When thinking about water risk around the world, you immediately think about Africa, Asia, South America, and other developing regions of the world, not the United States. Surprisingly, many different regions in the United States have water supplies views as high risk. For the map of the week, I have chosen the Overall Water Risk map. The overall water risk map identifies areas with higher exposure to water-related risks and is an aggregated measure of all selected indicators from the physical quantity, physical quality, and regulatory and repetitional risk categories.This map is an interactive one found on the Water Resources Institute\u2019s website, wri.org. The interactive version allows viewers to break down specific water risks such as the physical quality or access to water. The interactive map also allows users to enter coordinates to have a much more detailed insight into the water risks in a specific area.<\/p>\n
As one might be able to predict, some of the highest risk areas include northern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. These regions are typically what comes to mind when discussing areas that have water struggles. However, areas in the United States, such as the southwest and midwest, are considered \u201chigh risk\u201d areas. This came as a surprise to me when I first discovered the map. However, after conducting further research, it makes sense given the formula that is used by the mapmakers. The areas in the southwest score poorly in physical quantity due to frequent and severe droughts that residents of the area experience. Furthermore, much of the midwestern United States has been labeled as \u201cextremely high risk\u201d for physical quality. This is due to examples such as Flint, Michigan that have suffered from contaminated, unhealthy water sources. Fortunately, the United States is in an area of \u201clow risk\u201d for regulatory and reputational risk.<\/p>\n
One aspect of this map that I found particularly interesting was that far northern countries such as Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway all have remarkably low water risks, much lower than a majority of the rest of the world. Part of the reason that these countries enjoy such low risks are due to the fact that they are well developed and wealthy countries that are able to have clean, well managed water systems. However, the United States is also a wealthy, well developed country with clean water but have somewhat large areas that are labeled as \u201chigh risk\u201d. This leads me to believe that part of the success must also be as a result of the northern climate that these countries are in; as mentioned earlier, part of the reason why the southwestern United States is deemed high risk is due to the extreme droughts that the residents are suffering through.<\/p>\n
The projection of the map, as is the case with an overwhelming majority of maps, reveals biases held by the mapmaker. Africa appears much larger than what is seen from most maps that one would encounter in the United States. The author may have done this because Africa is a nation that faces many water issues and the larger projection of it allows for better detail to be added, as well as make the regions affected appear very large. This can cause a viewer of the map to view the issue of water risk much more seriously based on the size of these affected areas in Africa.<\/p>\n
This map could be very useful to many world travelers as they can develop a solid idea of the water situation in potential areas of interest if they are unsure of the current conditions. I genuinely enjoyed finding and exploring this map. Prior to viewing I would not have thought that the United States could be an area of high risk water but this map has changed my thoughts and hopefully does the same for others as well.<\/p>\n
When thinking about water risk around the world, you immediately think about Africa, Asia, South America, and other developing regions of the world, not the United States. Surprisingly, many different regions in the United States have water supplies views as … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/files\/2017\/11\/Fig-5-Overall-water-risk-map-Source-Data-from-World-Resource-Institute-Mapping.png\")
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