Overview
Needed in 3.5 hours. I am putting 13 hours but needed in 3.5 hours:
This assignment is based on a video from the Netflix series Explained. The video World's Water CrisisLinks to an external site. (18m42s) covers the human impact on water and its availability. Please watch this video and answer the questionnaire below. This is an individual assignment. Handwritten answers only, please (two letter grades will be deducted for typed answers).
- What percentage of the water on Earth is liquid fresh water?
- Why have floods become so common in major urbanized areas?
- Why is groundwater compared to a savings account? Is that how some major urbanized areas (such as Mexico City) are using it (why or why not?)?
- The amount of water we have on Earth has never changed. Why is it, then, that we say we are running out of water?
- Our typical household water usage (drinking, flushing, washing...) only accounts for 8% of our annual water consumption. What covers the remaining 92%?
- How many liters of water are required to make one cup of coffee? What about a cotton t-shirt? A quarter-pound hamburger?
- Why are burgers so cheap despite their massive water consumption?
- A solution offered in the video to reduce our water crisis is to send a price signal to its consumers.
- How would that be helpful?
- How could that become a social problem and what is a potential solution for that?
- Why is desalination not considered a solution to the problem at the moment?