Theme+3+Human+&+Environment+Interaction+SYHWDM

Human & Environment Interaction Water Stress

Water Stress is a problem caused by lack of water needs. This is often caused by contamination, or drought, which leads to dangerous health threats in the region. Water Stress in Africa cause competition to every tribes, which cause war (conflict) with each other. Water Stress is mainly caused in Sub-Sahara Africa because of the 980 dams in Sub-Sahara Africa, 589 are in South Africa. The distribution of water is not evenly spread out and this cause more water stress. Southern-Africa and Sub-Sahara Africa suffer most from the water problems.



For example, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Angola has trouble meeting UN's new "Millennium Development Goals", which ensures environmental sustainability, malaria, reduce child mortality, extreme poverty due to high level of polluted water. Some of the scientist say that regions that suffer from water stress have high percentage of spread of disease. According to the UN study, 80% of diseases and 30% of death are responsible for unsafe water. Especially in Sub-Sahara Africa, 90% of malaria are from water stress.

Forest

Only 30% of forests and wooded areas still exist in the Sub-Saharan Africa due to heavy depletion. This deforestation happened due to massive logging, and other human activities such as farming, developing. Usually, average African family uses 7 metric tons of wood each year. However, this use of wood is keep increasing, which cause wood shortages.



Global Warming is another source of wood shortage and deforestation because there aren't enough water to trees to survive. For example, Mau forest is well known as Kenya's largest water tower, which stores rain during the wet seasons and pumps it out during the dry month. However, droughts caused by Global Warming dries the rivers around the forest and Kenya's harvest, farms, electricity, wildlife parks are disappearing due to water shortage.

Bibliography 1. Tatlock, Christopher W. . "Water Stress in Sub-Sahara Africa." //Council on Foreign Relations//. N.p., 7 Aug. 2006. Web. 29 Oct. 2009.

2. "Water Stress of Africa's Water Basins." //WaterWiki.net//. N.p., 2 Apr. 2009. Web. 29 Oct. 2009.

3. "GEO-2000 Overview Table of Contents." //-- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - Home page --//. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2009.

4. " Call for action on African food security | OurWorld 2.0."//OurWorld 2.0//. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. .

5. " Africa fast losing forest cover: UN atlas - Instablogs ."//Nivedita - Instablogs//. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. .

6. Morgan, James. "BBC NEWS | Africa | Life dries up in Kenya's Mau forest." //BBC NEWS | News Front Page//. BBC, 29 Sept. 2009. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. 

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