David Liu: Water Shortage

Essay07/06/25
David Liu
Problem/Solution

Fresh water shortage has become one of the most serious problems in the
world nowadays. Some people have even predicted that it could be the trigger of the next world war. If people are living in a country with sufficient fresh water like Canada, they may not realize it. However, if people have a dwelling in the countries such as Australia, China and the most of the countries in the African continent which lack fresh water, they must have the same opinion. It was reported that in Australia, millions of animals including the state treasure kangaroos died last year due to drought. And in China, over two hundred million people now depend on contaminated river water which contains a lot of harmful materials like heavy metal, agricultural chemicals and even human fasces. By drinking such water, several thousands people die each year, and another several million people get sick. And in Africa, the condition is even worse. Drought has already become the nick name of the continent. Therefore, always keeping enough fresh water with us is an urgent task. Here are the three most commonly proposed solutions to this worldwide problem: reduce, reuse and recycle.

The first solution, reduce fresh water usage is something that almost all the countries have been carrying out for several decades. For instance, in Japan, many households have got used to putting a piece of brick in their toilet’s water tanks. By doing such a small thing, they can save 10% of fresh water every time when they finish answering the nature’s call. Meanwhile, main toiletry makers like TOTO Inc. has developed a multifunctional water-saving tank for both public and private: if it is a pee, people turn the lever down which means only half of the water will passes through; if it is a pile of dog dirt, people turn the lever up which means the whole tank water will flush. Besides, there is a faucet right on the water tank and the water automatically flows out after turn the lever down or up, so people can wash their hands with it. The water then directly drops into the tank and stops automatically when the tank is full. Half a year ago, a Japanese bio-tech research center even invented a waterless toilet—using sawdust instead of water to decompose the human being’s solid waste. In Australia, most people have learnt to take a short shower by limiting the size of hot water tanks which are built in bathrooms. In China, Beijing local government has replaced flush toilets with waterless ones in most public washrooms for gentlemen. In Canada, we are also doing the same things to save fresh water. We might already have noticed that in newly-built swimming pools, when take a shower before entering the pool and after swimming, we can only find buttons and rain showerheads but no traditional taps in shower rooms. When we push the button, the water can only keep running for three minutes and then, it stops automatically. However, there are still many people in some countries who do not pay attention to saving fresh water. In China, for example, when go to swimming pool, many people only turn on the faucets but never turn off them even though they finish their showers. Regarding this mater, I strongly recommend that Chinese authorities learn from Canada to change the whole shower facilities in every swimming pool.

Another solution to this problem is to reuse water. We can use the same water several times without affecting our daily life or health. Most Chinese people are doing their best on this matter. For example, in some cities suffering from water shortage like Shanghai, a large number of house wives never throw away the water which was used once only for washing their clothing; instead, they put it into a big bucket for the next usage--mopping the floor. And this is not the last stage. After that, they take the ‘second hand’ water to water their flowers or clean their toilets. These house wives usually save two hundred US dollars worth of water each year!

The best solution, then, is to recycle water. There are two meanings of water ‘recycling’. One is not to dispose of used water directly into rivers or into the sea to prevent polluting the water resources. The other is, to collect and treat it in a special pond, and then use the treated water again and again. For instance, in the capital city of China—Beijing, a city with fifteen million population which is extremely short of fresh water, people can find three kinds of water pipes installed in almost all the modern apartments: filtrate, fresh water and ‘middle water’ (a created word standing for recycled water under treatment of low level of hygiene.) You may wonder what the purpose of the ‘middle water’ is. The answer is simple: for flushing the toilets. By doing this, now Beijingers are proud of saving several million tons of fresh water every year!

It is clear that although the earth has another name ‘the water planet’, most of it is unsuitable for human beings. With the population over six billions, we
can no longer waste a drop of fresh water now. Everybody has the responsibility to reduce, reuse and recycle it. If we ignore this problem, a worldwide water-scrambling war will happen in the near future. Believe it or not.