Repartition de l'eau
These two pie charts are both dealing with water; each one seems to be focused on a different aspect of this issue, but we’re going to see that they are closely linked to each other.
1) The World’s Water
In a first time, let’s study the pie chart titled “The world’s water” that presents the repartition of water on Earth. As a general view, we can notice an important contrast between salt and fresh water. In fact water is a natural resource very present on our blue planet as it covers around 70% of it. Unfortunately, only a 2.5% is freshwater.
Then, the document proposes a zoom on those 2.5% that are divided.
The question is why does the document propose a zoom on freshwater and not on salt water as it is more present on the planet and also divided between, for example, seas and oceans? The title of the second pie chart “Global Water use” gives us a clue.
Actually, the authors of the document wanted us to focus on the minority of freshwater that can be used by humans.
2) Global Water use
The second pie chart shows that, in this day in age, water is used in the fields of agriculture, industry and also for domestic uses. So it seems to be a necessity in our society.
But, let’s focus back on the first one to consider the problem. We said that only a 2.5% of the water is available and, moreover, 68.9% of it is locked in glaciers… This way only a 31.1% of the 2.5% is accessible, which means only a 0.78% of the world’s water… and the totality is not consumable.
So, the activities presented in the second document all need this tiny quantity of water. Here is raised a problem: the competition for using of water, at different levels.
II) Dealing with this issue
Even if the competition for using water is not a new issue, it is getting more and more important. During the last century, and more precisely during the last 50 years, the world population has been multiplied by 2.5, and water consumption by 5... But