Version 1
: Received: 27 January 2024 / Approved: 28 January 2024 / Online: 29 January 2024 (09:55:33 CET)
Version 2
: Received: 7 March 2024 / Approved: 7 March 2024 / Online: 7 March 2024 (11:10:49 CET)
How to cite:
Jiang, A.; McBean, E.; Wang, Y. A Sustainable Environment Requires Sustainable Water – A Review of Some Water Issues to Learn From. Preprints2024, 2024011982. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.1982.v2
Jiang, A.; McBean, E.; Wang, Y. A Sustainable Environment Requires Sustainable Water – A Review of Some Water Issues to Learn From. Preprints 2024, 2024011982. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.1982.v2
Jiang, A.; McBean, E.; Wang, Y. A Sustainable Environment Requires Sustainable Water – A Review of Some Water Issues to Learn From. Preprints2024, 2024011982. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.1982.v2
APA Style
Jiang, A., McBean, E., & Wang, Y. (2024). A Sustainable Environment Requires Sustainable Water – A Review of Some Water Issues to Learn From. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.1982.v2
Chicago/Turabian Style
Jiang, A., Edward McBean and Yi Wang. 2024 "A Sustainable Environment Requires Sustainable Water – A Review of Some Water Issues to Learn From" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202401.1982.v2
Abstract
Water sustainability has become one of the most severe issues in the 21st Century due to dramatic urban population growth and climate change. This paper reviews some of the critical key water issues that need to be considered/incorporated in the quest for water sustainability for the upcoming decades. The purpose is to recognize the critical circumstances for maintaining water sustainability and recognize that many regions in the world have passed the ‘tipping point’ of balancing their water sustainability and failing to realize that restoring sustainability will be extremely difficult. From the water quantity perspective, several examples are used to demonstrate situations which, in hindsight, have been initially shown to be effective but highly problematic in the long term. The review considers, amongst others, the 1960s India example shows that an agricultural ‘success’ starting in the 1960s has subsequently become an environmental disaster. Additional issues, including the impacts of dietary adjustments, upstream diversions raising downstream shortfalls, and transfers of water from agriculture to urban areas, are examples that demonstrate that to achieve water sustainability, lessons must be learned from the past, and adaptive measures must be adopted to help humanity avoid adverse and irreversible environmental tragedies. Government authorities can learn from this critical review of some approaches and realize their responsibility to proactively promote better water resource management strategies (domestic and international collaborations) and strictly regulate water use practices to better manage water sustainability.
Keywords
Sustainability; Water Quantity; Water Quality; Climate Change; City subsidence; Groundwater; Population Growth
Subject
Engineering, Civil Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
