4.2 Water access, use and securityIB Environmental Systems and Societies HL: Flashcards
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What is water security?
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- What is water security?
- Having access to sufficient amounts of safe drinking water.
- Name four social, cultural, economic or political factors that affect access to freshwater.
- Examples: income and cost of water, gender roles, religious or cultural values, government policy and conflict.
- Name four ways of increasing water supply.
- Dams and reservoirs, rainwater catchment, desalination plants and enhancing natural wetlands.
- Give one disadvantage of a large reservoir.
- Examples: evaporation losses, flooding of habitats, displacement of people, trapped sediment.
- What is water scarcity?
- The limited availability of water to human societies.
- Give two domestic water conservation techniques.
- Examples: low-flow showerheads, fixing leaks, reusing greywater, rainwater collection.
- Give two industrial water conservation strategies in food production.
- Examples: drip irrigation, scheduling irrigation by soil moisture, recycling water.
- (HL) Why is freshwater use a planetary boundary?
- Rising demand risks abrupt, irreversible change to the hydrological system.
- (HL) What is a water footprint?
- The total volume of freshwater used to produce goods and services, used to measure sustainable use.
- (HL) Give one role for citizen science in water management.
- Volunteers record data such as river flow or water quality, giving cheap, large datasets.
- (HL) What is the water stress threshold?
- Clean accessible water supply below 1,700 m³ per person per year.
- (HL) How does water stress differ from water scarcity?
- It also takes into account quality, environmental flows and accessibility.
- (HL) How can transboundary disputes cause water stress?
- Upstream use of a shared river reduces the amount or changes the timing of flow to downstream users.
- (HL) What is a consequence of inequitable access to water and sanitation?
- Poor health and slower sustainable development.
Written by the Exaim team, led by Shaun Daswani (Head of Upper Secondary, Improve ME Institute; MSc Financial Mathematics, Imperial College London; BSc, UCL) and Jason Daswani (operational lead, Improve ME Institute; LSE).