How Water Effects Population, Marine Life, and all of Africa
Did you know 2/10 people have no safe drinking water. That is almost 1 billion people. Americans can get clean water by simply turning on a faucet, but it isn’t that simple for nations or even whole continents such as Africa. Africa has a high risk for being exposed to dirty drinking water. Africa also has very serious water shortages. Since not all Africans have clean and adequate water, part of the African population may suffer from water-related diseases such as diarrhea, malaria, malnutrition, and lead poisoning. Water shortages are greatest arid in regions such as southern Africa. To make matters worst, populations are rapidly growing in this region.
Water shortages in Africa are not only affecting people dramatically, but it is also affecting plant and marine life. Because of serious droughts in Africa, crops are dying. This means some of Africa’s main exports such as coffee beans will not sell because of lack of water. This will prevent many people in Africa to earn a living. Also, commercial fishing in Africa in the past 50 years has wiped out about 90% of marine life. Marine biologist, Ransom Myers says, “We’ve lost a tremendous amount of fish in the ocean.” Also, animals in Africa will die because they won’t be able to find water.
Water is vital to survival, but we can only use 2% of it. That’s not a lot of water to split between 7 billion people. We must act now so everybody can have an adequate amount of water. Africa, a country with little water, must come up with different water solutions. To reduce water use, Africans must come up with new ways to irrigate crops. Sterling says, “To tackle the problem of water shortages, the focus should be on conservation- how to live with less of it.” No human, especially kids should have to pray for such an important, natural resource while other countries don’t think about how lucky they are to have so much water.