1. There is no relationship between the renewable water resource per capita in a country and the % of the population that has access to an improved water source.
2. There is a positive correlation between the per capita GDP of a country and the % of the population that has access to an improved water source that levels out such that almost all of the residents of countries with a per capita GDP that is twice that of the world average have access to and improved water source.
3. There is a stronger positive correlation between the per capita GDP of a country and the % of the population that has access to sanitation that levels out slightly later than the rate of access to an improved water source. The most recent numbers for access to sanitation are staggeringly low with 2.6 billion lacking access to regular sanitary services and 1.1 billion currently practicing "open defecation".
4. While there are countries throughout the globe that have 100% access to water, the regions of high water coverage are Anglo-America, Northern and Western Europe. The 30 or so countries with the worst water coverage are also spread throughout the globe but are concentrated largely in Africa with several in Central Asia.
We also looked at one additional plot of % access s to sanitation as a function to something called the corruption perceptions index and found that a score of 6 or more (out of 10 with the USA receiving a 7.5) virtually guarantees universal access to sanitation while sanitation availability in countries receiving a score lower than 6 cannot be correlated reliably with CPI.
Topic 2: …brief discussion on the role of population growth on water stress- particularly when many of the areas of high predicted growth are also areas of present and anticipated water shortage.
Topic 3: Water as a source of international conflict- We looked at why water has such a potential as a source of international conflicts and examined a few examples of past or potential international conflicts involving water around the globe.
Lake Chad (Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon) –draining of the lake due to diversion for irrigation in a very dry part of the world; excellent water-specific tragedy of the commons examples
Jordan River (Israel, Jordan, The West Bank) –excellent example of longitudinal (upstream-downstream) sharing issues
The Euphrates (Turkey, Syria) –another example of longitudinal sharing difficulties with possible biblical connotations
Brahmaputra River (China, India, Bangladesh)- tension over (possible) Chinese plans for diversion.
Okavango River Basin (Angola, Botswana, Namibia)-Proposed Nambian pipeline to divert water from the wet inland to dry coastal areas
Ganges (India, Bangladesh)- tension due to illegal emigration from Bangladesh into India due to seasonal flooding.
Six major international rivers (India and Pakistan)- more longitudinal sharing difficulties…
…and these are just a few of many examples…
Slides shown in lecture today are available as a .pdf on Sakai.
The my maps page has been updated with the locations mentioned in today's lecture.
Please read The Truth About Water Wars by Maywa Montenegro, a collection of brief comments from water resource researchers about the role of water in conflict and Challenges piling up for Poland Spring by Noel Gallagher (no, not that Noel Gallagher).
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