GCSE Geography: Water Security

In the resource management unit of GCSE Geography, students study the UK's food, water and energy in outline, then one resource in depth at a global scale. In AQA 8035, for example, the in-depth choice is food, water or energy. This material is for students whose chosen resource is water, and it covers the full sequence of ideas: where water is plentiful or scarce, why demand is rising, what happens when supply fails, and how supply can be increased or used more sustainably.

The first section builds the vocabulary: water security and insecurity, surplus and deficit, and the widely used thresholds of water stress (below 1700 cubic metres of renewable water per person per year) and water scarcity (below 1000). A calculation question lets you apply them. You then examine why consumption is rising, with growing populations, higher living standards, irrigated farming and industry, and the factors that affect availability: climate, geology and aquifers, pollution, over-abstraction, limited infrastructure and poverty.

The impacts of water insecurity follow: waterborne disease, lower food production and industrial output, and the potential for conflict where rivers and aquifers are shared. Next come the strategies used to increase supply, including dams and reservoirs, water transfer schemes and desalination, with their advantages and disadvantages, including the cost, displacement of people, ecological damage, energy use and brine that large schemes can bring.

The last section looks at a sustainable water future: conservation, groundwater management, recycling and grey water, and small-scale local schemes in lower-income countries such as rainwater harvesting, community-maintained hand pumps and sand dams.

The material offers a quiz with explanations, flashcards for the key terms, a printable written sheet of eight exam-style tasks (including a calculation, an explanation of availability, and evaluations of a large transfer scheme and a local scheme) and an oral exam in which an examiner asks you one question at a time and ends with short feedback. Add details from the transfer scheme and local scheme your class studied to your written answers.

• Define water security, surplus, deficit, water stress and water scarcity
• Calculate renewable water per person and classify the result
• Explain why water consumption is increasing and the factors affecting availability
• Explain the impacts of water insecurity, including the potential for conflict
• Evaluate dams, water transfer schemes and desalination
• Evaluate sustainable approaches and local schemes such as sand dams

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the DfE GCSE geography subject content (resource management) and board specifications such as AQA GCSE Geography 8035, section 3.2.3 (resource management: water).