Freshwater resources

Manages availability of freshwater resources and helps communities prevent flood damage and beach erosion. 

Gleick PH (2003) Global Freshwater Resources Soft-Path Solutions for the 21st Century. Science 302 1524-1528... 

Freshwaters are an essential resource which must be available not only in the required quantity but also in a precise quality. Nevertheless, in the last years, this quality has been threatened as a consequence of the increasing industrial activity, population growth and agricultural practices. In fact, only less than 1% of the world s freshwater resources are readily available for human use, and even this resource is unevenly distributed among the countries. A lack of water to meet daily needs is a reality for many people around the world, and water scarcity already affects every continent. In the underdeveloped countries, water scarcity forces people to rely on unsafe sources of drinking water. In the developed countries, this problem is much less critical where contamination of drinking water is the adverse... 

Shiklomanov, I.A. 1993. World fresh water resources. In Gleick, P.H. (ed) Water in Crisis A Guide to the World s Freshwater Resources. Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 13-24. 

Gleick P (1998) Water and Human Health. The World s Water, The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources 1998-1999, Island Press, Washington, p 39-67... 

The volume of freshwater resources is 35 million km3, or 2.5% of total water volume. 

Of these freshwater resources about 24 million km3 or 68.9% are in the form of ice or persistent snow cover in mountains, the Antarctic, and the Arctic. 

GPM is an international co-operative constellation of precipitation-measuring satellites designed to measure the global 4-D variability of rainfall, latent heating, and the microphysics of variability. This information will be used to improve the prediction of climate change, weather, freshwater resources, and severe storms. 

The geographical distribution of freshwater resources is extremely non-uniform six countries (Brazil, Russia, Canada, Indonesia, China, Colombia) have about half of global resources. Non-uniformity is also typical of individual countries. For instance, although China has 7% of world freshwater resources (but a 21% share of world population), most of the country is arid. Naturally, countries that lack water are forced to use ground water, which leads to a lowering of the water table. 

The water supply in cities and realization of measures on water economy are further problems. Industrial usage of freshwater, which constitutes 22% of used (on a global scale) freshwater resources (59% of this in developed and 10% in developing countries) is the most urgent problem. 

Earth Summit, Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World. Agenda 21, Chapter 18, paragraphs 18.6 and 18.8, as endorsed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, June 1992. 

Hazardous pesticides associated with global cotton production represent a substantial threat to global freshwater resources. Hazardous cotton pesticides are now known to contaminate rivers in USA, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Australia, Greece and West Africa. In Brazil, the world s 4th largest consumer of agrochemicals, researchers tested rainwater for the presence of pesticides. 19 different chemicals were identified of which 12 were applied to cotton within the study area. 

Conduct an urgent assessment of the global impact of cotton pesticides on the global environment, and in particular the extent to which cotton pesticides contaminate global freshwater resources. 

Since the electrical resistance of the effiuent and parasitic currents are minimal at high level of impurities, specihc interest in electrically assisted membrane processes could increase due to more strict laws and legislation around effluents. The depletion of freshwater resources and the necessity to process brackish or seawater to produce potable water could promote the use of electrically assisted membrane processes in the future. Electrodialysis will have to compete with pressure-driven membrane processes such as reverse osmosis. The growing awareness of the unique cleaning ability of electrically ionized water (EIW) [47], a byproduct of electrodialysis, may be a factor to consider in the choice between ED and RO systems. NMR relaxation measurements were used to determine the water cluster size of electrically ionized water EIW. It is known that the water cluster size of EIW is signihcantly smaller than that of tap water. The smaller water cluster size is believed to enhance the penetration and extractive properties of EIW. Recently, EIW has been produced and used in several cleaning processes [47] in industry. 

The concentrations of trace metals in continental waters are controlled by atmospheric precipitation and the weathering processes on soils and bedrocks. Because these pathways and processes have been altered significantly by humankind, the flux and distribution of trace metals in a large fraction of all freshwater resources have increased. 

Drinking water is necessary for people, livestock, wildlife, crop irrigation, and for recreation. Although 70% of the Earth s surface is covered with water, most is salt water (salinity of 3.5%) and not fit to drink. Only 3% of the water on the Earth is freshwater (water that contains only minimal quantities of dissolved salts) and much of this water is in snow and ice (e.g., glaciers) as well as lakes, streams and groundwater. In some places in the world, freshwater is plentiful (e.g., the Great Lakes) however, in many places water is scarce. Wars have been fought over freshwater resources. 

Freshwater resources are precious and necessary for life. Work on cost-effective systems that can desalinate salt water for use as drinking water is ongoing and likely to be important to the future development of certain areas of the world. 

The world s freshwater resources are also not uniformly distributed over the land surface, even in the form of lakes and water courses. This occurs partly from the uneven distribution of glaciers and their meltwaters, and partly from the wide disparities in rainfall over the Earth s surface. Total rainfalls of above 11m are experienced in some years in the Mt. Waialeale area of Hawaii and at Cherrapunji, India, while less than 0.2 cm falls in the same period in Arica, Chile, or at Wadi Haifa in the Sudan [1]. This uneven... 

Increased interest in use of subsurface strata as waste-disposal sites, in problems involving seawater encroachment, and in extension of the concept of freshwater resources to water containing as much as lOg/kg total dissolved solids (TDS) (Kohout, 1981) has increased interest in the composition and distribution of deeper saline fluids in sedimentary strata. 

We must also remember that coal mining and transportation processes of the future may require increasing use of freshwater resources to mine and transport the coal. The effluents discharged and the receiving ecosystems—mainly riverine and lacustrine—will require careful study to ensure adequate food resource and public health protection. 

H. C. Peter H. Gleick, Meena Palaniappan, Mari Morikawa, Jason Morrison in The World s Water 2008-2009 The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources Vol. (Ed. I. Press), 2008. 

Living waters protection of important freshwater wetlands reduction of water overabstraction and pollution of watercourses, especially where induced by key crops appropriate use and management of river basins essential for people and wildlife and influence private sector practices and government policies to ensure freshwater resources for all. 

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