The episode "The World's Water Crisis" is found in the Netflix Show, "Explained," and was created by the American news website and company Vox.
Unfortunately I cannot link the video in this blog post as it is only available to Netflix subscribers, but I highly recommend watching the 20-minute episode if possible. It does a great job of highlighting the global water crisis and increases awareness about these issues. Linked here is a Vox news article, which discusses the release of the episode.
Since I cannot link the video here, I will list some interesting facts below that are highlighted in the video.
It is believed that humans need to drink around 1 gallon of water a day.
A majority of water is used for agriculture and making products. Producing a cup coffee from start to finish uses 150 liters of water. Producing a cotton shirt uses 2500 liters of water. Producing one quarter pound hamburger uses roughly 1650 liters.
The cost of water is NOT embedded into the cost of products.
The Bank of Goldman Sachs predict that water will be the petroleum of the 21st century.
It is essential that we put a price on water and use it more efficiently. For example, we should not grow crops, such as alfalfa, in the desert just because it is convenient. We should also fix pipe leakages.
A potential solution to our water crisis is desalination, but it is currently very expensive and uses large amounts of energy. Products would have to become more expensive before desalination will be considered as a potential solution.
In 2018, Cape Town almost encountered "Day Zero," but the date of Day Zero was pushed back due to major action taken by citizens.
If you are interested in finding out more information about water withdrawal and water stress, check out the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' website.
Figure 1: African Farmers carrying jugs of water
Although I do not discuss Cape Town's Day Zero in depth here, I recommend you learn more about it as it is a good example as to how people react in a time of crisis. If interested, you can read an article written by Booysen et al. where they discuss how people in Cape Town responded to the idea of Day Zero and what caused the most immediate action.
This is a nice statement of the problem. I’d also recommend the documentary, “Inside Bill’s Brain,” which is about the work that the Gates Foundation has done in this area.