By Kira Yates ’16

The recent California drought, a culmination of three consecutive years of below normal rainfall, resulted in Governor Jerry Brown calling for Californian citizens to reduce their water use by 20 percent. Mandatory rationing of water had already been issued to ensure some water for homes, businesses and farmers in some places and could be even more widespread during the summer.  In the next decade, water rationing will become a reality around the country.

In an average American household, a five–minute shower uses more water than a person in a developing world slum uses total in one whole day. Even though it might be hard to imagine not having daily access to clean water, the United States is on course to run out of water sooner than many would expect and it is coming a lot sooner for the dry and isolated places of the country.

Water scarcity is a result of a massive population and overconsumption of Earth’s extremely limited supply of freshwater. There is only as much water on Earth today as there was when living things first existed on Earth.

Water covers 70 percent of Earth, but of all of the water on the planet, only three percent is freshwater that we can utilize for daily use.  Even more startling, less than one percent of Earth’s freshwater is available for direct human use.

Central Florida is on its way to running out of usable water in just five years. In 10 years, San Antonio could be without enough clean water for daily use. Similarly, San Francisco is on the path to run out of water in 15 years and Lake Mead, the primary source of water for the major entertainment city of Las Vegas could be completely dried up by 2021, forcing all of its inhabitants to move elsewhere.

A lack of clean water can lead to many unexpected and unforeseen tragic consequences. Without clean water, crop production will decrease because it could not be adequately watered and the prices of food will increase enormously, which has already happened in California. Livestock production will also fall as animals will not have access to clean, drinkable water. With fewer, unhealthier crops and livestock, the large, constantly growing American population will struggle with food availability. Hunger and starvation will become a huge problem on top of an already large–scale water scarcity issue.

Conservation of water is currently a big global issue and rightly so as it is predicted that a lack of water will affect two–thirds of the population by 2025. By 2050, up to seven billion people will be experiencing water scarcity.

While working together as a mass movement to save water will help with protecting water throughout the country, everyday conservations such as shorter showers and turning off the water when brushing teeth, among other things, will only do so much. To really make a difference, government regulation of water is desperately needed to preserve it for as long as possible. This legislation could limit the water use of farmers, golf courses and water parks in order to conserve water for the maximum amount of time possible.  If no actions are taken now, the future will be filled with unrelenting hunger and thirst.