Ways to improve water security

  Firstly, government needs to recognise basic principles that underpin good water management; Then, they must develop a stronger enabling environment of policies and laws to prevent water pollution happened. Government also has to build more appropriate institutional frameworks to improve water security. Besides, government needs to share, adopt and adapt management instruments and tools with other advanced countries like Japan, China and Canada.

  Secondly, government needs to ensure the availability of adequate and reliable water resources of acceptable quality in order to underpin water service provision for all social and economic activity in a manner that is environmentally sustainable. They also needs to mitigate water-related risks such as flood, drought and pollution. Furthermore, environmental experts have to address the conflicts that may arise from disputes over shared waters, especially in situations of growing stress, and turning them into win-win solutions.

  Thirdly, Ministry of Health needs to ensure equitable access to water services and resources through robust policies and legal frameworks at all levels. They have to build resilience in communities in the face of extreme water events through hard and soft measures. Meanwhile, they also need to manage water more sustainably as part of green economies by restoring ecosystem services in river basins to increase river health. They also responsible for increasing water productivity and conservation in all water using sectors by sharing economic, social and environmental benefits of  transboundary rivers, lakes and aquifers.

  Lastly, development of an appropriate stock of infrastructure (storage, flood control) also essential for water security. Government needs to develop a proper legislation and adequate institutions to improve water infrastructures. Moreover, integrated and comprehensive water planning also has to be conducted wisely. Water conservation can also be done  by developing a sustainable policies and legal frameworks and institutions for water management and dispute prevention and resolution. 

Causes of water insecurity

  

Water insecurity caused by a lot of factors. The major cause of water insecurity is climate change occur in the world. Climate patterns are changing in the tropics and high latitudes,and decrease in the sub-tropics and mid latitudes. Studies indicate that, in future, changing patterns of precipitation will increase the risk of flooding and drought. Increased variability of precipitation will impact on the timely supply of water resources, and complicate water security efforts. Global warming also decreases the storage capacity of these glaciers in Arctic, it will increase water supply in the short term, but significantly reduce supply and altering river flow regimes in the long term.

  Not only that, degradation of fossil groundwater supplies also a major factor contributes to water insecurity.  Mining of fossil groundwater resources is most significant in North Africa, Libya, Algeria and Saudi Arabia. In these arid and semi-arid areas, fossil groundwater supplies are the only reliable source of water. However, as there is typically very limited recharging, mining of these resources is almost always unsustainable.

  In addition to that, water insecurity also caused by water quality and environmental assets. Deterioration of surface or groundwater quality makes water more difficult to treat. Increased flooding results in land degradation and an increase in contaminants washed into watercourses.  Moreover, human actions are also a significant contributory factor in the deterioration of water quality. Eutrophication of water supplies is identified as a significant water quality issue globally. Waste-water, industrial effluent and nutrient rich water from agriculture cause a rapid increase in algae and microscopic organisms in watercourses leading to oxygen depletion which damages the ecosystem.

  Other than that, ageing and poorly functioning water infrastructure also issued as one of the cause of water insecurity. In urban areas water supply and sanitation networks are often insufficient and subject to failure (leakage). The ageing of costly irrigation infrastructure has been identified as a problem in many parts of the world, and has been the catalysts for water security planning. Poorly functioning public irrigation infrastructure has forced farmers to switch to self-developed groundwater supplies, which in many places are now over-abstracted and can become non-renewable.

  

Water security

  

Water security is the capacity of a population to ensure that they continue to have access to potable water. 

A water secure world means ending fragmented responsibility for water and integrating water resources management across all sectors – finance, planning, agriculture, energy, tourism, industry, education and health. Besides, water security also means addressing environmental protection and the negative effects of poor management, which will become more challenging as climatic variability increases. A water secure world reduces poverty, advances education, and increases living standards.

  

  According to United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs,water scarcity already affects every continent. Around 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world's population, live in areas of physical scarcity, and 500 million people are approaching this situation. Another 1.6 billion people, or almost one quarter of the world's population, face economic water shortage (where countries lack the necessary infrastructure to take water from rivers and aquifers). Around 700 million people in 43 countries suffer today from water scarcity. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of water-stressed countries of any region.

  A water secure world is very important for a better future in which there is enough water for social and economic development and for ecosystems. A water secure world will integrate a concern for the intrinsic value of water together with its full range of uses for human survival and well-being. Moreover, a water secure world harnesses water's productive power and minimizes its destructive force. It is a world where every person has enough safe, affordable water to lead a clean, healthy and productive life. It is a world where communities are protected from floods, droughts, landslides, erosion and water-borne diseases.

Ways to improve food security

  There is several ways to improve food security. Firstly, government should encourage the removal of subsidies and blending ratios of first generation bio-fuels to  promote higher generation of bio-fuels based on waste. Therefore,  cropland can avoid to be captured to produce bio-fuels and can be used for making food to meet consumer needs. This can be done by removing subsidies on agricultural commodities and inputs that are exacerbating the developing food crisis, and investing in shifting to sustainable food systems and food energy efficiency.

  Moreover, government has to reduce the risk of highly volatile prices, price regulation on commodities and larger cereal stocks. This can be done by reorganizing the food market infrastructure and institutions to regulate food prices and provide food safety nets aimed at alleviating the impacts of rising food prices and food shortage, including both direct and indirect transfers, such as a global fund to support micro-finance to boost small-scale farmer productivity. This not only can  buffer the tight markets of food commodities but also the subsequent risks of speculation in markets. 

  Other than that, government also has to raise awareness of the pressures of increasing population growth and consumption patterns on sustainable ecosystem functioning. This can help to develop solutions quickly  to overcome food insecurity problem. Meanwhile, government should also improve infrastructure and reduce trade barriers to achieve an increased trade and improved market access. This results in mitigating the consumer needs and the population of hungry people can be reduced.

  In addition to that, government must support farmers in developing diversified and resilient eco-agriculture systems that provide food supply and climate regulation. This includes managing extreme rainfall and using inter-cropping to minimize dependency on external inputs like artificial fertilizers, pesticides and blue irrigation water and the development, implementation and support of green technology also for small-scale farmers. Besides, government must promote climate- friendly agricultural production systems and land-use policies at a scale in order to help mitigate climate change.

  

Causes of food insecurity

 

First and foremost, poverty is the main cause of food insecurity.  Poor people cannot afford to buy enough food for nutritional diet. Their lack of social or economic access to adequate food  results in inadequate food utilization. Therefore, their bodies are prone to infection or disease due to weak immune system. Besides, an inadequate food utilization also reduces the ability of adults to work and to give birth to healthy children, and erode children's ability to learn and lead productive, healthy, and happy lives. This truncation of human development undermines a country's potential for economic development–for generations to come.

  In addition to that, harmful economic systems are also the principal cause of food insecurity. It is  believed that the principal underlying cause of poverty and hunger is the ordinary operation of the economic and political systems in the world. Military, political and economic power who live well by controlling over resources and income while those people at the bottom barely survive. Moreover, developed countries such as Japan and China have high technology in agriculture can produce excess food for their residents. In contrast, underdeveloped countries such as Africa and Asia have low income and cannot afford to buy high agricultural technology to improve the quantity of food produced. Therefore, a huge difference is created between physical condition of people in advanced economic country and traditional economic country.  

  Furthermore, climate change is increasingly viewed as a current and future cause of food insecurity. Increasing drought, flooding have brought a huge damage to the countries economic and threaten people lives. Government also shows their attitude of laziness to take the precaution steps and made the circumstance becomes worst. Meanwhile, earthquakes also destroy the paddy field which is the major source of food production. This delay the process of food production and lengthen the time for crop harvest. So, the amount of food produced becomes lesser and not enough for all the residents.   Unpredictable climatic patterns also force a shift in crops and farming practices to overcome this problem.

  Last but not least, gender inequality also causes food insecurity. United State government estimates that 60 percent of the world’s chronically hungry people are women and girls. This is due to women have lower lower agricultural knowledge compared to men. Besides, women have less access than men to agricultural assets, inputs and services. Analysts suggest that if women have the same access to productive resources as men, women could boost yield by 20-30 percent and raise the overall agricultural output in developing countries by two and a half to four percent. 

Food security

   Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food-secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. According to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, there is around 925 million hungry people in the world, 13.1 percent, or almost 1 in 7 people are hungry. In other words, there is a lot of people are in food insecurity.

Number of hungry people, 1969-2010

  There is largest amount of hungry people live in Asia and the Pacific countries, around 578 million which is 62.4% of the global hunger population. Second high hunger population, 25.8% comes from Sub-Saharan Africa countries which occupied  239 million hungry people. Other countries such as Latin America and the Caribbean(53 million), near East and North Africa(37 million) and developed countries(19 million).

Number of hungry people in the world 2010