Background of water scarcity and water quality problem.

Water is important element in human life. Someone can not survive without water, so that
water is the one that can support in our life. The water availability in this world is overflow, but
just a little that can be used to drink. From the total amount of water in this world, only three
percent that available to drink, and the other is salty water. Beside that, the problems are
decreasing of clean water supply. The increasing of population in this world, make the need of
drinking water are going larger. So the availability of clean water is getting less than before.
Today, the using of water in this world is rising two times but the availability is
decreasing. As a consequence, water scarcity will be happen in more than forty percent of the
world inhabitant. Water scarcity has negative effect in all of sector, belong to health. Without the
hygienic drinking water, make 3800 children died everyday because of decease.
Beside of increasing population, the environment damaging is one the cause of
decreasing clean water source. Abration can contaminate water source in underground. Just
throwing away the garbage in the river, can make the water in the river are getting dirty and
healthy to use it. In Indonesia, almost sixty percent the rivers have been polluted any kind of
waste. Fell down the trees in the forest can decrease the absorption of the land to the water and
make the decreasing of clean water supply.

Definition :
• Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known
forms of life.
• Clean water is water that can be used in our daily routines.
• Drinking water is water that has been preceded so can be drunk.
• Surface water is all water that found in the surface.
• Ground water is all water that found in the lower side of the ground (underground).
• Water scarcity is an imbalance of supply and demand under prevailing institutional
arrangements and/or prices.
• Water quality is the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of water in
relationship to a set of standards.

CAUSES OF WATER SCARCITY

Some causes of water scarcity are natural, others are human agency :
1. Growth of population
 The world’s population is growing rapidly-In 2020, it is estimated to be 7,9 billion, 50 % larger
than in 1990. That condition makes the water demand also increase. Moreover, growth of population
causes bad sanitation problem which also influential to the water quality. For example, there are some
houses in Jakarta which the distance between well and septic tank is less than 10 meters. It may cause
the water pollutant which can endanger the society.
2. Damage in environtment
- Deforestation
Deforestation is the main cause of drought and water scarcity. The forest which be a catchment
area has been damaged by human behaviour (wild cutting). The damage rating in all water source is
faster. That condition threats the function and potency of the water source area as the supplier of clean
water.
- Global Warming
Global warming has been influenced the increase of earth temperature, land where the water
places will volatile faster to defense hidrology circle. ---------------------

3. Food Production
The growth in the demand for food is probably the single most important cause of pressure on
water resources: over the last generation, most of the increment in food supply has been obtained by a
expension in irrigated farming and the growing use of crops dependent on agronomic package based
on irrigation. Looking ahead 20-30 years, in many regions, most of the required increase in food
production is expected to come from irrigated agriculture.
4. Contamination of existing water
Pollution of normal water supplies effectively destroy part of the water resources, and force its
users to turn elsewhere or reduce their consumption. This may happen to surface supplies or
groundwater, and the pollution may be from industrial effluent, agrochemical run-off from fields, the
casual dispoasal of human excrete or the release of insufficiently treated sewage from municipal
works.
5. Human behaviour
Most of people are still consider that water is social thing. They don’t realize that water is
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6. Modifications to landsapes and land use
The degradation and land use conversion of watersheds and catchments may reduce the amount
of usable water available downstream, if there is greater run-off which can’t be captured. These same
 processes can reduce existing water storage capacity. Major land use changes may also induce
microclimatic changes, leading to lower humadity.

EFFECTS OF WATER SCARCITY

1. Droughts
Water is the main element for live creature to being alive. If it occur droughts, humans, animals,
plants will no alive. Research tell that humans will dead if they don’t drink along 3 days.
2. Famines
Water is required in huge quantity for irrigation systems. If there is no water for irrigation, there
wiil be no food production. The world will lack of food and famine will happen in all the regions.
3. Economy problem
The government in United States has commanded investation in supplying water by private
companies (water privatation) for solving water scarcity. This solution is properly done in Indonesia
because the water public company (PAM) doesn’t able to pay their debt. Hopefully, the society will
thrifty and thankful because they have bought water expensively. Otherwise, water privatation makes
the access to water is limited and expensive because all the costs will be arranged by the private
companies. In that case, poor people are become harder to get clean water.
4. Healthy problem

1) Locate and Eliminate Sources of Contamination

Finding the source of contamination is another approach to solving a water quality problem.
While often difficult to locate or correct, some contamination problems can be corrected by
eliminating the source. Lead contamination of water from corrosion of metal plumbing and
solder is one water quality problem that can be eliminated by replacing pipes, fittings, and
fixtures that contain lead. Contamination from leaking fuel tanks, salt storage, or a failing
sewage system may also be reduced or eliminated by locating and removing the source of
contamination.

3) Treat the Water

Water treatment to remove contaminants is a well-recognized approach to solving a water

quality problem. Water treatment is most often used to disinfect water supplies to eliminate a
bacteria problem and to correct nuisances, such as water that is hard or contains iron and/or
hydrogen sulfide.
 All water treatment equipment requires maintenance to ensure proper operation.
Unfortunately, no single water treatment system can correct all water quality problems. Each
treatment approach has its advantages and limitations. The objective is to select a treatment
system that provides the advantages you want with limitations you can live with.

1. Surface water capture and storage

Although supplies can be obtained without major structures, e.g. by run-of-the-river

schemes, this option normally involves erecting some structure to dam or divert a river, and store
water in a natural lake or artificial reservoir. Such schemes can be multi-purpose, with
supplementary benefits from power generation, flood control, navigation control, and recreation.
However, most of the cheapest, simplest and most accessible projects of this kind have already
been undertaken. Subsequent projects tend to have a sharply escalating incremental cost. There
are also mounting environmental objections to this kind of project in many countries. The ideal,
held by many engineers, of reducing river discharge into the sea to zero, is abhorrent to
environmentalists. However, these arguments have to be balanced against the value of storing
water from one year to another as insurance against drought.

If a water supply is extensively contaminated by nitrate, salt, fuel, pesticides, or other

organic chemicals, abandoning the supply and developing a new one may be the only practical
option. Drilling a new well, developing a surface water supply, or purchasing water from an
existing water system are all options. Careful evaluation by geologists, engineers, and other
professionals is usually necessary to insure that a new supply will be protected.

Because the average person drinks less than 1/2 gallon of the more than 50 gallons of
water each person uses in a day, it may be possible to supply a different drinking water source
while the community is considering its options. Water that is undesirable for drinking may be
acceptable for washing clothes, bathing, and flushing toilets. Bottled water may be a feasible
option for supplying a separate drinking water source for a short period.

4. Watershed management

The management of watershed and catchment slopes can regulate the flow of water in the
interests of downstream users. There are many documented cases of municipal and irrigation
water schemes running out of water because of deforestation and erosion in their catchment
areas. Apart from water regulation, watershed management also has potential farming, forestry
and environmental benefits (FAO, 1987). It should, however, be borne in mind that afforestation
of watersheds is likely to reduce the net yield of water available to downstream users, though it
would even out the flows.

7. Desalination

Affluent communities in arid and semi-arid regions lacking other alternatives are
increasingly treating saltwater and brackish water for household use. Various technologies are
available, and their commercial viability depends partly on their capital cost, and, crucially, on
their source and cost of energy. Energy that comes as a by-product of power stations, waste heat
from smelters, exhaust steam from nuclear power stations, burning refuse, etc. is of particular
value for this purpose. Desalination is so far largely used in Middle Eastern oil producing
countries, in isolated communities, and where demand is mainly from households and the
tourism industry.

9. Pollution control

Reducing the pollution of water sources can serve several purposes: avoiding the loss of
current sources, saving the cost of developing alternative supplies, and opening up previous
sources once they have been cleaned and decontaminated. The link between contamination and
supply is most direct in islands dependent on their freshwater "lens", which is easily
contaminated by wastewater percolation and saline intrusion. However, there are many other
circumstances where reduced pollution is a solution to supply, as well as conferring benefits to
amenity, public health and the environment.

10. Water sharing agreements

Many countries depend on international rivers for their water supply. In most cases, the
share of the water between the interested parties is subject to agreements. These treaties may
have the force of international law, or they be less formal deals enforced by general diplomatic,
political or economic means. It may be open to a country to seek to increase its agreed share of
international water. The cost of an increased share might arise in financial, economic, diplomatic
(or, at the extreme, military) terms, and the country may judge that it is still worthwhile to pursue
this route rather than develop other sources of supply. Where the waters in question are already
fully utilised, there is an element of "beggar your neighbour" in this approach, though it may be
economically justified if one country uses the water more productively than the others. Where
the waters are not fully used by the other parties, one country's larger share may not be at the
others' immediate expense.

11. Demand management measures

Demand management starts from a recognition of water as an economic (viz. scarce)

resource, and aims to optimise the use of existing supplies. In countries with a large irrigated
farm sector, making more efficient use of irrigation water is of central importance. However,
because other sectors compete for the use of the same resource, efficiency gains in industry and
the household sectors can bring mutual benefits. Demand management includes market-oriented
reforms in the way it is supplied, used and disposed of. Action is called for at three levels: the
creation of enabling conditions; setting incentives and promoting markets; and direct
interventions and spending programmes (Winpenny, 1992).
12. Enabling conditions, institutional and structural reforms

In this context, the Enabling Environment comprises institutional and legal changes, the
reform and privatisation of utilities, and sector-wide economic policies. Legal reforms may be
necessary to remove ambiguities over the ownership of water, and the conditions under which it
can be transferred. Planning for the development of water resources:
- usually dominated by the projection of fixed "requirements" and the inevitable rise of "gaps"
- needs to adapt to demand management, and allow for the operation of markets and - even- the
entry of private operators.
Policies towards agriculture will be critical, in view of the heavy water consumption of
this sector. Decisions to open up new irrigated areas, and to allocate existing water for irrigation
projects, need to take a realistic view of future water resources and the growing demands on
them from other sectors, otherwise the resulting schemes will be uneconomic and unsustainable.
The understandable pursuit of national food security has to be judged in this light.