Environmental Science Report: Water Crisis in Los Angeles, Solutions

This research project examines the impending water crisis in Los Angeles, highlighting its significance amidst global environmental concerns. The report delves into the social, economic, and environmental issues contributing to water scarcity, emphasizing the need for immediate and effective solutions. It explores the potential of taxation, public awareness campaigns, and rainwater harvesting systems as strategies to mitigate the crisis. The study provides an overview of the crisis's effects on various sectors, including potential impacts on GDP, food security, and public health. The report advocates for a combined approach involving rainwater harvesting and public awareness initiatives, supported by government subsidies and strict monitoring of water usage. It emphasizes the importance of individual contributions and proactive measures to conserve water resources and ensure a sustainable future for Los Angeles and its residents.

Reserch Project – First Draft
Name:
Date: 11-13-2017
Class:
Section: 10
Water Crisis in Los Angeles
Introduction:
Amid major environmental issues that the recent world is facing, water crisis owns
significant importance. The crisis might seem looming throughout the world but the crisis is felt
severely in United States especially at the heart of Los Angeles. The city is expected to
encounter an imminent crisis of water, which happens to be most important element of survival
making it a necessity of life. The severe implication of water crisis refers to lack of clean water
availability and its supply affecting its consumption. In order to tackle the situation before it gets
on the nerve of the human civilization, it requires appropriate and effective solution. In order to
stop the process of crisis and let it become reversible it is required to act and respond now.
Imposition of taxes and application of penalization can be a solution (Stauffer, 2013). . Another
solution can be making the people aware and assisting them in storing rainwater. It would require
mass education about water crisis provided to them with probable solutions tackled and
maintained by human. The last solution is related to encouraging people for installing rainwater-
harvesting system. For the situation in Los Angeles the policy mix that better targets the solution
of the imminent crisis is the combination of both rainwater harvesting as well as building mass

awareness. Before the situations reverse coming up with appropriate solution is mandatory and
this further involves consideration of various environmental, economic and social issues and
their solution.
Overview (Economic, Social, Environment Issues):
Social:
The risk of water shortage globally is much worse than the anticipations made by
scientists. The research study in the journal Science Advance shows that all over the world
approximately 4 billion people are living without access to fresh water at least one month within
a year (Clarke, 2013)The major sufferer of the worse crisis is expected to be the economies
mostly specific to Middle East, Africa and Central Asia by almost 2050 (Clarke, 2013)The over
time growth in population and subsequent increased demand for cities and agricultural activities
would exacerbate the shortage even in the affluent areas. It is also expected by the economists
that water issue can even ignite the world war. Application of water management policies
throughout the world would lead to fall in GDP of Central and East Asia by 11% and 7%
respectively (Stauffer, 2013). The issue evokes the importance of tackling various social,
economic and environmental aspects globally. The losses in terms of economics can be captured
in failure of crops, inadequate food availability and supply and poor business or even fall in the
businesses. Another important effect of water shortage on society would be spurred migration
and rising conflicts globally mostly in Africa and Middle Easy (Gonzalez, 2013)
Environmental:
Alarming environmental issues are well captured in loss of biodiversity across regions of
the world, dehydration of the lakes, rivers and other water bodies and pollution of acquifers

(Clarke, 2013)The population of wetlands present in t he world have lessened over the years with
massive disappearance. The crucial impact of water shortage lies in the change of the climate
through lower precipitations. The problem of climatic change in terms of more warm fall and
winter with less amount of rain intensifies the issue. The greater the temperature, higher is the
evaporation and greater will be the probability of water shortage. The prevention in accessing
water further stops investment channelized to create new jobs. The increasing malnutrition and
diseases are the major social factors. Water is the core element of ensuring quality of life. With
the absence of sanitation, safety and reliability in water supply the world health is at major risk.
Within United States, this crisis is spreading its gloom around cities and states. As per citation
made by EPA, around 36 states are facing water crisis within different areas of US (Gonzalez,
2013). The New York Times published article makes the revelation how 20% of water treatment
system in America has been violating regulations of Safe Drinking Water Act for almost five
years (Stauffer, 2013). . This made the cities like Los Angeles face with future threats of water
shortage.
Depletion of groundwater supplies consolidates the shortage. There has been lack in the
infrastructure of cities to collect, store and re-use the rain-water (Gonzalez, 2013). In general the
rain waters gets drained into oceans which can be used for meeting the need of water. Water
delivery system also contributes to loss of water. With the increasing pressure of population, the
competition revolving around clean water availability and supply has grown strongly to meet the
human needs of daily life like cooking, drinking bathing and sustaining other necessities of life
(Gonzalez, 2013) The water shortage poses greater challenge to the growth and development of
any region as a whole. As per the report made by World Water Council in 2016, more than one
people out of six with a total population of 1.1 billion are prevented from accessing safe drinking

water (World Water Council, 2016). At the same time of such crisis, the demand for water in
increasing stemming from growth in population that further requires urbanization, agriculture
and industrialization.
Water Threats and Solutions:
The crisis of water has and will have deeper impact on the humans and its evolution over
time. It would be extremely difficult for the human civilization to function if fresh water is not
sufficiently available as it contributes a lot in business industry operations. The conversion of
dirty water into clean one through filtration required much more expenses that further falls on the
consumers as burden. Many people of different regions of the world don’t even have the facility
of transferring the water into clean and safe one. This induces them to consume unsafe water
posing further the health challenges in developing and poor countries mostly around the world.
Denial in access to clean water and availability of unsafe water brings forth various water-borne
diseases imposing alarming health issues on population (seametrics.com, 2016). This creates
vulnerability within population that further limiting the opportunities of their lives educationally
and economically. The severity of water crisis lies in the possibility of breaking out next world
war based on the rights of owning and capturing water resources. An economy cannot become
thriving one when availability of fresh water is limited and denied for the purpose of farming,
industrializations, business and trade which over time shapes up the growth of nation. These
necessitates the need of the solving the issue with taking up proper policies to solve.
Probable Solutions:
The important solution in terms of economics can be imposition of tax and penalties. A
progressive taxation on water should be implemented. This would allow people to pay more tax

with facing higher rate of tax than those who use less. There should be tire in the taxation
system. On consuming beyond an amount of water as specified by the authority, people shall be
penalised. Which household will pertain to how much water usage and receive supply of water
depends upon number of the members within family and average usage of water per member.
The implementation of incentives offered to household conserving water can also encourage
them to use the water judiciously and conserve more. The important rationale behind water
taxation system is to promote interests in water saving technologies and techniques by the
households and business investors in order to avoid the higher taxation in water (Gleckman,
2015). Since the water is becoming scarce, usage of it should not be free. In order to reduce the
demand for water or consumption of the same and reduce the level of water wastage, increasing
its price through taxing is important instrument. Such solution would have adverse impact on the
poor people and face much opposition from the urban people. It can go in favour of the wealthy
people who by means of facilities scan pertain to less water consumption and focus more on
water conservation.
The next solution deals with the installation of rain-water harvesting system among population.
Rainwater harvest in small scale is one of the sustainable and effective approaches in both rural
and urban areas of the developing countries (Cain, 2014). Many household can not afford and be
comfortable with in investments in the rainwater harvest. It requires government to come up with
provisions of loans at cheap rate in order to install the tools required for storing the rain water
and collecting it into reservoir tanks. Popular mode of rainwater harvesting is rooftop harvesting.
Rainwater can be stored through sloped rooftop using pipes and draining down the water into
tanks. Land surface catchment is another popular mode of storing water. The process is almost
same as rooftop harvesting the only difference being the tank lies below the ground in order to

the rain water flowing down easily. This process is cost efficient and applied by most of the
population. With the help of easy availability of loans at less cost, this turns out to be easy
solution for reducing water crisis and shortage to large extent.
The last solution deals with creating awareness among people regarding the water scarcity and
how individual contribution can add up to solve the problem largely. The awareness is key
source to drive them toward taking action through encouragement. For solution to seem on a
large note, individual contribution is mandatory. For this campaigns and advertisements can be
arranged by the government on social and public media like television, radio in order to
encourage people to conserve water. Another small step toward making water conservation a big
hit is by saving water leakage and wastage in individual household (Coombs, 2014)
. Tap leakage can result in huge wastage of water getting drained without use. Any person while
using water should not keep the tap opened for long and habit of closing it in between use should
be adopted. Moreover the speed or flow of water can be adjusted through changes made in tap.
Higher speed of water flow in tap can cause wastage of water unnecessarily.
Suggestion Solution
For the dreadful situation approaching in Los Angeles regarding water crisis, the best
policy to adopt would be mix of installation of rain-water harvest and enlightening people about
imminent crisis and probable ways to deal with it in order to bring major solutions. Recently
very few people is aware of the crisis approaching the city. People have a vague believe that in
times of crises; government would come up with solution and make provision of the water they
require. The recent drought in US is an eye-opening incident and it indicates the importance of
the government to take actions in order to make people realize about the crude reality the water

crisis is for the human civilization. The solution requires adequate support from the government
level.
The first step toward bringing changes is to make individual realize and act as well that change is
important. The awareness of the existing problem is the key channel to propagate for changes to
bring solution taking corrective measures. Willingness to change combined with education about
what is to be done would save the resources for mankind. It should be strictly monitored by
people if water leakage is taking place through taps, pipes and being wasted unnecessarily.
Government need to spread mass awareness among people and encourage rain water harvesting
system as popular mode of storing water.
The best way to encourage people is providing subsidy on rain-water system in order to make it
less priced so that demand for the system can rise (Coombs, 2014). This would lead to self-
sustenance movement. The system is a measure of prevention of rainwater from being wasted in
drains, rivers and so on. It acts in favour of storing them instead in huge reservoirs installed on
rooftop. This is best alternative source of water in moments of crises without paying anything for
it. Rooftop harvest reduces pressure on ground water system as well. Even if investment is
required initially, rainwater harvesting is cost-efficient for long run period (Clarke, 2013). The
maintenance cost becomes negligible over time and allows households achieve economies of
scale, the initial investments is pretty high and that can discourage people from adopting the
solution. This is where government should intervene and help with subsidy so that installations
in household scan become easy
Measuring Effectiveness

The effectiveness of the solution reflects into reduction in average consumption of water
provided by local government to the households. This would indicate greater dependence of
people on water stored through harvest system. The water bill per household should fall to a
large extent to turn the crisis down. This would consolidate the ground water level is not
depleted and maintained at proper level. With time increase in the water table would signal out
ease of the crisis with indication of lesser consumption made by households and businesses.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded that the city of Los Angeles is exposed to water crisis with subsequent future
threat. The threat also has huge impact on sustainability of other resources like local water,
energy, food and so on. The impact of human activity on nature and vice-versa follow a
simultaneity effect. Just as the nature influences lives of people, the activities of people marks
out the changes in nature too that further falls heavy on the entire human kind. This crisis in most
advanced city of world at this present modern world is dire indication of that. So it is the
responsibility of the people to be aware of the facts and act accordingly in order to save and
protect while surviving. Human are bound to consume resource to keep up living but they can
conserve it too with application of technology, idea and effort in order to stop depletion and start
replenishing the resources. The step towards sustainable action by human is mandatory if the
human kind does not want to fall prey of such devastation and calamities in coming future.

Reference:
Clarke, R. (2013). Water: the international crisis. Routledge.
Coombs, W. T. (2014). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding.
Sage Publications.
Gonzalez, G. A. (2013). The US Politics of Water Pollution Policy: Urban Growth, Ecological
Modernization, and the Vending of Technology. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 24(4),
105-121.
Stauffer, J. (2013). The water crisis: Constructing solutions to freshwater pollution. Routledge.