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Global Water Resources

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Global Water Resources

A dry season is affecting farms and towns in the fictional country of Wattle Coast. Use the evidence on this worksheet to investigate where usable water comes from, how people use it and how it can be managed. Answer in your own words where asked.

Where is Earth’s water?

Most of Earth’s water is salty ocean water. Only a small share is freshwater, and much of that is locked in ice or stored underground. The figures below are rounded estimates to help compare the main stores.

Oceans and seas: about 97%

Freshwater: about 3%

Within that freshwater: most is in ice and glaciers

Within that freshwater: much of the rest is groundwater; only a tiny amount is in rivers and lakes

1.What is the main reason that the amount of water on Earth does not mean that people have an unlimited supply of usable freshwater?

2.Match each water store to its description.

Surface water
Groundwater
Soil moisture
Water vapour

Water held between particles of soil
Water in rivers, lakes and reservoirs
Water stored beneath the ground in pores and aquifers
Water in the atmosphere in gaseous form

3.A community pumps groundwater faster than rain can soak through the soil to replace it. Is that groundwater use sustainable? Explain your choice.

Follow the water in Wattle Coast

The river supplies a town, farms and a wetland before reaching the sea. After several dry years, the regional council records these annual water allocations, including water kept flowing to protect the wetland and river.

Farms: 60 million litres

Homes and town services: 25 million litres

Industry: 10 million litres

Wetland and river flow protected: 5 million litres

4.What percentage of the recorded water allocations is used by farms? Show or explain your calculation.

5.Choose the most accurate statement about farming’s water use in this example.

Farms use the largest share of recorded water allocations.
Farms use less water than homes and town services.
All water used by farms is lost forever.
The wetland receives more water than farms use.

6.The council wants to reduce pressure on the river without stopping food production. Suggest one practical change farms could make and explain how it could save water.

Water choices and consequences

Water moves through the water cycle, but clean, accessible freshwater can still be scarce. Decisions about dams, irrigation, pollution and water sharing affect people and ecosystems in different ways.

7.A factory releases untreated waste into a river upstream from a town. Identify one likely impact on people and one likely impact on the environment.

8.The Aral Sea shrank dramatically after rivers feeding it were diverted for large-scale irrigation. Which explanation best links the action to the outcome?

Less river water reached the sea, so its water level fell through evaporation.
More fishing removed water from the sea.
The rivers changed from freshwater into groundwater.
The sea grew because irrigation added water to it.

9.True or false: Because the water cycle continually moves water around Earth, every community can always access enough clean freshwater.

TrueFalse

10.Write a brief recommendation to Wattle Coast council: name one action to protect the river or wetland, and explain who or what would benefit. Use at least two of these terms: freshwater, groundwater, irrigation, sustainability, ecosystem.