For quantitative depletion, the causes include accident due to deterioration of water quality, or increased turbidity due to flood in the short run, and eutrophication or ground-water contamination in the long run.
Furthermore, with regard to the water supply system, damages to the transport function and processing are anticipated due to earthquakes, blackouts, or collapse of ground. These scenarios are predicted even in the countries which have already invested in water management and infrastructures, while such conditions will occur inevitably and frequently occur in the developing countries which have to keep the constructing their supply system to deal with changing demand for water.
From the point of view of water resource management, we must take seriously draught water flow in the downstream Yellow River (albeit over time-frame) in recent years, and the catastrophe caused by the huge flooding of the River Yangzi, etc. in China.
Under such circumstances even in the short run, possible effects on industrial output and economic growth stemming from the shortage of industrial water are not negligible, although the nature of the problems is different from that in the long-lasting crises related to agricultural water. Also to be pointed out, as affecting people's life, is the serious influence on the quality, rather than quantity, of the daily-life water. Whereas the relationship between water-supply crisis and food-supply crisis is direct and clear partly because of the position of the region, the milder changes associated with the water crisis in industrialization and urbanization are, in fact, much greater in scale in view of the effect on global environment.
As industrialization has enriched the economy, which has in turn enhanced its capability of feeding a growing population, the increase in population has had great impact on water resource to support industry. Urbanization together with industrialization has, then, caused changes in the global environment that have augmented energy consumption, affecting conditions for locations of water resources. Thus the cycle of crises has become the problem we must resolve.
