why is there scarcity of water in rural and urban ares?

Answer 1

It typically isn't a scarcity of water issue, it is a scarcity of water infrastructure problem. The first thing is we waste too much water. In cities, the population growth can be faster than the infrastructure can expand. You compound the problem if some of the water infrastructure is old, not properly maintained or upgraded. Many rural areas use more water as it is farmland and need irrigation. But a big rural problem is you have fewer people to share the costs of the infrastructure. The costs might be even higher if the rural areas are further from water sources. A lot of cities are initially located by some sort of water source.

Answer 2

When a town is founded there are key reasons for it. The first reason, the oldest reason is because there is potable water. As the town grows and flourishes over many years people try to live close to where money can be made. As the town grows into a city the outlaying area is developed, but it is not near the water source. This is the reason for water shortage in urban areas.

Rural towns grow up along trade routes. The main reason for their being there is to give weary travelers rest. A lot of towns are about one days horse ride from each other. This places them where the money is but not where the water is, and that is why water is more scarce in rural areas.

Answer 3

The reason is "tragedy in the commons." Water is cheap so that the poorest people can have enough to survive. But water is sold to richer people, and to more profligiate water-users, at the same (or lower) price per gallon.

If the price goes up, the poor will die (unless they get charity water from somewhere). But if the price remains low enough that the poor can afford it, the richer users will buy it up and use it in pursuit of profits.

Each of those big buyers knows that there's only so much water in the aquifier and that overuse is straining the limits, but each buyer, faced with each of their choices of buy or not-to-buy, discovers more personal profit in buying (and using) water, and so they do. And so the water table falls a little bit further.

In some rural areas, people don't use "city water" or water from a river or an aquifier. They catch rainfall with the roofs of their houses and shunt the water into rain barrels or an underground cistern. Those are the people who learn to live responsibly within a water budget. They learn all kinds of ways to reduce their water use:

1. Taking pit baths from a bucket of water instead of filling a whole bathtub

2. Using bath water from that bucket to flush the john after the third piss

3. Taking a crap in an outhouse toilet (uses no water except what's in the bucket that you wash hands in afterward).

4. Doing the laundry after a rain has filled a barrel left under a downspout on the roof of a woodshed.

Most people could, if they had to, get by with 10% of the water they use. But the "tragedy in the commons" leaves people disinclined to use water efficiently.

Answer 4

Do you mean, why would there be a scarcity?
It depends upon what areas you are thinking about.

In rural areas, the water supply is individual.... and wells sometimes do run dry.

In urban areas, it would be that the reservoirs are not full.

Answer 5

This is a very local question. Some places have plenty of access to fresh water and some places don't. Which is why I think broad efforts to badger people to conserve water are stupid.

But when people move for job opportunities, they generally don't survey maps to analyze the fresh water situation. And so you have situations where a town or city could grow rapidly despite the fact they don't have much water.

Answer 6

I live in Canada I have never seen any scarcity of water anywhere lol :)

Answer 7

Because the Poland Springs delivery truck got stuck in traffic.

Answer 8

i have no idea...dropping water table and increased consumtion is my guess. We don't have that problem here, I'm less than 2 miles from a huge body of water called Lake Erie.