Good Learning Co.
SavannahYear 8
← Geography
GeographyGCSE resource management30 min★★★ difficulty

Global water supply and sustainable strategies

Water is the optional section most learners choose. This lesson covers global surplus and deficit, the impacts of insecurity, and the strategies that close the gap.

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Explain the demand for food, water and energy and evaluate strategies to increase supply sustainably.

Key learning points

  • • Surplus, deficit and insecurity
  • • Impacts of insecurity
  • • Increasing supply
  • • Sustainable schemes

This lesson at a glance

  • 30 minutes
  • 17 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

demandenergystrategiesincreasesupply

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 17 · Discover6%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 17

Watch first

Global water supply and sustainable strategies

An English teaching video on this topic from Hums Mums. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Explain the demand for food, water and energy and evaluate strategies to increase supply sustainably.

2

Learning cycle

Part 2 of 17

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 · Surplus, deficit and insecurity

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

3

Explore the idea

Part 3 of 17

Learn

Surplus, deficit and insecurity

Water security means reliable access to enough safe water. Physical scarcity reflects climate and reserves; economic scarcity reflects the money to abstract, treat and distribute it. Demand rises with population, industry and irrigated agriculture.

4

Explore the idea

Part 4 of 17

Learn

Impacts of insecurity

Waterborne disease and poor sanitation, reduced food production, industrial output limits and conflict over shared rivers and aquifers. Note that impacts fall hardest on those already poorest, which is a useful evaluative sentence.

5

Quick check

Part 5 of 17

Quick check

What is economic water scarcity?

6

Quick check

Part 6 of 17

Quick check

What is a major drawback of desalination?

7

Learning cycle

Part 7 of 17

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 · Increasing supply

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

8

Reset break

Part 8 of 17

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
9

Explore the idea

Part 9 of 17

Learn

Increasing supply

Diverting supplies and increasing storage, dams and reservoirs, water transfers and desalination. Desalination provides reliable water in arid, wealthy regions but is energy-intensive and produces concentrated brine.

10

Explore the idea

Part 10 of 17

Learn

Sustainable schemes

Water conservation, groundwater management, recycling, grey-water use and small-scale rainwater harvesting. Local, low-technology schemes maintained by users repeatedly outperform capital-intensive projects in poorer regions.

11

Quick check

Part 11 of 17

Quick check

Which is a sustainable, small-scale strategy?

12

Quick check

Part 12 of 17

Quick check

Who is most affected by water insecurity?

13

Explore the idea

Part 13 of 17

Worked example

Model answer: 'Evaluate one large-scale water supply scheme' (9 marks, extract)

A large dam and reservoir raises water security substantially, storing wet-season flow so that supply continues through a dry season, while generating hydroelectricity and enabling irrigation that raises yields for several million people. These are real, measurable gains for a region with a physical water deficit. The costs, however, are equally concrete: valley communities are displaced, sediment that once fertilised the floodplain is trapped behind the dam, downstream ecosystems and fisheries decline, and construction costs commit a government to long-term debt. Judged against a rainwater harvesting programme, the dam delivers far greater volume but concentrates both the benefit and the risk, so it is justified only where demand cannot be met by distributed small-scale supply.

14

Challenge round

Part 14 of 17

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

15

Challenge round

Part 15 of 17

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

____ rises with population, industry and irrigated agriculture.

Desalination provides reliable water in arid, wealthy regions but is ____-intensive and produces concentrated brine.

16

Mastery quiz

Part 16 of 17

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Global water supply and sustainable strategies

4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. What is economic water scarcity?

  2. 2. What is a major drawback of desalination?

  3. 3. Which is a sustainable, small-scale strategy?

  4. 4. Who is most affected by water insecurity?

17

Lesson round-up

Part 17 of 17

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Flooding on the River Calder

The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.

Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.

Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
  2. Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
  3. Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.

  • Case study notes

    Writing

    Write the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.

    Half a page

  • Explain answer

    Writing

    Answer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.

    8–10 sentences

  • Map or sketch

    Diagram

    Draw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.

    1 map with a key

  • Data work

    Working out

    Plot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.

    1 graph + 1 sentence

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 17 · Watch & discover

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