"Water Crisis" for Human Population?

There are a multitude of present and coming threats to the human population’s water resources. The term ‘water crisis’ is used in the blog post ‘ “Business as Usual” Deepens World Water Crisis’ in a way that could be misconstrued. Analysis should be done to this phrase to determine the author’s meaning and how it could be taken differently, thus changing the meaning of the article.

A crisis can be interpreted in two different ways. It is defined in a general sense as either ‘a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events is determined’, or ‘a condition of instability or danger leading to a decisive change’. These are clearly very different ways to interpret the author’s meaning of ‘water crisis’, as one as clearly negative, and one can turn out better worse, ie is not always negative.

In this blog post, the view that is taken is that for the human population, a drop in fresh water resources and an increase in demand will result, or is presently resulting in disastrous consequences especially for populations living in poverty. The second definition is most likely the one meant by the author. A water crisis is a period of instability involving freshwater resources that leads to a lowered availability of clean, fresh water for domestic, agricultural, and industrial use.

The term could be misconstrued by someone reading the article with another view on what a ‘water crisis’ is. If crisis was interpreted to mean merely turning point, at which the trend of future events will be decided, it is uncertain as to whether or not disastrous consequences or instability will result. The negative aspect of crisis is implied by the author, but it may be ambiguous to some readers.

Another way to look at the positive or negative effects of the term ‘water crisis’ is to analyze to whom the effects will occur. The author takes a very human-biased view of the matter, and so states that it is indeed a negative occurrence. However, many of the things stated as worrying factors in the article, such as lack of freshwater for industrial and agricultural uses are purely worrying for humans, and not for other species of ecosystems (though human use clearly affects availability for other species’ as well)

In conclusion, the term ‘water crisis’ can be misconstrued or interpreted ambiguously in a few ways, but the author is relatively clear on what she means by it. If it is in relevance to humans (as in the author’s view), than surely a lack of fresh water ability is indeed a dangerous condition.