Talk:Water security

Removed Solar energy based desalination

As I wrote previously in my edit note, I removed the section with the name written above. The reason was because it was a single sentence and very vague as it was. It could be redone in a much more effective way and exceed the original's length in a matter of minutes. It also had no references to back up what little information was present. It may have been a possible valid contribution, but not in its current state. If anyone wishes it to remain, feel free to undo or recreate it. Remeber, the subject matter was exactly as the title said: "Solar energy based desalination" Trentjohnson17 (talk) 00:41, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I think this has now been dealt with (removed). EMsmile (talk) 17:01, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Merge with water scarcity?

The article is currently written as if water security is the opposite of water scarcity. If that is the case, then the two articles should be merged. If it's not the case, then the article should be refocused and those parts that related to "water scarcity" should be moved to water scarcity. I currently see a lot of overlap and repetition. I recently reworked the article on "water scarcity" so it's hopefully in pretty good shape at the moment. EMsmile (talk) 03:04, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I no longer think that this article should be merged with water scarcity. I received some inputs from Mesfin Mekonnen an expert on this topic: "Some people use water security to mean water scarcity or the other way round, which makes it confusing. Water security is a broader concept than water scarcity. It includes both the too much (flood) and too low (drought, scarcity), pollution, access, adaptive capacity, … Please check the UN definition (https://www.unwater.org/publications/water-security-infographic/), USAID (https://www.swpwater.org/what-is-water-security/)." Based on that, I have done some trimming and re-arranging to try and streamline this article (i.e. removed content that was going into too much depth on water scarcity. I still see a lot of overlap with water conflict which should be weeded out. EMsmile (talk) 13:48, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

We should reduce overlap with water conflict

Thanks for your recent edits to this article, Chad.staddon. It's always great to see content experts get involved! I worry a bit though that some of the new content overlaps too much with water conflict and should rather be moved to there? (Unless we should think about merging the two articles together?). (I also sent you an e-mail about this, as part of our project to increase content expert involvement on articles related to SDG 6, 13 and 14) EMsmile (talk) 11:09, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and moved all the content about "water conflict" to the water conflict article. More work is needed to explain that water security is about more than just water scarcity. For example, the section on "fresh water" needs sorting out. EMsmile (talk) 19:24, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi EMsmile -- I have only just seen this and will look again as you suggest. Yours, Chad Chad.staddon (talk) 13:23, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Adding more images

I think we should add some more images to show the whole range of what water security entails. I have also created an image collage for the lead image. This could be further refined. Maybe choose a better photo for drought. Perhaps a second photo from the Global South? Currently it's two from Europe. If there are suitable schematics or maps available under an open access licence I would like to add those as well. EMsmile (talk) 16:38, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

I have updated the images by replacing a less immediately relevant image with one from Uganda (from my personal collection). Chad.staddon (talk) 14:22, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

I actually liked the wetland photo because it was referring to wastewater treatment which is part of water security. But OK. However, after your addition of an urban flooding photo we now had two of those. So I have replaced one of them with a photo indicating water pollution (could find a better one). We now have two from Africa which is not quite ideal. Perhaps we replace the Johannesburg one with one from Asia? EMsmile (talk) 22:12, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Global Water Monitor 2022 Summary Report

Water security features prominently in this report on global water-related issues.

Hi User:Daniel Mietchen, I've just removed this image from the lead section. I don't see the benefit of adding the front picture of that report so prominently. Rather take some content from it and cite it? EMsmile (talk) 11:27, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Worked on improving readability

This last week I've made some changes to this article to improve its readability score (and its logical flow). I am using Web-FX to check the scores: https://www.webfx.com/tools/read-able/ . After my improvements the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease Score for the lead is now currently 27.7 and for the main text it's 29.6. This is still not great, given that I am trying to get it to be above 40 (and ideally 55). So if anyone has ideas to improve the readability further please go ahead. Please note that the algorithm punishes long syllable words, like "security". Simply replacing security with a one syllable word (like "dog", just for argument's sake) improved the score to 32.1. But it's not feasible to replace security with a one-syllable word, of course. EMsmile (talk) 16:06, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

also pinging User:UrsusMinima. EMsmile (talk) 16:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

A couple of tips to do this:

• Never copy from scientific sources (even if their license is compatible). They're written for a completely different audience.
• Read sentences out loud
• Use sources that are written for a similar audience as Wikipedia, or one only slightly above (for instance, books for 3rd year undergraduates).

Femke (alt) (talk) 08:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@EMsmile: do you have access to "Sink or Swim"? I'd like to rewrite some of the sentences sourced to that paper, but I can't access it. If so, would you be willing to send it over email? Femke (alt) (talk) 08:24, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Housekeeping note: Yes, e-mail sent on 26 Feb 2023. EMsmile (talk) 14:42, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Climate change impact

Continuing from User talk:EMsmile

The lead stated: The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report looked at impact of climate change on water security and found in 2022: "Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security [...]." The report says the regions which are impacted the most so far include Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Small Island Developing States and the Arctic.

I've decided to cut this directly as the IPCC summary puts food insecurity and water security in one sentence, so it's unclear what parts of the summary refer to what. Instead I've used the FAQ in Chapter 4 to talk more about this. FAQs in the IPCC reports are probably our best source: easy to summarise (SPM is already summarised, making paraphrasing difficult), written for a more lay audience.

Need to bow out now, and have not integrated the text in the body (which requires some work and wanted to make sure you're happy first). Very happy with a stronger statement too, as long as it's specific about water security and paraphrased. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, that's good. Good idea about relying more on the FAQ sections than on the technical or policy maker summaries. I would like to keep something in the main text (under "global estimates") regarding how many people are affected, i.e. that statement of "millions of people". It's vague, I know, but so is the whole concept of water security to some extent (hard to measure in absolute terms).

The IPCC statements that I had picked out so far say millions of people in the one sentence but billions of people when referring to water scarcity and water stress....: "Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security, with the largest impacts observed in many locations and/or communities in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Small Islands and the Arctic". The same report predicted that "at approximately 2°C global warming level, between 0.9 and 3.9 billion people are projected to be at increased exposure to water stress, depending on regional patterns of climate change and the socio-economic scenarios considered." With regards to water scarcity (which is one parameter that contributes to water insecurity), the report states that "between 1.5 and 2.5 billion people live within areas exposed to water scarcity globally".

(I am offline next week, don't be surprised if I don't answer for a few days) EMsmile (talk) 16:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

References