Water resources usage

In March 1988, an article in the Uzbek party and government paper, Pravda Vostoka, by the president of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences and the director of the Central Asian Irrigation Research Institute stated that the ecological and socioeconomic difficulties of the Aral region could not be solved without diversion of water from Siberian rivers Pravda Vostoka, 3 March 1988 3). In October 1988, a national water management expert stated that water resources in the Aral Sea basin would be exhausted no later than 2005, in spite of comprehensive and successful efforts to improve water usage efficiency and that since 15 years would be required to complete the Siberian water transfer project, work on it needed to be started soon Pravda Vostoka, 10 October 1988 3). 

In many areas where chlor-alkali plants are found, water is in short supply. Even the modest water usage of the BDS system can strain the limited resources available to the plant. 

After a peak at 2010, the amount of Pu stored is supposed to start decreasing due to the expected increase in MOX fuel fabrication and its usage in Light Water Reactors (LWRs). Obviously, the utilization of MOX fuel by LWRs would gradually reach a balance in which the fissile Pu in the LWR fuel is ca. 5% of the total fuels. Consequently, the utilization of U resources would not be drastically improved. The ultimate utilization will be attained in the Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) fuel cycle, in which a conversion of fertile 238U to 239Pu overwhelms the consumption of the 239Pu. 

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. 

Over 98% of water sources on earth are undrinkable due to salt content. Only a fraction of the good-quality water is actually used due to the naturally uneven distribution of the water. The problem of water shortage is not only a problem of proper techniques it is also a social and educational problem depending in many cases on national and international efforts as well as on technical solutions. We need better techniques to provide good-quality water at a low cost, and we must educate people to make better usage of this cheap, yet very costly, resource. 

Resources Material intensity Energy intensity Water usage Land use... 

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