The Measurement of Water

I thought the best way to start this blog is by explaining where my interest in water comes from. In 2016, when I was in the middle of completing my IB degree, I decided to do something meaningful with the charity REACH. The organisation mainly focuses on reconciliation and peace building as a result of the detrimental genocide of 1994. Nevertheless, myself and other students raised over £2000, which was subsequently invested in various development projects. I decided to set up a freshwater tank for families located in the district Kirehe. This tank collects rainwater, which can subsequently be used by households for drinking, cooking, hygiene, livestock or even irrigation purposes. What fascinates me the most is the interconnectedness of water with other necessities like food. This relationship motivates my posts - I am eager to find out more about the link between those two important human needs. I hope you join me on my blog journey!

In this blog I will try to cover some key topics that will feed into future posts. Let me introduce an interesting fact about water. It has been measured that there are around 1400 million cubic km of water on our planet. While this may seem to be quite a lot, one has to note that only around 0.003% of this amount is freshwater (FAO, 2014). Such an amount is quite literally ‘a drop in the ocean’, considering that not all of it is accessible and has to be shared amongst the rapidly growing world population. 

While people like you and me will probably never lack safe and sufficient amounts of water, there are people that undergo a daily struggle to find freshwater. Water scarcity, defined as an imbalance between availability and demand of water, has long been a topic that concerns geographers (Taylor, 2009). Falkenmarket al. (1989) suggested one of the currently most accepted measurements of water scarcity – the Water Stress Index (WSI). This index is based on per capita requirement and the national availability of freshwater. A country is considered to have ‘water scarcity’ when the available renewable water is below 1,700m³per year and ‘water stress’ once that amount falls below 1000m³ per year (Damkjaer and Taylor, 2017) (Table 1).

Category	WSI threshold (m3/ capita/ year)
No stress	>1700
Water scarcity	1700-1000
Water stress	1000-500
Absolute water stress	<500

              Table 1 – Water Stress Index (Adapted from Damkjaer and Taylor, 2017)

Seems quite straight forward, right? – Well, when thinking about the critiques of this index, you might be surprised. The WSI actually fails to consider water availability differences within nations. Take the already mentioned example of Rwanda: precipitation may be completely different in the Rusizi district (West) than in Kirehe (East) (Figure 1). However, this variation would not be presented by the water stress index. Moreover, while the index could indicate ‘no stress’, it does not show if the water is easy to access and extract, or if financial means are sufficient enough to do so. Taylor (2004) also mentioned some interesting limitations of the index, including the lacking acknowledgement of changes in availability and demand of water over a period of time, as well as the potential inequality in the ways water is distributed among citizens. When studying water, or even when reading a blog like mine, it is important to keep these factors in mind. 

                                  Figure 1 - Adapted from Maps Rwanda

In this blog, I was able to talk to you about my personal motivation, explore water scarcity as a key concept, and consider limitations of the water stress index. In order to avoid making this blog too lengthy, I will upload another post soon. My next blog entry will offer a more narrow view of water, with particular focus on its interesting connection to agriculture.

Thank you for reading. I will be back with more for you to read very soon!