Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Source: Author's own collection
availability of key mineral resources and the
growing environmental costs that are associated
with their extraction.
in this section, average levels of individual water
use have been increasing during the Anthropocene.
The major increases in rates of water use are
associated with the need to produce more food
to feed the expanding global population, but
increases are also a product of new lifestyles, which
have seen water being used to hydrate verdant
suburban lawns and fill swimming pools (Pearce,
2007). But beyond these aggregate figures, there
is a geography to increasing patterns of water
consumption. In Australia, for example, the
average per capita water use rates stand at 350 litres
per day (that is 200 litres above the global average)
(Pearce, 2007: 22). In the US, the situation is
worse, with people consuming, on average, 400
litres of water, per capita, per day (Pearce, 2007).
At one level, it may seem that the rising levels
of global water use should not be a concern in
the same way that increasing levels of energy
and mineral resources are. Water is, after all, a
2.2.3 Water
The final resource I wish to consider in this section
is that of water. With the possible exception of air,
water is the most important resource for our
day-to-day survival. Water is used for drinking,
sanitation, irrigation and various industrial
processes. Although we only drink, on average,
about 4 to 5 litres of water on a daily basis, global
average levels of water consumption stand at about
150 litres per person per day (Pearce, 2007: 21).
The additional 145 litres of non-drinking water
we consume everyday are used to flush our toilets,
fill our baths and operate our washing machines
(among many other things). As with the energy
and mineral resources we have mentioned so far
