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  • General

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  • 配水

    What do you have to do to get water?
    ::你要做什么才能得到水?

    In the developed world, we just open a tap. Clean  water  is available all the time. In many developing regions, women have to walk long distances to get clean water. Sometimes there isn't a  source  of clean water, and they just get what they can find. We take water for granted in the developed world.
    ::在发达世界,我们只是开水龙头。清洁水是随时可用的。在许多发展中地区,妇女必须长途跋涉才能获得清洁水。有时没有清洁水源,她们只能得到他们能找到的。我们在发达世界中将水视为理所当然。

    Water Problems: Not Enough Water
    ::水问题:水不足

    Most Americans have plenty of fresh, clean water. But many people around the world do not. In  fact , water scarcity is the world’s most serious resource problem. How can that be? Water is almost everywhere. But much of it is unusable. What is usable is not always where it is needed.
    ::大部分美国人拥有充足的清洁淡水。 但全世界许多人却得不到。 事实上,缺水是世界最严重的资源问题。 这怎么可能? 水几乎无处不在。 但大部分水是无法使用的。 哪里有用并不总能用得上。

    Where Is All The Water?
    ::所有的水都到哪里去了?

    One problem is that only a tiny fraction of Earth’s water is fresh, liquid water that people can use. More than 97 percent of Earth’s water is salt water in the oceans. Just 3% is  freshwater . Most of the freshwater is frozen in ice sheets, icebergs, and   ( Figure   ).
    ::其中一个问题是,地球水中只有一小部分是新鲜的、人们可以使用的液体水。 超过97%的地球水是海水中的盐水。 只有3 % 是淡水。 大部分淡水都冻结在冰盖、冰山和(图 ) 。

    A glacier in Alaska with a ship nearby, illustrating freshwater storage.
     
    This glacier in Alaska stores a lot of frozen freshwater.

    Rainfall and Water Supply
    ::降雨和供水

    Rainfall varies around the globe. About 40% of the land gets very little  rain . About the same percentage of the world’s people don’t have enough water. Drier climates generally have less water for people to use. In some places, people may have less water available to them for an entire  year  than many Americans use in a single day! How much water is there where you live?
    ::降雨量在全球各地不尽相同。 大约40 % 的国土降雨量很少。 大约世界有大约同样比例的人口缺水。 德雷尔气候通常较少供人们用水。 在有些地方,人们一年的可用水量可能比许多美国人一天的用水少。 你住的地方有多少水?

    Wealth and the Water Supply
    ::财富与供水

    Richer nations can drill deep wells, build large dams, or supply people with water in other ways. In these countries, just about everyone has access to clean running water in their homes, and water is cheap and easy to get. It’s no surprise that people in these countries use the most water. In poorer nations, there is little money to develop water supplies. Therefore, people get their water where they can.
    ::富国可以钻深井,建造大坝,或者以其他方式为人们供水。 在这些国家,几乎每个人都可以在家中获得清洁的自来水,水是廉价的,容易获得。 这些国家的人用水最多并不奇怪。 在较贫穷的国家,发展供水的资金很少。 因此,人们可以在他们可以的地方获得水。

    Water Shortages
    ::缺水

    Water shortages are common in much of the world. People are most likely to run short of water during droughts. A  drought  is a period of unusually low rainfall. Human actions have increased how often droughts occur. One way people can help to bring on a drought is by cutting down trees. Trees add a lot of  water vapor  to the air. With fewer trees, the air is drier and droughts are more common.
    ::世界上大部分地区都普遍存在缺水现象,人们在干旱期间最可能缺水,干旱是降雨量异常低的时期,人类行动增加了干旱发生频率,人们可以帮助干旱发生的方式之一是砍伐树木,树木给空气增加大量水蒸气,树木减少,空气干燥,干旱更常见。

    The world’s human  population  has nearly quadrupled over the past century.  As the number of people rises, our need for water will grow.  Water is such a vital resource that serious water shortages may cause other problems.
    ::过去一个世纪以来,世界人口几乎翻了两番。 随着人口数量的增加,我们对水的需求将增加。 水是如此重要的资源,严重的缺水可能引发其他问题。

    • Crops and livestock may die, so people will have less food available.
      ::作物和牲畜可能死亡,因此人们获得的食物将减少。
    • Other  , such as industry, may have to stop. This reduces the jobs people can get and the products they can buy.
      ::工业等其他行业可能不得不停止。 这减少了人们可以得到的工作和他们可以购买的产品。
    • People and nations may fight over water resources.
      ::人民和国家可能争夺水资源。
    • In extreme cases, people may die from lack of water.
      ::在极端情况下,人们可能因缺水而死亡。

    Figure    shows the global water situation in the 2030s with water  stress  and water scarcity on the  .
    ::图显示了2030年代全球水状况,水压力和缺水情况。

    Global map showing predicted water stress and scarcity in the 2030s.
     
    Blues indicate no predicted water stress; pinks and lavenders predict water stress, and salmon to brown indicates water scarcity (variations of those colors indicate the amount of irrigation that will be done to produce crops).

    Science Friday: Forecasting the Meltdown: The Aerial Snow Observatory
    ::科学星期五:预测熔化:空中雪天文台

    75% of Southern California's water supply comes from the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada  Mountain  Range. This video by  Science  Friday explains how NASA uses specialized instrumentation in the Airborne  Snow  Observatory to carefully measure the water content.
    ::南加利福尼亚州75%的供水来自内华达山脉山脉的雪堆。这段由科学周五拍摄的视频解释了美国航天局如何在空降雪观测站使用专门仪器来仔细测量水含量。

     

     

     

    Summary
    ::摘要

    • Fresh water is not evenly distributed across the planet.
      ::淡水在地球上分布不均匀。
    • Many of the world's people live without access to enough clean water. That percentage is likely to increase as populations grow.
      ::世界上许多人生活得不到足够的清洁水,这一比例可能随着人口的增长而增加。
    • During a drought, life may become very hard for many people.
      ::在干旱期间,许多人的生活可能变得非常艰难。

    Review
    ::回顾

    1. How is Earth's water distributed?
      ::地球的水是如何分配的?
    1. How do wealthier nations deal with water problems? How do poorer nations deal with water problems?
      ::富国如何处理水问题,穷国如何处理水问题?
    1. What is a drought? What can happen during a drought?
      ::什么是干旱?在干旱期间会发生什么?

    Explore More
    ::探索更多

    Use the resource below to answer the questions that follow.
    ::利用以下资源回答以下问题。

     

     

    1. What is water scarcity?
      ::什么是缺水?
    1. Why do people take water for granted?
      ::为什么人们把水视为理所当然?
    1. How much freshwater is there on Earth?
      ::地球上有多少淡水?
    1. How many people do not have access to clean water?
      ::有多少人无法获得清洁饮水?
    1. What will occur by 2025?
      ::到2025年会发生什么?
    1. What is physical water scarcity? Where does this occur?
      ::什么是实际缺水?这种情况在哪里发生?
    1. What is economic water scarcity? Where does this occur?
      ::什么是经济缺水?这种情况在哪里发生?
    1. What are two things you can do to reduce your water consumption?
      ::你可以做两件事来减少水的消耗?