 20% for agriculture)
  2. 119, 000 km3 from Rainfall
  3. 91,000 km3 in natural lakes
  4. 5,000 in man made storage areas - Reservoirs, Dams
  5. 2,120 Km3 in Rivers - Constantly replace from rainfall and melting snow and ice.

Water Usage

Courtesy - World Business Council for Sustainable Development

 

COMMENTS

Data for Bangalore

manjari - 3 February, 2011 - 05:33

It would be very interseting to see the values for Bangalore and compare them with the data you have put up for Global scenario....

ie Sources of Freshwater

  1. ? (km3) is stored in underground aquifiers (? % for Drinking, ?% for Industry, ?% for agriculture)
  2. ?km3 from Rainfall
  3. ?km3 in natural lakes
  4. ? in man made storage areas - Reservoirs, Dams
  5. ?Km3 in Rivers - Constantly replace from rainfall and melting snow and ice.

Lets see if I can find this data somewhere...... if someone has it please put it up.

Rest is seawater and

n - 3 February, 2011 - 16:03

Rest is seawater and undrinkable.

Huh? How about desalination? That too in our very own Chennai (company info here)?

Bengaluru receives 0.61 km3 of water annually from Rainfall!

kbsyed61 - 5 February, 2011 - 14:57

Bengaluru Facts:

Total Area of Bengaluru City = 600 Sq. Km (266 Sq miles) from 2004 Data

Annual Rainfall = 90 Cms (35 Inches)

Per US Geological Survey (http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/sc2.html)

For 1 inch of Rainfall over 1 Sq Mile = 2,323,340 Cubic Feets

35 Inch Rainfall over 266 Sq. Miles would results in =21,630,294,000 cubic feets of water

Converting that into Cubic Kilometers fo water,

With 1 Cubic Kilometer = 35,314,666,721.49 cubic Feets,

= 21,630,294,000 / 35,314,666,721.49 = 0.61 Cubic Kilometers

Bengaluru City Annually receives 0.63 Cubic Kilometers of water from Rainfall.

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