A Watery World Revision Cards

Region -                                       Water Used Daily  

USA -                                           600 Litres

Europe -                                      300 Litres

UN Recommended Amount -    50 Litres     

Sub - Saharan Africa -                25 Litres

Water is more accessible in the UK and the USA, so it is more widely used with less compromise. 

On the other hand, in Africa (and LIC) it is imminent that they do not use as much water as the HICs. This is due to many reasons but the largest is the fact that they are still a developing country. Furthermore, the climate and distribution of water is a factor because the climate limits the content of water and the distribution of water makes it harder to locate and collect. 

Region  -     Domestic%        Industry%      Agriculture%

Africa    -           8                         7                         85

Europe -          13                       54                        33

USA      -          14                       45                        41

In Africa, it is obvious that most water goes towards agriculture, this implies that they use their water to make better their economy.

On the other hand, the HICs (UK & USA) use their water mainly for Industry, however a significant proportion still goes towards agriculture. 

It is obvious that the least amount of money is aimed towards domestic usage. 

                              DOMESTIC

HICs

Personal Hygiene

Gardening (Irrigation)

Washing Machine, Dishwasher etc.

LICs

Washing up done manually and some water for personal hygiene. 

Sometimes that same water is used for personal hygiene and washing up. 

     AGRICULTURAL

HICs

Large scale irrigation with sprinklers (inefficient), could use drip irrigation

Uses 75 litres of water used per second 

LICs

Manual irrigation (more efficient) but could still use drip irrigation

Uses 2 litres of water per second

                        INDUSTRIAL

HICs

Large Companies

For example, Coca Cola uses 1 million litres of water a day

LICs

Industries in LICs are often built on a very small scale with businesses being run from homes of self built huts.

There are very few industries. 

Strong and growing economy - wealth of individual increases and more money for luxuries such as dish washers. These use 3000 litres of water per year, increasing the domestic usage of water. 

Personal Hygiene - in the 1950s it was common to have a bath weekly, as many houses did not have a fitted bathroom and often all members of the family would use the water. Now people can bath or shower several times a week. Bathing and showering can be uncommon in rural parts of LICs. 

Boom in the number of holidays due to greater wealth - this leads to more pressure on water i.e. Golf is popular in Sweden and it has seen a 92% increase in the number of gold courses built, all of which need a lot of water to make the grass grow. Many have artificial lakes which needed to be constantly topped up. In Cyprus, the local water supply is cut off for several hours  during the day so that tourists can use swimming pools. This is because the governments see tourism as an important industry so justify it.