ECONOMICS (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -“Water scarcity is the lack of sufficient available water resources to meet the demands of water usage within a region. It already affects every continent and around 2.8 billion people around the world at least one month out of every year. More than 1.2 billion people lack access to clean drinking water.””

Detailed explanation-2: -Water scarcity occurs where there are insufficient water resources to satisfy long-term average requirements. It refers to long-term water imbalances, combining low water availability with a level of water demand exceeding the supply capacity of the natural system.

Detailed explanation-3: -Water scarcity happens when communities can’t fulfill their water needs, either because supplies are insufficient or infrastructure is inadequate. Today, billions of people face some form of water stress.

Detailed explanation-4: -A classic example of this is the Aral Sea, which was once the world’s fourth largest body of inland water but has shrunk to a fraction of its former size because of the diversion of its inflowing rivers for agricultural irrigation.