Essential Idea
Fresh water, which is essential to life and industry, is limited and must be used sustainably to ensure its availability in the future.
Assessment Statements
3.6.1 Describe the Earth’s water budget.
3.6.2 Describe and evaluate the sustainability of freshwater resource usage with reference to a case study.
Key Vocabulary
Water budget
Fresh water
Surface water
Ground water
Hydrological cycle
Notes
These notes, prepared by Nigel Gardner from ScienceBitz, outlines the global water balance, a variety of water uses and a case study examining the connection between water resource exploitation and our environment.
Learning Activities
Supplemental Readings
This article, published by National Geographic, outlines the demise of the Aral Sea. Once the world's fourth largest inland sea, excessive irrigation led to it being almost completely depleted.
Case Study: San Joaquin Valley
This article, published by National Geographic, outlines the issue of subsidence (sinking) that is occurring near Los Angeles as a result of excessive groundwater withdrawal to support agriculture in an arid region.
Video Tutorials
This video tutorial outlines concepts related to the key
vocabulary.
This video examines the distribution of water resources on our planet and the manner in which they're used by humans.
Supplemental Videos
This video outlines the Earth's water budget.
This video outlines the issues that we face and need to
resolve as the human population continues to grow while
water resources become increasingly more polluted.
This video reviews the Earth's water budget but then
continues to examine the issues of global water
distribution.