Water shortage (why and solutions) Water is the most essential element to human life. Without water, life is impossible for most creatures and plants. Today, nearly one billion people in the developing counties do not have access to clean water. Water is becoming scarce. In this essay I intend to explore the cause of water shortage and possible solutions. Water scarcity is caused by a number of reasons such as increasing demands of new industries, an expanding population, water pollution and excessive utilization from individuals. With the growing population and urbanization, the additional demand of water has increased significantly especially in urban areas, which creates the need to make more water available however we know that there is only limited amount of fresh water on earth. As a consequence, we are facing with huge challenges for supplying safe, clean water to tremendous population. Further more, with the booming economy in developing countries, many factories and power plants require huge amounts of water for processing and cooling. Some chemical factories produce the contaminated water with noxious substances and they discharge them into the lake or river without further treatment, which leads to severe water pollution. In addition, affluent life and new technology enables people to live lavishly. Excessive using of wishing machine, dishwasher, long shower, frequently flushing toilets etc…all have increased the demand for scarce water supplies. By looking for the viable solutions, I believe it is the responsibility of both individuals and government. There are various ways to conserve the water from our daily life. For instance: Stopping the dripping faucet, using water-conserving toilet, recycling the water as much as possible. As to the government, establishing the strict regulatory law which controls the water contamination is needed. Also implementing a system of fines would be effective mean serving as deterrence, an example of deforestation. After all, I trust the goal of water conservation can be achieved by having the great effort from all of us.