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Team:Imperial/Water Report
From 2014.igem.org
The Water Report
At a glance
- Growing population, development and urbanisation make water shortages increasingly severe
- Beyond public health implications, water shortages cause conflict and social issues throughout the world
- Decentralisation of water treatment systems is necessary to increase resilience and adapt to changing demand
- Wastewater recycling is increasingly essential but has technical and social hurdles to overcome
- Innovative solutions for cost effective, decentralised water recycling are desperately needed
Introduction
All life depends on water. Our Earth, home to all species, remains the only place we know capable of sustaining life. In our search for others amongst the stars, it is water we look for first. More than 71% of the planet is covered in this resource, but only a small proportion is suitable for human use. 97.5% percent of the world’s water is salt water and of the 2.5% freshwater, nearly 70% is locked in glaciers and the ice caps. The majority of what remains is inaccessible; either as soil moisture, permafrost or deep beneath the ground. All considered, less than 0.03% of global water is viable for human use (US Geological Survey 2014). With the world’s population is rising at a rate of 80 million people a year, water demands are increasing proportionally (Worldometers no date). In order to sustain over seven billion people, we require more than 200 million litres of clean water per second (Waterwise no date). 67% of this is for agriculture, 22% for domestic, and 11% for industrial use. Our overstretched resources are very unevenly distributed. Areas with high natural resources are rarely near the urban centres of high demand and this is becoming more severe. For example the top countries for fresh water supplies, Brazil, Russia and Canada, with 30% of the world supply between them, are not areas of highest population growth, India, China and Nigeria take the top spots there (Cohen & Siu 2013).
Water Stress - An Increasing Problem
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Social and Economic Effects
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Sustainable Water Managemen>
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Decentralising the Water Supply
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Wastewater Recycling
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Conclusions
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