eli5: If we have methods like desalination, why is the world suffering from a water shortage, when 70% of the Earth is water?

Question

Even though the water is saline, to the best of my understanding, you can convert saltwater into freshwater so why is there a water crisis?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Desalination is expensive and difficult. The biggest uses of water are not individual consumption, but mass or industrial use (i.e. agriculture, bottling, factory usage, etc.) That’s before factoring in things like transporting that water after you’ve desalinated it, not to mention the places facing water shortage are also usually facing a host of other problems that would make desalination an unfeasible solution in the first place.

If human beings operated rationally, then yes, desalination should be an easy way to resolve water shortages…but most likely, we wouldn’t be *having* water shortages in the first place if humans behaved rationally. But we don’t, we behave selfishly, and most of the water crisis only exists in the first place due to global warming (a result of unchecked greed, industrialization, etc.)

**tl;dr** The water crisis is only minimally about the *amount* of freshwater in the world. Mostly, it’s about the difficulties of transporting water, and profits/global classism and climate change.